Don Pendleton, known as "the father of the Action/Adventure novel" was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, December 12, 1927, and died October 23, 1995.

He authored action/adventure, mystery, crime, suspense, science-fiction, nonfiction, and was a screenwriter, comic scriptwriter, poet, and metaphysical scholar.

Shortly before his fifteenth birthday, Don enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. From December, 1942 to November, 1947, he served as a Radioman First Class.

Following his Naval service, Don was a telegrapher for the Southern Pacific Railroad. He returned to Naval duty for two years during the Korean Conflict.

In 1957, he left the Railroad and was an FAA air traffic control specialist for four years. In 1961, his career turned toward aerospace engineering and he served in management positions with the Titan I and II ICBM Project; NASA Apollo MoonShot Program; and the US Air Force C-5 Galaxy Program.

Don began writing in 1957 but it was not until the age of forty that he became a full-time writer. During his career he produced more than one hundred twenty-five published books, a number of short stories and was also a poet, screenwriter, essayist, and metaphysical scholar. His books have been published around the world in more than twenty-five languages with some two hundred million copies in print.

After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, Don launched, in 1969, the phenomenal Mack Bolan: The Executioner, which quickly emerged as the original, definitive Action/Adventure series. His first novel, War Against the Mafia, was followed by an additional thirty-seven sequels. In 1980, Don franchised his Executioner characters to Harlequin's Worldwide Library and they have produced more than four hundred novels based on Don's original works.

His works were often flavored with metaphysical themes and he considered the Executioner Series to be a study in the metaphysics of violence.

His Executioner character, Mack Bolan, embodies the essence of a true literary hero, thus, the apparent reason for the world-wide popularity with readers for more than thirty years.

Don's more recent works include six mystery novels based on the character, Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective, and another six mysteries relating the exploits of Joe Copp, Private Eye. All twelve books are now back in print.

In 1990, he and his wife, Linda Pendleton, published To Dance With Angels, a definitive study of life after death. The book is now in its fourth edition.

Several of his works, both fiction and nonfiction, are posthumously published by iUniverse, Inc. and available at Amazon.com.