Ovid Demaris

Ovid Demaris was a native of Biddeford, Maine and an author of books and detective stories. A former United Press correspondent and newspaper reporter, he wrote more than 30 books and hundreds of newspaper articles. He graduated from the College of Idaho in 1948 and Boston University in 1950. Previously, he had served in the United States Army Air Forces.
His most important works were of a historical or biographical nature about the Mafia and other gangland characters. He is most noted for The Last Mafioso, his biography of Jimmy Fratianno, and for The Green Felt Jungle, his exposé on Mafia operations in Las Vegas.

Books

1960: Lucky Luciano, Monarch Books
1961: The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Monarch
1961: The Dillinger Story
1964: The Green Felt Jungle, Pocket Books, Montreal 1964; written with Ed Reid
1965: The Toughest Customers
1967: Jack Ruby, Da Capo Press, written with Garry Wills
1969: Captive City: Chicago in Chains, Sphere Books Limited
1970: Poso del Mundo: Inside the Mexican–American border, from Tijuana to Matamoros
1970: America the Violent, Cowles Book Co.
1974: The Lucky Luciano story , Belmont Tower Books
1974: Dirty Business: The Corporate-Political Money-Power Game, Harper's Magazine Press
1975: The Director. An Oral Biography of J. Edgar Hoover
1977: Brothers in Blood, The International Terrorist Network
1978: Judith Exner: My Story, Grove Press, with Judith Exner
1980: The Last Mafioso, The Treacherous World of Jimmy Fratianno. Bantam Books
1986: The Boardwalk Jungle, Bantam Books
1994: J. Edgar Hoover: As They Knew Him, Avalon Publishing Group