Peter J. McCurtin was born in Ireland on 15 October 1929, and immigrated to America when he was in his early twenties. McCurtin’s first book, Mafioso (1970) was nominated for the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award, and filmed in 1973 as The Boss, with Henry Silva. More books in the same vein quickly followed, including Cosa Nostra (1971), Omerta (1972), The Syndicate (1972) and Escape From Devil’s Island (1972). 1970 also saw the publication of his first “Carmody” western, Hangtown.
The author spent a prolonged spell writing various mercenary and Executioner-style anti-Mafia stories. McCurtin returned to the western in 1979 to take over the Sundance series originally created and written by the late, great Ben Haas, under the pseudonym “John Benteen”. In McCurtin’s hands, however, Sundance – a half-breed Cheyenne who undertakes various missions to raise funds to fight the corrupt Indian Ring – became a colder, more impersonal figure, more violent and less credible.