The FBI and I

About the Book

In this compelling autobiography, Curtis O. Lynum narrates his twenty-six and one-half-year career in the FBI where he held almost every position then available to an agent. This story, of universal human interest, depicts the dedicated life of an FBI family and chronicles their varied experiences as they moved throughout the United States. Mr. Lynum and his family are truly a flexible group. The many thrilling cases in which Mr. Lynum was involved during the 1941-1967 period makes this autobiography read more like fiction than fact. But truth is often stranger than fiction, and truth it is. From stories of wartime espionage surveillance to the Las Vegas gangster years of the late forties, an era which culminated in the killing of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel by his own people, to the Frank Sinatra, Jr. kidnapping, to Mr. Lynum's "shoot out" with Top Ten Fugitive "The King" Zavada, Mr. Lynum dramatizes the serious and sometimes dangerous nature of FBI work. Each scene grabs the reader and keeps him or her wondering ..."What next?".

About the Author

Curtis O. Lynum was born of Norwegian parentage on July 17, 1917, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He attended schools in Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1940. He worked at a variety of jobs while attending high school and college. At the time he entered the FBI as a special agent on March 3, 1941, he was on the athletic staff of the University of Minnesota. He had been a nationally ranked gymnast and had been the assistant coach in 1940 when Minnesota won the Big Ten title in gymnastics. He was seeking a masters degree in Education at the time he applied for FBI work.
His wife, Mae, also of Norwegian ancestry, is a native of Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota as well. She married Curt at the conclusion of his FBI training in 1941. They had two children, Larry and Bonnie. Bonnie died tragically in an industrial fire in 1978.
After retiring from the FBI in 1967 after twenty-six and one half years of service, Mr. Lynum was appointed by the former Governor Ronald Reagan to the California Adult Authority Parole Board as vice chairman. He served on the Parole Board for eight and one-half years.
The author and his wife now reside in San Mateo, California.