Edward S.

Aarons
Edward Sidney Aarons (1916 – June 16, 1975) was an American
writer, author of more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1975. One of
these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (Dead Heat), and 30
were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote numerous
stories for detective magazines such as Detective Story Magazine and
Scarab.

Among other works of fiction, Aarons is known for his spy thrillers,
particularly his "Assignment" series, which are set all over the world
and have been translated into 17 languages. The 42 novels in this
series starred CIA agent Sam Durell. The first "Assignment" novel was
written in 1955, and Aarons continued writing the series until up to his
death.

Aarons was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned a degree in

Literature and History from Columbia University. He worked at various
jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper
reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a
student. In World War II he was in the United States Coast Guard,
joining after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He finished his duty in
1945, having obtained the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

Assignment / Sam Durell series

Fictional CIA agent Sam Durell is the protagonist for all of the stories in
this series and so while the publisher listed this as the “Assignment
series” it is well known as the “Sam Durell series.” In later editions the
publisher also used “Sam Durell” in the blurb immediately after the
front cover - For example Assignment Ceylon has “This is number
thirty-six of the famed Sam Durell novels—one of the bestselling
suspense series in the history of publishing.” One consistent element is
that all of the story titles started with the word “Assignment.”

The stories were written over a span of 28 years from 1955 to 1983
with each more or less being set in present time at the time it was
written.

When initially issued the stories were not numbered and the publisher
showed the list of available stories in the “Assignment” series in
alphabetical order though often the alphabetical list did not include all
of the previous stories. Later re-prints numbered the stories based the
order in which they were first published though the list of stories just
before the title page was still in alphabetical order. The list is shown in
numbered/published order here. Each story is a standalone work and
while they can be read in any order reading them in the order given
here will provide some continuity as there are occasional references to
people or incidents from previous assignments.

The publications were inconsistent in their formatting of the title with

many editions using five dots as in Assignment . . . . . Angelina on the
title page though some used a dash, others used a colon, and a few
break the title on two lines with no punctuation. The formatting on the
front covers was also mixed with most editions breaking the title onto
two lines though a few had two lines with the Assignment followed by a
dash or colon. The spines tended to use a dash though a few use a
colon and Assignment Ceylon had no punctuation. For consistency, all
of the titles are listed here with a dash.

1. Assignment to Disaster (1955)

2. Assignment—Treason (1956)
3. Assignment—Suicide (1956)
4. Assignment—Stella Marni (1957)
5. Assignment—Budapest (1957)
6. Assignment—Angelina (1958)
7. Assignment—Madeleine (1958)
8. Assignment—Carlotta Cortez (1959)
9. Assignment—Helene (1959)
10. Assignment—Lili Lamaris (1959)
11. Assignment—Zoraya (1960)
12. Assignment—Mara Tirana (1960)
13. Assignment—Lowlands (1961)
14. Assignment—Burma Girl (1961)
15. Assignment—Ankara (1961)
16. Assignment—Karachi (1962)
17. Assignment—Sorrento Siren (1962)
18. Assignment—Manchurian Doll (1963)
19. Assignment—The Girl in the Gondola (1964)
20. Assignment—Sulu Sea (1964)
21. Assignment—The Cairo Dancers (1965)
22. Assignment—School for Spies (1966)
23. Assignment—Cong Hai Kill (1966)
24. Assignment—Palermo (1966)
25. Assignment—Black Viking (1967)
26. Assignment—Moon Girl (1967)
27. Assignment—Nuclear Nude (1968)
28. Assignment—Peking (1969)
29. Assignment—White Rajah (1970)
30. Assignment—Star Stealers (1970)
 31. Assignment—Tokyo (1971)
32. Assignment—Golden Girl (1971)
33. Assignment—Bangkok (1972)
34. Assignment—Maltese Maiden (1972)
35. Assignment—Silver Scorpion (1973)
36. Assignment—Ceylon (1973)
37. Assignment—Amazon Queen (1974)
38. Assignment—Sumatra (1974)
39. Assignment—Quayle Question (1975)
40. Assignment—Black Gold (1975)
41. Assignment—Unicorn (1976)
42. Assignment—Afghan Dragon (1976)

After Edward S. Aarons' death in 1975 his brother, William B.

Aarons (1914-2002), continued to publish the series as executor
of the Edward S. Aarons' estate. Volumes 43 to 48 state Will B.
Aarons as the author but were ghost written by Lawrence
Hall.[1][2]

43. Assignment—Sheba (1976)

44. Assignment—Tiger Devil (1977)
45. Assignment—13th Princess (1977)
46. Assignment—Mermaid (1979)
47. Assignment—Tyrant's Bride (1980)
48. Assignment—Death Ship (1983)

Gérard de Villiers
Gérard de Villiers (born 8 December 1929, Paris) is a French writer,
journalist and editor.

