A. Frank Pinkerton

A. Frank Pinkerton was a late 19th-century writer of crime and detective stories. LibriVox identifies him as a son of Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and lists him as active around 1887.

Very little biographical detail seems to be firmly documented online, so most of what can be said with confidence comes from the books that remain in circulation. Project Gutenberg lists works including Dyke Darrel the Railroad Detective; Or, The Crime of the Midnight Express, Five Thousand Dollars Reward, and Jim Cummings; Or, The Great Adams Express Robbery.

His fiction belongs to the lively tradition of 19th-century sensation and detective tales, with stolen fortunes, train travel, disguises, and criminal pursuit at the center of the action. Even with the gaps in his life story, the surviving novels give a clear sense of a writer aiming to entertain readers with brisk, melodramatic mysteries.