Marvin H. Albert

Marvin H. Albert was an American author from Philadelphia that made his name writing several series of novels in the adventure, crime, and mystery genres. He is best known for the “Stone Angel” series of novels featuring Pete Sawyer an American-French private investigator working and living in France. Writing in many different genres, Marvin Albert used several pseudonyms including Al Conroy, Anthony Rome, Nick Quarry, Ian McAllister, Albert Conroy, and Mike Barone. Before he got into a full time writing career, Marvin H. Albert was in the US Merchant Marine, where he served as a radio officer during World War II. After the war, he settled in Philadelphia, where he was the director of children’s theater performing group. In 1950, he moved to New York taking up a job as an editor and writer for Look and Quick magazines. He wrote his debut novel “The Law and Jake Wade” that went on to become a fan favorite almost immediately after publication in 1956. In addition to his highly popular mysteries, westerns and novelizations of popular films and television series from Hollywood, he also tried his hand at biography writing and was surprisingly good at it. He is credited with writing the biography of Henry VIII titled “The Divorce” and “Broadsides and Boarders” which is a history of great sea captains, and the biography of Ernest Shackleton, the famous Arctic explorer that was titled The Long White Road”. Some of his novels that have been made into films include “The Law and Jake Wade”, “Duel at Diablo”, “The Man in Black”, “Lady In Cement”, “The Don is Dead”, and “Adieu Marin” among others.