Life
De Villiers is the son of Jacques Adam de Villiers and a graduate of the
ESJ Paris (Superior School of Journalism in Paris).

He is the author of the spy novel series SAS, from 1965 which tells the
adventures of the Austrian prince and CIA agent Malko Linge. SAS is a
play on initials: Son Altesse Sérénissime (SAS) is the French version of
"His Royal Highness" (HRH); and the British Special Air Service (SAS);
the principal special forces unit of the British Army. As of 2007 171
novels of the franchise have been penned, with usually the locale of
the story featuring in the title (like Les amazones de Pyongyang' or
Putsch à Ouagadougou). Miles O'Keefe played Malko in the 1983 film
S.A.S. à San Salvador with Richard Young in the role in Eye of the
Widow (1989) directed by Andrew V. McLaglen.

De Villiers is well-known for writing novels in tune with contemporary

events, such as conflicts or terrorist threats of the moment, and for
visiting theatres of operation.

The author is an outspoken right-winger. He was criticized for

expressing far right sympathies when he declared in 1981, in Minute,
that he saw "excellent things in the Front National". As a result his
works are banned from sale in book shops but sell at railway stations
and airports[1] published by De Villiers' own company.

In a The Guardian article, Bernard-Henri Lévy admitted reading SAS

books was a guilty pleasure.[2]

Henry Wilson Allen

Henry Wilson Allen (September 12, 1912 – October 26, 1991), was
an American author and screenwriter. He used several different
psuedonyms for his works. His 50+ novels of the American West were
published under the pen names Will Henry and Clay Fisher. Allen's
screenplays and scripts for animated shorts were credited to Heck
Allen and Henry Allen.

Biography
Henry Wilson Allen was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Before he began
his writing career he worked variously as a stablehand, shop clerk, and
gold miner.[1] In 1937 he began working as a contract screenwriter for
MGM animation division. While his early work was for Harman and
Ising's "Barney Bear" series, his longest collaboration was with director
Tex Avery. Allen was credited as story artist on many classic Avery
shorts, included Swing Shift Cinderella, King-Size Canary, and The First
Bad Man, among many others. Allen downplayed his contributions to
the shorts, claiming that Avery merely used him as a sounding board
for his own ideas.[2]

Allen's career as a novelist began in 1952, with the publication of his

first Western No Survivors. Allen, afraid that the studio would
disapprove of his moonlighting, used a pen-name to avoid trouble.[3] He
would go on to publish over 50 novels, eight of which were adapted for
the screen. Most of these were published under one or the other of the
pseudonyms Will Henry and Clay Fisher. Allen was a five-time winner of
the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and a recipient of
the Levi Strauss Award for lifetime achievement.

Allen died of pneumonia on October 16, 1991 in Van Nuys, California.

He was 79.

Partial bibliography
• No Survivors, 1952
• Death of a Legend, 1954
• The Big Pasture, 1955
• To Follow a Flag, 1955
• Who Rides with Wyatt, 1955 (filmed as Young Billy Young, 1969)
• Red Brother and White, 1955
• The Fourth Horseman, 1956
• The North Star, 1956 (filmed as Tashunga (also released as The
North Star), 1996)
• The Texas Rangers, 1957
• Journey to Shiloh, 1960
• The Seven Men at Mimbres Springs, 1960
• The Feleen Brand, 1962
• From Where the Sun Now Stands, 1962
• MacKenna's Gold, 1963 (filmed as Mackenna's Gold, 1969)
• In the Land of the Mandans, 1965
• The Gates of the Mountains, 1966 (Spur Award winner)
• The Last Warpath, 1967
• Custer's Last Stand: The Story of the Battle of the Little Big Horn,
1968
• One More River to Cross, 1968
• Sons of the Western frontier, 1968
• Genesis Five, 1968
• Alias Butch Cassidy, 1969
• Outlaws and Legends, 1969
• Maheo's Children: The Legend of Little Dried River, 1970
• Starbuck, 1972
• Chiricahua, 1973 (Spur Award winner)
• The Bear Paw Horse, 1974
• The Raiders, 1974
• Sex and Pain, 1975
• I, Tom Horn, 1976
• From Where the Twilight Zone, 1976
• Summer of the Gun, 1978
• The Squaw Killer, 1983
• The Ballad of Billy Bonney, 1984
• The Day Fort Larking Fell, 1988
 • Reckoning at Yankee Flat, 1989
• Pillars of the Sky, 1991
• Frontier Fury, 1992
• San Juan Hill, 1996
• The Crossing, 1996
• Jesse James: Death of a Legend, 1996
• The Hunting of Tom Horn, 1999
• Custer, 1999
• The Legend of Sotoju Mountain, 2004
• Winter Shadows, 2003
• The Hunkpapa Scout, 2004
• The Scout, 2005
• Medicine Road, 2006
• Black Apache, 2006
• Blind Canon, 2007

Desmond Bagley
Desmond Bagley (29 October 1923, Kendal – 12 April 1983,
Southampton), was a British journalist and novelist principally known
for a series of best-selling thrillers. Along with fellow British writers
such as Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean, Bagley established the
basic conventions of the genre: a tough, resourceful, but essentially
ordinary hero pitted against villains determined to sow destruction and
chaos in order to advance their agenda.

