The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor

It's the birthday of novelist Brian Moore, (books by this author) born in Belfast, Northern Ireland (1921). Not many people have read him, but he's considered by literary critics to be one of the most influential novelists of the 20th century. Three of his books have been short-listed for the Booker Prize, but none of them have won. When he died a decade ago in Malibu, his obituary in the LA Weekly began, "THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED AND LEAST fashionable writer in Los Angeles died last week."

Moore's books include The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960), I Am Mary Dunne (1968), The Temptation of Eileen Hughes (1981), and The Magician's Wife (1997).

It's the birthday of journalist and novelist Frederick Forsyth (1938), (books by this author) born in Ashford, Kent, England. He wrote The Day of the Jackal (1971), his first book, in 35 days. It was based on the Algerian Crisis in the early 1960s when French President Charles de Gaulle proclaimed Algeria independent from France. Feeling betrayed, leaders of France's Secret Army Organization plotted to kill de Gaulle. The assassin's code name was "Jackal." He's also the author of The Odessa File (1972), The Devil's Alternative (1980), and The Fourth Protocol (1984).

It's the birthday of novelist Martin Amis, (books by this author) born in Oxford, England (1949). He's the author The Rachel Papers (1973), Money (1984), London Fields (1989), and The Information (1995).

It's the birthday of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1918). His father was a Russian immigrant. He bought and sold beauty supplies, and he discouraged his son from being a musician in favor of taking over the family business. When he was 10, his Aunt Clara was going through a divorce, and she sent her piano to the Bernstein home, and Leonard became a pianist. He got an assistantship with the New York Philharmonic. And on a Sunday afternoon, November 14, 1943, when the conductor Bruno Walter got sick, Leonard Bernstein filled in and got a great review on page one of The New York Times. He became a celebrity at the age of 25.

He wrote scores for many musicals, including "On the Town," "Wonderful Town," "Candide," and "West Side Story."

It's the birthday of the man who created the first detective agency in the United States: Allan Pinkerton, born in Glasgow, Scotland (1819).

He worked as a barrel maker in Scotland, and also participated in a movement trying to help poor disenfranchised laborers get the right to vote in Britain. He exchanged wedding vows with his sweetheart, a Scottish singer, about the same time he heard that British police officers were on their way to arrest him for his role in revolutionary politics. So he and his wife changed their honeymoon plans and fled to America instead.

He settled in Illinois, where he helped law enforcement crack a counterfeit money ring. He became the city of Chicago's first police detective, and a short time later, he started his own private detective business, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. He invented the sting operation and the use of false identities to do undercover work. He chased train robbers. He even chased celebrity outlaw Jesse James, but didn't catch him.

In 1861, Pinkerton stopped a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, who had been elected president but had not yet taken office. Then, during the Civil War, Lincoln employed Pinkerton guards for his own personal security.

Allan Pinkerton died in 1884, just shy of his 65th birthday. He'd slipped on the street, bit his tongue really hard during the fall, and his tongue became so infected that it killed him.

The Pinkerton Agency still exists today, but they're now a subsidiary of the Swedish-based Securitas AB. These days, they install alarm systems, transport cash to and from ATMs, and provide uniformed security guards for things like concerts and shopping malls.