Peter Maas was an American journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

. He was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and attended Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

. Maas had Dutch

Irish people

The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...

 and Irish

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 heritage.

He was the biographer of Frank Serpico

Frank Serpico

Francesco Vincent Serpico is a retired American New York City Police Department officer who is most famous for testifying against police corruption in 1971...

, a New York City Police officer who testified against police corruption. He is also the author of the number one New York Times bestseller, Underboss, about the life and times of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano

Sammy Gravano

Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano is a former underboss of the Gambino crime family. He is known as the man who helped bring down John Gotti, the family's boss, by agreeing to become a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant and turn state's evidence.Originally a mobster for the Colombo crime...

.

His other notable bestsellers include The Valachi Papers

The Valachi Papers (book)

The Valachi Papers is a biography written by Peter Maas, telling the true story of former mafia member Joe Valachi, a low-ranking member of the New York based Genovese crime family, was the first ever government witness coming from the American Mafia itself. His account of his criminal past...

, Manhunt, and In a Child's Name, recipient of the 1991 Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

 for Best Fact Crime book. The Valachi Papers, which told the story of Mafia

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

 turncoat Joseph Valachi, is widely considered to be a seminal work, as it spawned an entire genre of books written by or about former Mafiosi.

Peter Maas was married to Audrey Gellen Maas, with whom he adopted a son, John-Michael Maas. He died in New York City. He made a brief cameo as himself in an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street

Homicide: Life on the Street is an American police procedural television series chronicling the work of a fictional version of the Baltimore Homicide Unit. It ran for seven seasons on NBC from 1993 to 1999, and was succeeded by a TV movie, which also acted as the de-facto series finale...

.

Works

• 1967—The Rescuer: The Extraordinary Life of the Navy's "Swede" Momsen and His Role in an Epic Submarine Disaster. ASIN B000IDBZ58 (Note: The Terrible Hours pulls material from this book.)
• 1969—The Valachi Papers
  The Valachi Papers (book)
  The Valachi Papers is a biography written by Peter Maas, telling the true story of former mafia member Joe Valachi, a low-ranking member of the New York based Genovese crime family, was the first ever government witness coming from the American Mafia itself. His account of his criminal past...
  
  ISBN 0-399-10832-7
• 1973—Serpico ISBN 0-670-63498-0
• 1974—King of the Gypsies ISBN 0-670-41317-8
• 1979—Made in America: A Novel ISBN 0-670-44555-X
• 1983—Marie: A True Story ISBN 0-671-60773-1
• 1986—Manhunt: The Incredible Pursuit of a CIA Agent Turned Terrorist ISBN 0-394-55293-8
• 1989—Father and Son: A Novel ISBN 0-671-63172-1
• 1990—In a Child's Name: The Legacy of a Mother's Murder ISBN 0-671-69416-2
• 1994—China White: A Novel ISBN 0-671-69417-0
• 1996—Killer Spy: Inside Story of the FBI's Pursuit and Capture of Aldrich Ames, America's Deadliest Spy ISBN 0-446-60279-5 (Note: This is the mass market paperback edition.)
• 1997—Underboss: Sammy the Bull Gravano's Story of Life in the Mafia ISBN 0-06-018256-3
• 1999—The Terrible Hours: The Man Behind the Greatest Submarine Rescue in History ISBN 0-06-019480-4

External links

• IMDb Peter Maas profile page