Biography
Bagley was born at Kendal, Cumbria (then Westmorland), England, the
son of John and Hannah Bagley. His family moved to the resort town of
Blackpool in the summer of 1935, when Bagley was twelve. Leaving
school not long after the relocation, Bagley worked as a printer's
assistant and factory worker, and during World War II he worked in the
aircraft industry. Bagley suffered from a speech impediment
(stuttering) all of his life, which initially exempted him from military
conscription.

He left England in 1947 for Africa and worked his way overland,
crossing the Sahara Desert and briefly settling in Kampala, Uganda,
where he contracted malaria. By 1951, he had settled in South Africa,
working in the gold mining industry and asbestos industry in Durban,
Natal, before becoming a freelance writer for local newspapers and
magazines.
His first published short story appeared in the English magazine Argosy
in 1957, and his first novel, The Golden Keel in 1962. In the interval, he
was a film critic for Rand Daily Mail in Johannesburg from 1958–1962.
Also during this period, he met local bookstore owner Joan Margaret
Brown and they were married in 1960.

The success of The Golden Keel led Bagley to turn full time to novel
writing by the mid-1960s. He published a total of sixteen thrillers, all
craftsman like and nearly all best-sellers. Typical of British thriller
writers of the era, he rarely used recurring characters whose
adventures unfolded over multiple books. Max Stafford, the security
consultant featured in Flyaway and Windfall, is a notable exception.
Also typically, his work has received little attention from filmmakers,
yielding only a few, unremarkable adaptations. Exceptions were The
Freedom Trap (1971), released in 1973 as The Mackintosh Man by
Warner Brothers, starring Paul Newman and Dominique Sanda; and
Running Blind which was adapted for television by the BBC in 1979.

In several novels Bagley used the first-person narrative. One reviewer

wrote: "as long as meticulous craftsmanship and honest entertainment
are valued, and as long as action, authenticity, and expertise still make
up the strong framework of the good adventure/thriller, Desmond
Bagley's books will surely be read."[1]

Bagley and his wife left South Africa for Italy in 1960, and then England
in 1965. They settled in Totnes, Devon from 1965–1976, then lived in
Guernsey in the Channel Islands from 1976-1983.

Bagley also published short stories. When not traveling to research the
exotic backgrounds for his novels, Bagley spent his time sailing and
motor-boating. He loved classical music and films, military history, and
played war games.

Desmond Bagley died of complications resulting from a stroke at a

hospital in Southampton. He was fifty-nine. His last two novels Night of
Error and Juggernaut were published posthumously after completion by
his wife. His works have been translated into over 20 languages.

Bibliography
Dates are for first UK hardcover publication; all of Bagley's novels
subsequently appeared in paperback.

• The Golden Keel (1962)

• High Citadel (1965)
 • Wyatt's Hurricane (1966)
• Landslide (1967) (made into the 1992 film of the same name)
• The Vivero Letter (1968) (made into the 1998 film of the same
name.)
• The Spoilers (1969)
• Running Blind (1970)
• The Freedom Trap (1971) (made into the 1973 film The
Mackintosh Man)
• The Tightrope Men (1973)
• The Snow Tiger (1975)
• The Enemy (1977) (made into the 2001 film The Enemy)
• Flyaway (1978)
• Bahama Crisis (1980)
• Windfall (1982)
• Night Of Error (1984)
• Juggernaut (1985)

Geoffrey Jenkins
Geoffrey Jenkins (June 16, 1920 Pretoria, South Africa - November 7,
2001) was a South African novelist.

Early life
When Jenkins was 17 he wrote and had published A Century of History
which received a special eulogy from General Jan Smuts at the
centenary of Potchefstroom.

He subsequently won the Lord Kemsley Commonwealth Journalistic

Scholarship, which took him to Fleet Street, where he spend World War
II as a war correspondent. While working for the Sunday Times he
became friends with author Ian Fleming, the creator of the British
secret agent James Bond. Fleming later praised Jenkins' writing, saying
"Geoffrey Jenkins has the supreme gift of originality.... A Twist of Sand
is a literate, imaginative first novel in the tradition of high and original
adventure'".

After the war Jenkins settled in Rhodesia, where he met his wife, author
Eve Palmer (1916-1998). They married in 1950. He was the editor of
the newspaper The Umtali Advertiser and eventually took up a position
with The Star newspaper in Johannesburg.

