Thomas Chastain

Thomas Chastain (1921 - September 1994) (also known as Nick Carter) was an American author of crime fiction. He is best known for his bestseller Who Killed the Robins Family? And Where and When and Why and How Did They Die? as well as the sequel to that work.^{[citation needed]} He was born in 1921 and died in September of 1994. He served as the president of Mystery Writers of America in 1989.

Career

Chastain has worked as an author of crime fiction and mystery since his first work, Judgment Day, was published in 1962.

His most well known work, Who Killed the Robins Family? And Where and When and Why and How Did They Die?,^{[citation needed]} was a mystery novel in which the solution to the mystery was not revealed. Readers were to guess who had committed the crimes and submit their guesses to the publisher. The first reader to guess correctly received a cash prize.^{[citation needed]}

Before the success of those novels, Chastain wrote a series of crime novels featuring Max Kauffman the Deputy Chief Inspector for New York City.

Chastain authored several other novels (see selected bibliography below). Over the course of his career he also worked as a newspaper reporter and editor. He co-wrote (with Sam Simon) the teleplay of the The Simpsons episode "Black Widower".^[1]

Selected bibliography

• Judgment Day (1962)
• Death Walk (1971)
• Assassination Brigade (under the pseudonym Nick Carter) (1974)
• Pandora's Box (1974)
• 911 (1976)
• Vital Statistics (1977)
• High Voltage (1979)
• The Diamond Exchange (1981)
• Nightscape (1982)
• Who Killed the Robins Family? And Where and When and Why and How Did They Die? (1983)
• Perry Mason in the Case of Too Many Murders (1989)
• Perry Mason in the Case of the Burning Bequest (1990)
• The Prosecutor(1992)

References

This article has an unclear citation style. The references used may be made clearer with a different or consistent style of citation and footnoting. (September 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

• Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2009. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
• "Thomas Chastain." St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers, 4th ed. St. James Press, 1996.

Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC

External links

• Obituary for Thomas Chastain at the New York Times
• Thomas Chastain bibliography at Classic Crime Fiction
• The official Thomas Chastain website