Delano Ames

Who was Delano Ames?

Delano Ames was an American writer of detective stories. Ames was the author of some 20 books, many of them featuring a husband and wife detective team of amateurs named 'Dagobert and Jane Brown'. A later series of novels involved a character named Juan Lorca, of the Spanish Civil Guard, who solved local mysteries.

Born in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. Delano's father Benjamin worked for the local newspaper, but moved the family in 1917 to New Mexico.

Ames married Australian born writer, Maysie Greig in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1929. Greig was a prolific author of light-hearted romance novels. They divorced in 1937.

Ames lived in England for the next few years, where he married his second wife, Kit, and was assigned as a British intelligence officer during World War II. He also worked on anthologies on mythology and as a translator for Larousse in France. His last book was an introduction for a book of photography of Spain in 1971.

He died in Madrid, Spain, in January 1987.

His novels include:

They Journey by Night. Hodder & Stoughton

No Traveller Returns. Nicholson

A Double Bed on Olympus

The Cornish Coast Conspiracy. Amalgamated Press