Donald Bain: R.I.P.

Donald Bain: R.I.P.

From the New York Times: 

Donald Bain, the pseudonymous author of the “Murder, She Wrote” novels, Margaret Truman’s “Capital Crimes” mysteries and “Coffee, Tea or Me?,” the supposed memoir of two saucy airline stewardesses, died on Saturday in White Plains. He was 82.

Over five decades as a ghostwriter he published novels, biographies, westerns and historical romances, mostly under fictitious names or credited to more marketable bylines; vanity memoirs attributed to corporate executives; and even long articles disguised as excerpts from nonexistent books.

His more than 125 books included 46 “Murder, She Wrote” mysteries, inspired by the television series of the same name starring Angela Lansbury. Many were written in collaboration with his second wife, Renee Paley-Bain.

He began secretly collaborating with Margaret Truman, the daughter of former President Harry S. Truman, in the early 1980s; the first book they wrote together was “Murder on Capitol Hill” (1981). Ms. Truman — she was otherwise known as Margaret Truman Daniel — died in 2008, but the series continued with two dozen books under her name followed by six, in collaboration with Bob Gleason, under Mr. Bain’s.

“With the ‘Margaret Truman Capital Crimes’ series,” Mr. Bain explained, “I operate from the standpoint that there is absolutely nothing that I can make up that is far-fetched when it comes to Washington, D.C., and the political climate there.”

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