The Longest Second (21 page)

Ballinger's later novels include 49 DAYS OF DEATH (1969), a suspense story of reincarnation based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead. THE CORSICAN (1974), published in the wake of Mario Puzo's Godfather (1969) and the resulting films, told about the growth of a Union Corse 'family' in Corsica and Marseilles, covering the three-decade span between 1943 and 1973. Bryce Patch, the chief of security at a large electronic company, was the hero of HEIST ME HIGHER (1969).

In the 1950s, Ballinger made his breakthrough as a script writer. He wrote for The Mice (with Joseph Stefano), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61), I, Spy, Cannon, M. Squad, Ironside, and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, and The Outer Limits (1963-64)--more than 150 television scripts in total. I, Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp, was the first weekly network television drama to present an African American as a star. Part of the success of the series was that the stars adlibbed much of their dialogue. The first episode was set in Hong Kong, but a critic for The New York Times noted that "the setting was the real star." Ballinger's television plays included The Hero, Road Hog, Dry Run, The Day of the Bullet, Escape to Sonoita (with James A. Howard), and Deathmate. The action film Operation CIA (1965), starring the young Burt Reynolds as a CIA agent, was set in Saigon. It was one of the early movies dealing with the politics and spies of Vietnam war. In The Strangler (1963), directed by Burt Topper, a hospital laboratory technician Leo Kroll (Victor Buono) creates frenzy in Boston when he murders nurses who help his mother (Ellen Corby). When Leo tells her about the last murder, she suffers a fatal heart attack. Finally Leo's fetish for dolls betrays him to the police, and he kills himself by jumping through a window.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• The Body in the Bed (Harper, 1948, hc)
  
• The Body Beautiful (Harper, 1949, hc)
  
• Portrait in Smoke (Harper, 1950, hc)
  
• The Darkening Door (Harper, 1952, hc)
  
• Rafferty (Harper, 1953, hc)
  
• The Black, Black Hearse (St. Martin's, 1955, hc) as Frederic Freyer
  
• The Tooth and the Nail (Harper, 1955, hc)
  
• The Longest Second (Harper, 1957, hc)
  
• The Wife of the Red-Haired Man (Harper, 1957, hc)
  
• Beacon in the Night (Harper, 1958, hc)
  
• Formula for Murder (Signet, 1958, pb)
  
• The Doom-Maker (Dutton, 1959, hc) as B.X. Sanborn
  
• The Fourth of Forever (Harper, 1963, hc)
  
• The Chinese Mask (Signet, 1965, pb)
  
• Not I, Said the Vixen (Fawcett, 1965, pb)
  
• The Spy in Bangkok (Signet, 1965, pb)
  
• The Spy in the Jungle (Signet, 1965, pb)
  
• The Heir Hunters (Harper, 1966, hc)
  
• The Spy at Angkor Wat (Signet, 1966, pb)
  
• The Spy in the Java Sea (Signet, 1966, pb)
  
• The Source of Fear (Signet, 1968, pb)
  
• The 49 Days of Death (Sherbourne, 1969, hc)
  
• Heist Me Higher (Signet, 1969, pb)
  
• The Lopsided Man (Pyramid, 1969, pb)
  
• The Corsican (Dodd Mead, 1971, hc)
  
• The Law (Warner, 1975, pb) TV tie-in
  
• The Ultimate Warrior (Warner, 1975, pb) Movie novelization, based on screenplay by Robert Clouse