Born in
Brooklyn,
New York, in 1942, Dunning moved to his father's hometown of
Charleston, South Carolina, at the age of three. In 1964 he left his parents' home and moved to
Denver, Colorado, where, after a time working as a stable hand at a
horse racing track, he got a job at
The Denver Post. In 1970 he left the newspaper and took up writing, while pursuing a variety of jobs. Partly because of trouble with his publishers, in 1984 he stopped writing and opened a store specializing in second-hand and rare books called the Old Algonquin Bookstore. At the urging of fellow authors, he returned to the world of writing and in 1992 his first Cliff Janeway mystery novel,
Booked to Die was published. In 1994 he closed the store and with his wife continued it as an internet and mail order business called Old Algonquin Books.
Radio In addition to compiling encyclopedic reference books about the history of
radio programming, Dunning hosted a long-running weekly radio show,
Old-Time Radio.
Awards Dunning received his first award nomination in 1981, when
Looking for Ginger North received an
Edgar Award nomination for "Best Paperback Original". The following year,
Deadline was nominated for this same honour. The follow-up to this novel, ''The Bookman's Wake'', was nominated for the 1996 Edgar Award in the "Best Novel" running. == Personal life and death ==