Lionel White

Who was Lionel White?

Lionel White was an American journalist and crime novelist, several of whose dark, noirish stories were made into films. His books include The Snatchers, The Money Trap, The Big Caper, Death Takes the Bus, Clean Break, and Obsession and by the Finnish director Seppo Huunonen for the 1974 film The Hair and Rafferty, adapted by 1980 Soviet Lenfilm production of the same title.

White had been a crime reporter and began writing suspense novels in the 1950s. He wrote more than 35 books, all translated into a number of different languages. His earlier novels were published as Gold Medal pulp hard-boiled crime fiction, but when Duttons began a line of mystery and suspense books, he also wrote for them. He was most well known as what a New York Times review described as "the master of the big caper."