David Nevin | Historical novelist, 83

David Nevin, 83, an author of historical novels, including the best seller

Dream West

, the sweeping tale of John Charles Fremont's role in the opening of the American West, died March 18 in Greenwich, Conn.

The cause was complications of Parkinson's disease, his wife, Luciana, said. Mr. Nevin lived in Greenwich and died at a nursing home there.

Dream West (1984) tells of how Fremont, an ambitious Army officer, undertook surveying expeditions in the West in the 1840s, among them the vital mapping of the Oregon Trail.

Mr. Nevin joined the Navy as a teenager and served in the Pacific. After the war he did poorly in college but could write well enough to be hired as a police reporter for the Brownsville Herald in Texas. That led to work for Time and Life magazines. He would later write 12 history books for Time-Life Books. - N.Y. Times News Service