Peter Rabe Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Rabe settled down in Atascadero, California until his death from lung cancer on May 20, 1990.

Although Rabe left the writing life for his teaching career, he didn’t stop writing. This led to two unpublished novels probably written between 1987 and 1990, The Return of Marvin Palaver and The Silent Wall. Shortly before his death, Rabe had sent these to writer Ed Gorman in an effort to see them published and in 2010, both works will appear in a single volume from Stark House Press.

The last books Rabe published before he backed off from his writing career were novelizations of episodes of the television series “Mannix” using the pseudonym “J. T. MacCargo.” This was apparently a house name for Belmont, with an unknown author penning the first and third books of the series. Rabe wrote the second and fourth books, A Fine Day for Dying and Round Trip to Nowhere, both appearing in 1975. They were the last of his books to be published in his lifetime.

After his first book, Rabe wrote almost exclusively crime fiction, the exceptions being three soft core books for Beacon in the early sixties, and a novelization of the war movie Tobruk for Bantam in 1967.

In 1962 came one of his best books, The Box (one of only two Rabe books to use his own titles, the other being A House in Naples). Then there were the three soft core books for Beacon, the last two under the pseudonym of Marco Malaponte. After this came the three books about his second series character, Manny DeWitt, the novelization of Tobruk, and then the final books to appear under his own name. These were a pair of Mafia related books, again for Gold Medal (War of the Dons (Gold Medal M2592, 1972), and Black Mafia (Gold Medal M2939).

He went on to two other marriages, neither of which lasted, and left the writing life to become a teacher of psychology at California Polytechnic State University. His only other children were also with Claire, who published some fiction of her own in the 1960s, later collected in 1989’s Sicily Enough and More. Also in the 1980s Black Lizard began reprinting some of Rabe’s earlier classics. Beginning in 2003, Stark House Press has been reprinting Rabe works in two for one trade paperback editions.

Stop This Man! appeared in August, 1955 (Gold Medal 506), followed closely by Benny Muscles In (Gold Medal 520, September, 1955), and A Shroud for Jesso (Gold Medal 528, October, 1955). Clearly capable of writing books quickly, Rabe published eighteen books by 1961.

Peter did blue-collar work in a factory but was soon asked to work on the company’s advertising layouts. This work served him well as Peter used these skills to write and illustrate his first book, From Here to Maternity (Vanguard Press, 1955; originally appeared in McCall’s Magazine, September 1954, as “Who’s Having This Baby?”), a humorous look at the birth of his and Claire’s first son, Jonathan, born April 5, 1953.

When the Nazis came to power and summoned Michael Rabinovitch to a Gestapo office and confronted him with transcripts of political conversations between him and his patients, he decided it best to emigrate to the United States before Peter turned 15 and face possible internment. Michael also had his doctor’s license revoked by the Nazis. Michael and Peter left a few months before Kristallnacht in October, 1938, sponsored by Michael’s brother Robert Rubin, and they lived with the Rubin family in Detroit, Michigan. At Rubin’s suggestion, Michael changed the family name to “Rabe,” by combining his name (the “Ra” from Rabinovitch) and his wife’s maiden name (the “Be” from Beer). He took over the practice of a retiring obstetrician in New Bremen, Ohio, a German American town. Margarete, a Lutheran, brought her other two sons, Valentin and Andreas, on the last ship of refugees before World War II broke out.

Peter Rabe (born Peter Rabinowitsch, November 3, 1921 – May 20, 1990) was a German American writer who also wrote under the names Marco Malaponte and J. T. MacCargo (though not all of the latter’s books were by him). Rabe was the author of over 30 books, mostly of crime fiction, published between 1955 and 1975.

Born Peter Rabinowitsch on November 3, 1921, to Michael Rabinovitch (a Russian Jew; the spelling is the Russian version) and Elisabeth Margarete Beer, in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Shortly after his birth the family moved to Hanover, Germany, where Peter’s father worked as a doctor and surgeon.