Writing
It was while working for The Star that he wrote his first novel, A Twist of
Sand (1959), which was subsequently translated into 23 languages and
became a motion picture in 1968 starring Richard Johnson and Honor
Blackman. He kept his newspaper job until he had published his third
novel.

Connection with James Bond

After Ian Fleming's death it was reported that Glidrose Productions

commissioned Jenkins to write a James Bond novel in 1966. Jenkins
claimed that he and Fleming together developed a diamond-smuggling
storyline in 1957, which he finished for Glidrose entitled Per Fine
Ounce, but it was rejected. The novel is believed lost, except for 18
pages now in the hands of Jenkins' son David. Ian Fleming Publications
(formerly Glidrose) allegedly returned their copies of the manuscript
after rejecting it.

Jenkins' 1966 novel Hunter-Killer was a sequel to A Twist of Sand. It

opens with the protagonist, Geoffrey Peace RN, faking his own death
and funeral at sea, only to clamber aboard a submarine. It is strikingly
similar to the pre-titles sequence of the James Bond film You Only Live
Twice, which was released in 1967. No such scene took place in Ian
Fleming's novel.

Film adaptations
Three of his novels have been filmed. A Twist of Sand (1968) co-starred
Honor Blackman. The River of Diamonds (1990) had been set for
production in the 1960's. Dirty Games (1989), based on In Harm's Way,
co-starred Jan-Michael Vincent.

Books
Novels

• A Twist of Sand (1959)

• The Watering-Place of Good Peace (1960; revised 1974)
• A Grue of Ice (1962) Published in the U.S. as The Disappearing
Island.
• The River of Diamonds (1964)
• Hunter-Killer (1966)
• Scend of the Sea (1971) Published in the U.S. as The Hollow Sea.
• A Cleft of Stars (1973)
• A Bridge of Magpies (1974)
 • South Trap (1979) Published in paperback as Southtrap.
• A Ravel of Waters (1981)
• The Unripe Gold (1983)
• Fireprint (1984)
• In Harm's Way (1986)
• Hold Down a Shadow (1989)
• A Hive of Dead Men (1991)
• A Daystar of Fear (1993)

Non-fiction

• A Century of History: The Story of Potchefstroom (1939; 2nd

edition 1971)
• The Companion Guide to South Africa (1979), with Eve Palmer

Frederick Forsyth
Frederick Forsyth, CBE (born 25 August 1938) is an English author
and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers
such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Dogs of War, The
Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger and recently The Afghan.

Biography
The son of a furrier, Forsyth was born in Ashford, Kent. He was
educated at Tonbridge School and later attended the University of
Granada in Spain [1]. He became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal
Air Force, at the age of 19, where he served till 1958. Becoming a
journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and later the BBC in 1965, where
he served as an assistant diplomatic correspondent. From July to
September 1967, he served as a correspondent covering the Nigerian
Civil War between the region of Biafra and Nigeria. He left the BBC in
1968 after controversy arose over his alleged bias towards the Biafran
cause and accusations that he falsified segments of his reports.
Returning to Biafra as a freelance reporter, Forsyth wrote his first book,
The Biafra Story in 1969 [1].

Works
Forsyth decided to write a novel using similar research techniques to
those used in journalism. His first full length novel, The Day of the
Jackal, was published in 1971 and became an international bestseller. It
was later made into a film of the same name. It also earned him the
Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel. In this book, the Organisation
armée secrète (a real-life terrorist group) hires an assassin to kill the
then-French President Charles de Gaulle.

His second novel, The Odessa File, was published in 1972 and is about
a reporter attempting to track down a certain ex-Nazi SS officer in
modern Germany. The reporter discovers him via the diary of a Jewish
Holocaust survivor who committed suicide earlier, but he is being
shielded by an organization that protects ex-Nazis, called ODESSA.
Later, the reporter discovers that this same SS officer murdered a
German Army officer during World War II for striking him after refusing
to let SS soldiers take the place of his own wounded men. This book
was later made into a movie with the same name, starring Jon Voight,
but there were substantial adaptations.

In 1974, he wrote The Dogs of War, in which a British mining executive

hires a group of mercenaries to overthrow the government of an
African country so that he can install a puppet regime that will allow
him cheap access to a colossal platinum-ore reserve. This book was
also adapted to film, in 1981, starring Christopher Walken and Tom
Berenger.

The Shepherd was an illustrated novella published in 1975. It tells of a

nightmare journey by an RAF pilot while flying home for Christmas in
the late 1950s. His attempts to find a rational explanation for his
eventual rescue prove as troublesome as his experience. Following this
came The Devil's Alternative in 1979, which was set in 1982. In this
book, the Soviet Union faces a disastrous grain harvest and Ukrainian
freedom fighters. A Politburo faction fight ensues. In the end, a
Norwegian oil tanker built in Japan, a Russian airliner hijacked to West
Berlin and various governments find themselves involved.

