Curtis Marsena "Curt" Gentry (June 13, 1931 – July 10, 2014) was an American

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

, born in

Lamar, Colorado Lamar is the home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Prowers County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,804 at the 2010 United States Census. The city was named after Confederate s ...

. He is best known for co-authoring, with

Vincent Bugliosi Vincent T. Bugliosi Jr. (; August 18, 1934 – June 6, 2015) was an American prosecutor and author who served as Deputy District Attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office between 1964 and 1972. He became best known for s ...

, the

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; f ...

book '' Helter Skelter'', which detailed the

Charles Manson Charles Milles Manson (; November 12, 1934November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four loca ...

murders. Gentry lived in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. Gentry died, aged 83, on July 10, 2014, in San Francisco.

Awards and nominations

''Frame-Up'' was a nominee for the 1968

Edgar Award The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...

from the

Mystery Writers of America Mystery Writers of America (MWA) is an organization of mystery and crime writers, based in New York City. The organization was founded in 1945 by Clayton Rawson, Anthony Boucher, Lawrence Treat, and Brett Halliday. It presents the Edgar Award ...

for Best Fact Crime book. ''Helter Skelter'' won a 1975

from the

for Best Fact Crime book. ''J. Edgar Hoover'' won the 1992 PEN Center West Literary Award for Non-Fiction.

Select works

* '' The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California'', Putnam, 1968 (novel) * ''

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

: The Man and the Secrets'', W. W. Norton, 1991, * ''The Madams of San Francisco: An Irreverent History of the City by the Golden Gate'',

Doubleday and Company Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed th ...

, 1964, paperback reprint 1971 * ''The Killer Mountains: A Search for the Legendary

Lost Dutchman Mine The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine (also known by similar names) is, according to legend, a rich gold mine hidden in the southwestern United States. The location is generally believed to be in the Superstition Mountains, near Apache Junction, east ...

'', World Publishing Company (1969) * ''Helter Skelter: The True Story Of The Manson Murders'' (with

) * ''Frame-up: The Incredible Case of

Tom Mooney Thomas Joseph Mooney (December 8, 1882 – March 6, 1942) was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916. It quickly became apparent that Mo ...

and

Warren Billings Warren Knox Billings (July 4, 1893 – September 4, 1972) was a labor leader and political activist, who was convicted with Thomas Mooney of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916. It is believed that the two were wrongly convicted ...

'', W. W. Norton, 1967 * ''The Dolphin Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area'' * ''Jade: Stone of Heaven'' (with Richard Gump) * ''

John M. Browning John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855 – November 26, 1926) was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms many of which are still in use around the world. He m ...

: American Gunmaker'' (with J. Browning) * ''The Vulnerable Americans'' * ''A Kind of Loving'', with Toni Lee Scott (autobiography), World Publishing Company (1970) * ''Operation Overflight: The U-2 Spy Pilot Tells His Story for the First Time'' (with

Francis Gary Powers Francis Gary Powers (August 17, 1929 – August 1, 1977) was an American pilot whose Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U-2 spy plane was shot down while flying a reconnaissance mission in Soviet Union airspace, causing the 1960 U-2 i ...

)

Holt, Rinehart and Winston Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the ...

(1971) * ''Second in Command: The Uncensored Account of the Capture of the Spy Ship

Pueblo In the Southwestern United States, Pueblo (capitalized) refers to the Native tribes of Puebloans having fixed-location communities with permanent buildings which also are called pueblos (lowercased). The Spanish explorers of northern New Spain ...

'' (with Edward R. Murphy)

References

1931 births 2014 deaths People from Lamar, Colorado American non-fiction crime writers American investigative journalists Edgar Award winners Writers from San Francisco Writers from Colorado Deaths from lung cancer in California Historians from California {{US-historian-stub