Born in Sweden, the son of a Swedish count (who renounced his title when he emigrated to the U.S.) Donald Hamilton graduated from the University of Chicago and served in the Navy during the second World War. He has published 27 novels in the Matt Helm Series, from 1960-1992, as well as several other novels and magazine articles. Hamilton lived aboard his motor-yacht, the "Kathleen", in the waters of Connecticut, for a number of years before finally returning to his native Sweden. Once there he bought and lived about a surplus patrol boat, which he christened the 'Maagen' or 'Seagull' (in Danish,) until sustaining a fall that required his being placed in a nursing home, where he died in his sleep on November 20, 2006. One of the last truly "American" suspense series writers, his Matt Helm series, translated to the screen for Columbia Pictures, starring Dean Martin, ranks up there with John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, as the quintessential American anti-hero. Hamilton was working on the manuscript of the 28th Matt Helm novel at the time of his death, tentatively titled "The Dominators." Visitors to the UCLA library can find an early draft of this work there among his papers.