Donald Bain (writer)  Donald Sutherland Bain (March 6, 1935 – October 21, 2017) was an American author and ghostwriter, having written over 115 books in his 40-year career.  byline: Trudy Baker and Rachel Jones  byline: Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain  A spin-off book series based on the "Murder, She Wrote" American crime drama television series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher.    byline: J.D. Hardin     A ghostwriter is often required to be anonymous as a part of the contract to write the book. Some sources claim Bain is the author of most of the mystery novels attributed to Margaret Truman. While Bain initially denied this, he wrote a column in the March 14, 2014 issue of "Publishers Weekly" and finally acknowledged writing "27 novels in the Margaret Truman Capital Crimes series (mostly bylined by Truman, my close collaboratormy name is on only the most recent entries, released after her death)."