James Mills (author)

James Mills (born 1932) is an American novelist, screenwriter and prize-winning journalist.

Mills wrote two New York Times bestsellers, Report to the Commissioner, a novel, and The Underground Empire, a study of international narcotics trafficking. As a result, he testified before a panel of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as an expert. His books The Panic in Needle Park and Report to the Commissioner were later made into major motion pictures by 20th Century Fox and United Artists respectively.

He worked for UPI, Life magazine, and for the then three largest US commercial television networks as a writer and consultant.

The 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, starring Al Pacino in his second film appearance, was based on Mills' book of the same name about the heroin culture at Verdi Square and Sherman Square on New York City's Upper West Side near 72nd Street and Broadway. The screenplay was written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne.

The Harvard Crimson review stated of Report to the Commissioner that: "James Mills has created just such an interloper: a story of deep suspense which moves on several planes of confrontation, ambition and human interaction. Slickly written, carefully strung together, Report to the Commissioner skirts the obvious and pivots on the unexpected; in the best tradition of detective stories The 1975 film version of Report to the Commissioner, featuring Richard Gere in his screen debut with a minor supporting role, was made after "the movie rights were snapped up by a motion picture industry starved for clever suspense stories."

...
Wikipedia