Brian Garfield (1939-2018) is the author of numerous suspense/adventure novels. His exepertise as a writer resulted in his being published in such diverse fields as romance, gothic, westerns, adventure, mystery, suspense, crime, history, film, and theatrical plays. Some 20 million copies of his books have been sold. He wrote under at least eight names besides his own, including Brian Wynne, Frank Wynne, Jonas Ward, Drew Mallory, Frank O'Brian, Alex Hawk, John Ives, and Bennett Garland.
His novel Death Wish was made into a 1974 film by starring Charles Bronson, and was remade in 2018 with Bruce Willis. His novel Hopscotch won the 1976 Edgar for best novel, and was adapted into a film with Walter Matthau. And two other novels, Wild Times and Relentless, were made into TV movies. The TV movie "Wild Times" was a mini-series starring Sam Elliott, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey, Jr. and many other Western movie actors, many of whom were personally selected by Garfield. He served as the director of the Mystery Writers of America, and the President of the Western Writers of America.