Joseph DiMona attended law school, but did not practice law. He put his time and creative energies into writing, and he made a great success of it.
The 1978 H.R. “Bob” Haldeman book about Watergate, ”The Ends of Power,” spent nine weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, including two weeks at No. 1. Mr. DiMona was also a credited co-writer of ”Frank Costello: Prime Minister of the Underworld” (1974) by Costello’s lawyer George Wolf, and of ”Coroner” (1983) and the sequel, ”Coroner at Large” (1986) by Thomas T. Noguchi, the flamboyant former Los Angeles medical examiner. He also wrote ”Great Court-Martial Cases” (1972).

DiMona also wrote four novels, ”70 Sutton Place” (1972), and the thrillers ”Last Man at Arlington” (1973), ”The Benedict Arnold Connection” (1977) and ”To the Eagle’s Nest” (1978). ”Last Man at Arlington,” about an ex-Green Beret stalking former members of the Kennedy Administration, was optioned for the movies but never made it to the screen. His first book was a collection of short stories, ”Husbands Who Love Their Wives Are the Best” (1955).