Stephen Marlowe

From the Rap Sheet:

It was just a year ago that novelist Stephen Marlowe (né Milton S. Lesser) lamented the death of his onetime writing colleague, Richard S. Prather. Now, Marlowe himself has passed away at age 79. He died yesterday, February 22, in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia. Marlowe started out penning pulp detective and science-fiction yarns; however, he is best remembered for his series of novels featuring Washington, D.C.-based but world-traveling private eye Chester Drum, beginning with The Second Longest Night (1955). Drum’s last novel-length adventure was in Drumbeat: Marianne (1968), but he made a welcome reappearance in a 2003 short-story collection, Drumbeat: The Chester Drum Casebook (Five Star). In addition to the Marlowe pseudonym, Lesser also wrote as C.H. Thames, Jason Ridgway, Andrew Frazier, Adam Chase, and once even as Ellery Queen, producing Dead Man’s Tale (1961). He received The Eye (Lifetime Achievement Award) from the Private Eye Writers of America back in 1997.