Frank Morrison Spillane was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was raised in New Jersey and educated at Kansas State University in Manhattan. When he was just seventeen, he began to contribute stories to several magazines. He soon became a scripter and editor for Funnies, Inc., where he wrote comic-books. In the Second World War, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He rose to the rank of captain and became an instructor of cadets in Basic Training at Greenwood, Mississippi. Towards the end of the war, he flew numerous combat missions. In 1945, he married and built a house in Newburgh, New York. In 1947, his first 'Mike Hammer' (a private investigator) novel was published. The Hammer novels are continued by Max Allan Collins. In 1952, Spillane became a Jehovah's Witness and decided to devote himself to his new-found faith. In the early Sixties, he made a comeback as a writer. In 1962, he divorced. Two years later he married for the second time. In 1965 due to falling sales, he created a new hero 'Tiger Mann', a killer of a secret organisation out to protect American interests across the world.
In 1973, he abandoned writing and found himself a new career promoting beer in a series of television commercials. In 1980, he started writing again. In 1983, he received the Shamus Award for Lifetime Achievement. Spillane lived in South Carolina with his third wife.