In 1982, No Comebacks, a collection of ten short stories, was

published. Some of these stories had been written earlier. Many were
set in the Republic of Ireland where Forsyth was living at the time. One
of them, "There Are No Snakes In Ireland", won him a second Edgar
Allan Poe Award, this time for best short story.

The Fourth Protocol was published in 1984 and involves renegade

elements within the Soviet Union attempting to plant a nuclear bomb
near an American airbase in the UK, intending to influence the
upcoming British elections and lead to the election of an anti-NATO,
anti-American, anti-nuclear, pro-soviet Labour government. The Fourth
Protocol was later filmed, starring Pierce Brosnan and Michael Caine, in
1987. All the political content was removed from the film.
Forsyth's tenth release came in 1989, when he wrote The Negotiator,
in which the American President's son is kidnapped and one man's job
is to negotiate his release.

Two years later, in 1991, The Deceiver was published. It includes four
separate short stories reviewing the career of British secret agent Sam
McCready. At the start of the book, the Permanent Under-Secretary of
State (PUSS) of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office requires the
Chief of the SIS to push Sam into early retirement. The four stories are
presented to a grievance committee in an attempt to allow Sam to stay
on active duty with the SIS.

In 1994, Forsyth published The Fist of God, about the first Gulf War.
Next, in 1996, he published Icon, about the rise of fascists to power in
post-Soviet Russia.

In 1999, Forsyth published The Phantom of Manhattan, a sequel to The

Phantom of the Opera. It was intended as a departure from his usual
genre; Forsyth's explanation was that "I had done mercenaries,
assassins, Nazis, murderers, terrorists, special forces soldiers, fighter
pilots, you name it, and I got to think, could I actually write about the
human heart?"[1] However, it did not achieve the same success as his
other novels, and he subsequently returned to modern-day thrillers.

In 2001, The Veteran, another collection of short stories, was

published, followed by Avenger, published in September 2003, about a
Canadian billionaire who hires a Vietnam veteran to bring his
grandson's killer to the US.

His latest book, The Afghan, published in August 2006, is an indirect

sequel to The Fist of God. Set in the very near future, the threat of a
catastrophic assault on the West, discovered on a senior al-Qaeda
member's computer, compels the leaders of the U.S. and the UK to
attempt a desperate gambit—to substitute a seasoned British
operative, retired Col. Mike Martin (of The Fist of God), for an Afghan
Taliban commander being held prisoner at Guantánamo Bay. The plot
of the novel shows familiarity with terrorist methodology, counter-
surveillance techniques and grandiose thinking as evidenced in The
Bojinka Plot.

Style
Forsyth eschews psychological complexity in favour of meticulous
plotting, based on detailed factual research. His books are full of
information about the technical details of such subjects as money
laundering, gun running and identity theft. His novels read like
investigative journalism in fictional guise. His moral vision is a harsh
one: the world is made up of predators and prey, and only the strong
survive.

Forsyth's novels typically show the ways in which spies, gangsters,

assassins, mercenaries, diplomats, business leaders and politicians go
about their business behind-the-scenes; the sort of things that the
average reader would not suspect while reading a simple headline. The
Jackal does not just go out and shoot at Charles de Gaulle: he does
meticulous research on the man at the library of the British Museum;
obtains papers for his false identities; travels around Paris to find a
good location for a sniper's nest; and buys and tests his weapons.

Also a subtle twist at the end of the novel can reveal that a lot more
was going on than the reader initially suspected: Cat Shannon, the
central figure of The Dogs of War, turns out to have had his own
agenda all the time; Adam Munro of The Devil's Alternative finds out
that he was not a player but a pawn to people in high places; in The
Odessa File, the reporter's true motivation is revealed at the end, and
a number of events in Icon turn out to have been committed by people
other than those who the reader had been led to suppose. In Avenger,
one of the events that allows the Avenger to escape is unexplained
until the last few paragraphs.

Forsyth's novels also feature famous personalities and political leaders

as characters — the Day of the Jackal features the French president
Charles de Gaulle and his interior minister, Roger Frey, who heads the
government search for the assassin — the opening chapter is based on
an actual attempt by the OAS to kill de Gaulle. The Odessa File
features the real-life Nazi murderer Edward Roschmann and the Nazi-
hunter Simon Wiesenthal. The Fourth Protocol and Icon involve several
chapters indirectly featuring former British prime minister Margaret
Thatcher and former U.S. president George H. W. Bush. Although
unnamed or of fictional identity, the leader of the Soviet Union is
portrayed as the lead antagonist in several novels.

