Benjamin Appel (September 13, 1907 - April 3, 1977), was an American novelist specializing in detective and crime fiction, sometimes from a radical perspective.
Appel was born in New York City and grew up in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. It was this experience that he drew upon when writing his novels. Before he began earning a living from his writing, he was a bank clerk, farmer, lumberjack, factory-hand and a housing inspector for New York City. He lived most of his life in Roosevelt, New Jersey, and died there in 1977.