Biography

He lost an eye to barbed wire as a boy, requiring him to wear an eye patch for the rest of his life.

Gave up writing the Mike Shayne detective novels in 1958. The last novel in the series written by Halliday is 'Murder and the Wanton Bride.' The rest of the novels, published well into the 1980s, were written by a series of ghost writers.

Was a founding member of the Mystery Writers of America.

Prolific American writer who published from 1939 to 1976 more than 60 mystery novels that featured the private detective Michael Shayne. A founding member of the Mystery Writers of America, he was given an Edgar Award for his criticism in 1953. He also used the pseudonyms Asa Baker, Mathew Blood, Kathryn Culver, Don Davis, Hal Debrett, Anthony Scott, Anderson Wayne. "Brett Halliday" is also a pseudonym of Bill Pronzini. With his wife, mystery/detective author Helen McCloy, he co-founded the Torquil Publishing Company, which from 1953 to 1964 published the adventures of Michael Shayne, and the Halliday & McCloy Literary Agency. He wrote as Hal Debrett when collaborating with his second wife, Kathleen Rollins, on "Before I Wake" (1949) and "A Lonely Way to Die" (1950), these collaborations leading to their marriage. His third wife was writer Mary Savage, who outlived him.