Issues raised by his work

His research has caused headaches for governments. In The Day of the
Jackal, he describes a technique used by a would-be assassin to obtain
a new passport. The assassin visits a church, and looks for a tombstone
of someone who was born nearly the same time he was, but died in
infancy. He then obtains a birth certificate, which enables him to obtain
a passport in that person's name - effectively stealing an identity. In
the story, the government didn't cross check passport requests with
the death registry. Unfortunately, this was actually government
practice at the time, and Forsyth revealed this in his writings. In The
Deceiver, he describes how a British agent bugs the coffin of a dead
IRA member. The microphone records the conversation of senior IRA
members, who are using the funeral as a chance for a conference
about terrorist activities. Journalists pressed the British government to
ask if this had ever been done, and the British government was forced
to admit that indeed it had.

Intriguingly, Forsyth's novels have had echoes in reality in recent

years. In 2004, a group of British-led alleged mercenaries were
arrested in Zimbabwe allegedly en route to Equatorial Guinea, where it
was believed they intended to assist the country's opposition in
overthrowing the government. In exchange for this assistance, the
leaders of the group were allegedly offered lucrative mineral
concessions in Equatorial Guinea. Media commentators immediately
drew comparisons with the plot of Forsyth's novel The Dogs of War,
which had been written more than 30 years before, and also involved a
coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea. One of those convicted of
involvement in the coup was an ex-SAS officer, Simon Mann. Mann is a
former associate of Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, the chief executive of the
British "private military company" Aegis, and for this reason the British
government had sought advice from Spicer when they first received
intelligence that a coup was being planned.

Spicer, in turn, has an interesting connection with Forsyth, in that the

author is reportedly one of a small number of people who own shares
in Spicer's company.

Furthermore, in The Fist of God, set during the First Gulf War, a
memorandum to the then United States Secretary of State James Baker
from The Pentagon strongly advises against any invasion of Iraq. The
reasons for this are stated to be that without the strength of the police
state under Saddam Hussein, fractures would begin to appear between
'three nations' of Iraq, leading to an undesirable and almost
unmanageable situation for the American government — which came
about following the actual 2003 invasion of Iraq led by the U.S.

Several recent assassins have been associated with Day of the Jackal,
some with more reason than others. Terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, or
"Carlos the Jackal", received his moniker because the novel was found
in what was thought to be his bag. Yigal Amir used the novel while
planning his assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in
1995, while Vladimir Arutinian, who attempted to kill US President
George W. Bush during his 2005 visit to the country of Georgia, was
also found to be an avid reader of the novel (although the actual
methods employed were different from the novel's).

Yet another story Forsyth has written that has striking parallels with
events that happened later is The Negotiator, written two years before
the assassination of former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi. In this
novel, Simon Cormack, the kidnapped son of the American President, is
finally released halfway through the story. As his captors let him go and
he makes his way towards awaiting officials, he is blown to pieces in a
remotely triggered blast. Upon investigation it is revealed that
explosive material containing RDX was planted in his belt unbeknownst
to him during his capture and the said materials were exploded via
remote control. This was the first instance in thriller novel history in
which a human being was killed by a bomb tied to his own body.[citation
needed]

A couple of years later, in the year 1991, former Prime Minister of

India, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a bomb blast. Investigations
later revealed that a "suicide bomber" or a "human bomb" was used to
assassinate him. A female suicide assassin had a belt-bomb tied
around her waist which she herself triggered as soon as she came
within an arm's length of her target, Gandhi. It was also revealed that
RDX was the explosive material used in the belt-bomb. The similarities
were highlighted by newspapers across India.[citation needed]

Years before the September 11 attacks, Forsyth had planned to write a

novel about terrorist strikes. He later dropped the idea, fearing that
real terrorists would try to mimic the same. After the attacks, the
author revealed the plot of the novel he never wrote: terrorists hijack a
civilian airliner and ram the plane into their intended targets.[citation needed]
(Such a plot device does occur in Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy,
published in 1994.)

Public life
Forsyth is a Eurosceptic Conservative. In 2003, he was awarded the
One of Us Award from the Conservative Way Forward group for his
services to the Conservative movement in Britain. He is also a patron
of the Young Britons' Foundation. In 2005, he came out in opposition to
Kenneth Clarke's candidacy for the leadership of The Conservative
Party, calling Clarke's record in government "unrivaled; a record of
failure which at every level has never been matched". Instead, he
endorsed and donated money to David Davis's campaign.
He is also a strong supporter of the British monarchy. In his book Icon,
he recommended a constitutional monarchy as a solution to Russia's
political problems following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

He is an occasional radio broadcaster on political issues, and has also

written for newspapers throughout his career, including a weekly page
in the Daily Express. He is Patron of Better Off Out, an organisation
calling for Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

In August 2006, Forsyth appeared on the ITV gameshow Who Wants To

Be A Millionaire? to raise funds for charity.

On 8 February 2007, Forsyth appeared on BBC's political panel show

Question Time. On it, he expressed scepticism on the subject of
anthropogenic climate change. On 26 March 2008, he also appeared on
BBC's The One Show.

