Ken Greenhall

Ken Greenhall was born in Detroit in 1928, the son of immigrants from England. He graduated from high school at age 15, worked at a record store for a time, and was drafted into the military, serving in Germany. He earned his degree from Wayne State University and moved to New York, where he worked as an editor of reference books, first on the staff of the Encyclopedia Americana and later for the New Columbia Encyclopedia. Greenhall had a longtime interest in the supernatural and took leave from his job to write his first novel, Elizabeth (1976), a tale of witchcraft published under his mother's maiden name, Jessica Hamilton. Several more novels followed, including Hell Hound (1977), which was published abroad as Baxter and adapted for a critically acclaimed 1989 French film under that title. Greenhall died in 2014.