BETTER KNOWN AS MICHAEL COLLINS, one of his eight pseudonyms, Dennis Lynds (1924–2005) began his writing career producing literary fiction for such highly regarded publications as Prairie Schooner and New World Writing. Five of his stories have been selected for the prestigious Best American Short Stories series; some of these mainstream stories were later collected in Why Girls Ride Sidesaddle (1980). He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and worked as a chemist; when World War II broke out, he served in France and received a Bronze Star, a Purple Heart, and three battle stars.
Lynds began to write detective fiction in the early 1960s: first short stories, then eight novels about the Shadow, and finally the novel Act of Fear (1967), under the name Michael Collins, for which he received the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. It featured the one-armed Dan Fortune, his most successful character, though there also were numerous admirers of “Slot-Machine” Kelly, another one-armed private eye who liked to gamble on those slot machines known as “one-armed bandits.” He got the idea for these characters from a real-life detective who hired only disabled process servers, believing that those being served would refrain from physical retaliation against the server. Lynds also wrote about industrial espionage as William Arden, created a high-class private eye as Mark Sadler, and set a series in Buena Costa, California, as John Crowe. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America in 1988.
“No Way Out” was first published in the February 1964 issue of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine. It was first published in book form in Best Detective Stories of the Year (New York, Dutton, 1965).