Ken Greenhall was an editor of reference books, first on the staff of the Encyclopedia Americana and later for the New Columbia Encyclopedia. He wrote his first novel, Elizabeth (1976), a tale of witchcraft, under his mother's maiden name Jessica Hamilton. Several more novels followed, including Hell Hound (1977), which was published abroad as Baxter and adapted for a critically acclaimed 1989 French film under that title. Greenhall died in 2014.