Donald Bain, ghostwriter of dozens of books under other people’s names, dies at 82

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/donald-bain-ghostwriter-of-dozens-of-books-under-other-peoples-names-dies-at-82/2017/10/28/52e6ddae-bbfe-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html?utm_term=.3a668fa51c44

Donald Bain, a little-known but versatile writer who sold millions of books, most of them published under other people’s names, died Oct. 21 at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y. He was 82.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his literary agent, Bob Diforio.

Considered one of the pre-eminent ghost writers in the publishing world, Mr. Bain wrote more than 100 books, including most of the best-selling “Capital Crime” mystery novels of Margaret Truman.

Mr. Bain was also responsible for more than 40 titles in the “Murder, She Wrote” series, writing as Jessica Fletcher, the fictional mystery author and small-town sleuth portrayed in the long-running CBS crime drama by Angela Lansbury.

The “Murder, She Wrote” television series ran from 1984 to 1996, with Lansbury’s character solving murders in Cabot Cove, Maine, which, for all its New England charm, had an alarmingly high rate of violent crime.

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Mr. Bain’s first major success came in 1967, when he wrote the pseudonymous best seller “Coffee, Tea or Me?,” a risqué novel purporting to be a nonfiction account of the amorous adventures of two free-spirited flight attendants, or “stewardesses,” as they were then called.

The title derived from a salacious come-hither line delivered by one of the stewardesses, and it became a commonplace, if leering, catchphrase of the time. The novel sold millions of copies, prompting Mr. Bain to publish three more “Coffee, Tea or Me?” sequels, all written by “Trudy Baker” and “Rachel Jones.” The publisher hired two former flight attendants to portray the would-be authors on talk shows.

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