On 17 June 2008, Forsyth was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live Midday

News in relation to the restoration of the Military Covenant. During the
interview he referred to Gordon Brown as a numpty.

Bibliography

Ye
Title Notes
ar

1 The Biafra Non-fiction. 1977 edition titled: "The Biafra Story: The
969 Story Making of an African Legend".

1 The Day of
971 the Jackal

1 The Odessa
972 File

1 The Dogs of
974 War
 Illustrated short story. Chris Foss illustrated the UK
1 The
edition. American edition published in 1976: Lou Feck
975 Shepherd
illustrated this edition.

1 The Devil's
American edition published in 1980.
979 Alternative

1 Biography of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

Emeka
982 Revised in 1991.

1 No
Short story collection
982 Comebacks

1 The Fourth
984 Protocol

1 The
989 Negotiator

1 The
991 Deceiver

1 Great Flying Compiled, edited and introduced by Forsyth. Also

991 Stories features his 1976 story "The Shepherd".

1 The Fist of
994 God

1
Icon
996
 The
1
Phantom of
999
Manhattan

2
The Veteran Short stories
001

2
Avenger
003

2
The Afghan
006

2 Tentative title for novel to be published by G.P. Putnam

The Cobra
010 in late 2010 [2].

Peter Benchley
Peter Bradford Benchley (May 8, 1940 - February 12, 2006) was an
American author, best known for his novel Jaws and its subsequent film
adaptation, the latter co-written by Benchley (with Carl Gottlieb) and
directed by Steven Spielberg. Two more of his works, The Deep and
The Island, were also adapted for cinema.

Early life
He was the son of author Nathaniel Benchley and grandson of
Algonquin Round Table founder Robert Benchley. His younger brother,
Nat Benchley, is a writer and actor. Peter Benchley was an alumnus of
Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University.

After graduating from college, he worked for The Washington Post,

then as an editor at Newsweek and a speechwriter in the White House
for President Lyndon Johnson.[1] He developed the idea of a man-eating
shark terrorising a community after reading of a fisherman catching a
4,550 pound great white shark off the coast of Long Island in 1964. He
also drew some material from the tragic Jersey Shore shark attacks of
1916.

Jaws
Doubleday editor Tom Congdon saw some of Benchley's articles and
invited Benchley to lunch to discuss some ideas for books. Congdon
was not impressed by Benchley's proposals for non-fiction but was
interested in his idea of a novel about a great white shark terrorizing a
beach resort. Congdon offered Benchley an advance of $1,000 leading
to the novelist submitting the first 100 pages. Much of the work had to
be rewritten as the publisher was not happy with the initial tone.
Benchley worked by winter in a room above a furnace company in
Pennington, New Jersey, and in the summer in a converted turkey coop
in Stonington, Connecticut.[2]

Jaws was published in 1974 and became a great success, staying on

the bestseller list for some 44 weeks. Steven Spielberg has said that he
initially found many of the characters unsympathetic and wanted the
shark to win.[3] Book critics such as Michael Rogers of Rolling Stone
Magazine shared the sentiment but the book struck a chord with
readers.

Benchley co-wrote the screenplay with Carl Gottlieb (along with the
uncredited Howard Sackler and John Milius, who provided the first draft
of the memorable USS Indianapolis speech) for the Spielberg film
released in 1975. Benchley made a cameo appearance as a news
reporter on the beach. The film, starring Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw, was released in the summer season,
traditionally considered to be the graveyard season for films. However,
Universal Studios decided to break tradition by releasing the movie
with extensive television advertising. Tautly edited by Verna Fields,
featuring an ominous score by John Williams and infused with such an
air of understated menace by director Steven Spielberg that he was
hailed as the heir apparent to "Master of Suspense" Alfred Hitchcock,
Jaws became the first movie to gross $100 million at the US box office.
It eventually grossed $450 million worldwide. George Lucas used a
similar strategy in 1977 for Star Wars which broke the box office
records set by Jaws, and hence the summer blockbuster was born.[4]
The film spawned three sequels, none of which matched the success of
the original critically or commercially, two video games, "Jaws" in 1987
and "Jaws Unleashed" in 2006; both met with mostly negative critical
attention. The film was also adapted into a theme park attraction at
Universal Studios Florida (in Orlando, Florida and Hollywood,
California), and two musicals: "JAWS The Musical!", which premiered in
the summer of 2004 at the Minnesota Fringe Festival; and "Giant Killer
Shark: The Musical", which premiered in the summer of 2006 at the
Toronto Fringe Festival.

