Author. A novelist, he is probably best known for his short story crime fiction mysteries. Born Stanley Bernard Ellin, as a youth he became an avid reader. After graduating from New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York he attended Brooklyn College there and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in 1936. He married the following year and worked various jobs, as a magazine salesman and distributor, boilermaker's apprentice, steel worker, shipyard worker, dairy farmer, and junior college teacher before serving in the US Army from 1944 to 1945 during World War II. After his military discharge, he started writing short stories full-time, submitting them to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and never had one rejected. His first and one of his most famous stories that appeared in the Mystery Magazine was "The Specialty of the House" (1948). In 1951 he co-authored with director Joseph Losey the screenplay for the film "The Big Night." He was the recipient of three Edgar Allen Poe Awards (Edgar Award) for his short stories "The House Party" (1954) and "The Blessington Method" (1956), and for his novel "The Eighth Circle" (1958). Several episodes of television's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and "Tales of the Unexpected" were based on his short stories, and his novels "Dreadful Summit" (1948), "House of Cards" (1967), "The Bind" (1970), and "Stronghold" (1974) were adapted into feature films. His other novels include "The Key to Nicholas Street" (1952), "The Winter after This Summer" (1960), "The Panama Portrait" (1962), "The Valentine Estate" (1968), "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" (1972, which won the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 1974 and was selected by H.R.F. Keating for his "Crime & Mystery: The 100 Best Books"), "The Luxembourg Run" (1977), "Star Light, Star Bright" (1979), "The Dark Fantastic" (1983), and "Very Old Money" (1985). His other short stories include "The Day of the Bullet" (1959), "The Crime of Ezechiele Coen" (1963), "The Last Bottle in the World" (1968), and "Graffiti" (1983). A long-time member and past president of the Mystery Writers of America, in 1981 he was awarded its highest honor, the Grand Master Award. He died of complications from a stroke at the age of 69.