3 Steps to Hell: So I'm a Heel / Flint / The Big Out

Three thrillers from the 1950 s by a writer who used many pseudonyms, including Mike Heller and Gil Dodge, and worked in a variety of genres. Arnold Hano is best known as the author of the baseball classic, A Day in the Bleachers, and as the editor of Lion Books, one of the most original paperback publishers of the 1950's.

Arnold Hano was born in New York in 1922. His first job was as a copy boy at the New York Daily News in 1941. The next year he enlisted in the Army and served in the Pacific until 1946. After the war, Hano became managing editor at Bantam, then editor-in-chief of Lion Books, where he worked to develop authors like Jim Thompson and David Goodis. He has taught writing at the University of Southern California, Pitzer College, and the University of California, Irvine. He has also enjoyed a career as a freelance novelist and sportswriter, authoring many books on baseball, including the classic, A Day in the Bleachers. In 1955, he moved with his wife Bonnie and their family to Laguna Beach, California, where they live today. And at age 90, he still writes a monthly column for an environmental organization.