Frederick Nolan, who has died aged 91, was a novelist, historian and publisher, and a leading expert on the wild west gunslinger Billy the Kid. He wrote more than 70 books - thrillers, historical fiction, romance, westerns, mysteries and biographies – in his own name and under the noms de plume Frederick H Christian, Daniel Rockfern, Christine McGuire and Benjamin Rabier.
In the days when a swastika on a cover was a surefire way of hitting the bestseller lists, Fred had two big successes with the wartime thrillers The Oshawa Project (1974, published in the US as The Algonquin Project) and The Mittenwald Syndicate (1976). The former, about a plot to assassinate the US general George Patton, was made into the film Brass Target (1978), which starred John Cassavetes and Sophia Loren, with George Kennedy as Patton.
