Born abroad the son of a Swedish count who renounced his title when he emigrated to the U.S., Donald Hamilton graduated from the University of Chicago and served in the Navy during the second World War. He has published 26 novels in the Matt Helm Series from 1960-1992, as well as several other novels and magazine articles. At last word, he was living aboard his motor-yacht, "Kathleen", somewhere in Connecticut. One of the last truly "American" suspense series writers, his Matt Helm series, although badly translated to the screen for Columbia Pictures, starring Dean Martin, ranks up there with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee as the quintessential American anti-hero.