Benchley estimated that he earned enough from book sales, film rights
and magazine/book club syndication to be able to work independently
as a film writer for ten years.[5]

Subsequent career
His reasonably successful second novel, The Deep, is about a
honeymooning couple discovering two sunken treasures on the
Bermuda reefs -- 17th century Spanish gold and a fortune in World War
Two-era morphine -- who are subsequently targeted by a drug
syndicate. This 1976 novel is based on Benchley's chance meeting in
Bermuda with diver Teddy Tucker while writing a story for National
Geographic. Benchley co-wrote the screenplay for the 1977 film
release, along with Tracy Keenan Wynn and an uncredited Tom
Mankiewicz. Directed by Peter Yates and starring Robert Shaw, Nick
Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, The Deep was a moderate success, and
one of the Top 10 highest grossing films in the US in 1977, though its
box office tally fell well short of Jaws.

The Island, published in 1979, was a story of descendants of 17th

century pirates who terrorize pleasure craft in the Caribbean, leading
to the Bermuda Triangle mystery. Benchley again wrote the screenplay
for the film adaptation. But the movie version of The Island, starring
Michael Caine and Co staring David Warner, failed at the box office
when released in 1980.

During the 1980s, Benchley wrote three novels that did not sell as well
as his previous works. However, Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a beguiling
John Steinbeck-type fable about man's complicated relationship with
the sea, was far and away his best reviewed book and has attracted a
considerable cult following since its publication. Sea of Cortez
signposted Benchley's growing interest in ecological issues and
anticipated his future role as an impassioned and intelligent defender
of the importance of redressing the current imbalance between human
activities and the marine environment. Q Clearance published in 1986
was written from his experience as a staffer in the Johnson White
House. Rummies (aka Lush), which appeared in 1989, is a semi-
autobiographical work, loosely inspired by the Benchley family's history
of alcohol abuse. While the first half of the novel is a relatively
straightforward (and harrowing) account of a suburbanite's descent
into alcoholic hell, the second part -- which takes place at a New
Mexico substance abuse clinic -- veers off into wildly improbable
thriller-type territory.

He returned to nautical themes in 1991's Beast written about a giant

squid threatening Bermuda. Beast was brought to the small screen as a
made for TV movie in 1996, under the slightly altered title The Beast.
His next novel, White Shark, was published in 1994. The story of a
Nazi-created genetically engineered shark/human hybrid failed to
achieve popular or critical success. It was also turned into a made-for-
TV movie titled Creature, with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt of the New
York Times saying it "looks more like Arnold Schwarzenegger than any
fish". ("Peter Benchley" Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003) In
1999, the television show Peter Benchley's Amazon was created, about
a group of plane crash survivors in the middle of a vast jungle.

In the last decade of his career, Benchley wrote non-fiction works

about the sea and about sharks advocating their conservation. Among
these was his book entitled Shark Trouble, [6] which illustrated how
hype and news sensationalism can help undermine the public's need to
understand marine ecosystems and the potential negative
consequences as humans interact with it. This work, which had editions
in 2001 and 2003, was written to help a post-Jaws public to more fully
understand "the sea in all its beauty, mystery, and power." [7] It details
the ways in which man seems to have become more of an aggressor in
his relationship with sharks, acting out of ignorance and greed as
several of the species become increasingly threatened by overfishing.

Benchley was a member of the National Council of Environmental

Defense and a spokesman for its Oceans Program: "[T]he shark in an
updated Jaws could not be the villain; it would have to be written as
the victim, for, world-wide, sharks are much more the oppressed than
the oppressors."[8]

He was also one of the founding board members of the Bermuda

Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI).

Benchley died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2006.[9]

Benchley's legacy is being carried on by his wife, Wendy.

Works by Benchley
Fiction

• Jaws (1974)
 • The Deep (1976)
• The Island (1979)
• The Girl of the Sea of Cortez (1982)
• Q Clearance (1986)
• Rummies (1989)
• The Beast (1991)
• White Shark (1994)
• Creature (1997)

Non-fiction

• 1994 Ocean Planet: Writings and Images of the Sea

• 2001 Shark Trouble: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea
• 2002 Shark!: True Stories and Lessons from the Deep
• 2005 Shark Life: True Stories About Sharks and the Sea (with
Karen Wojtyla)

Film

• Jaws, 1975 film adaptation; actor: Interviewer.

• The Deep, 1977 film adaptation
• Jaws 2, based on characters from Jaws
• The Island, 1980 film adaptation
• Jaws 3-D (a.k.a. Jaws 3), based on characters from Jaws
• Jaws: The Revenge, a fourth film based on characters from Jaws
• Dolphin Cove, 1989 TV series
• The Beast, 1996 TV film adaptation
• Creature, 1998 TV film adaptation
• Amazon, 1999 TV series
• Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, 1994 (actor, as Frank
Crowninshield)

Wilbur Smith

Wilbur Addison Smith (born January 9, 1933 in Broken Hill, Northern

Rhodesia, now Kabwe, Zambia) is a best-selling novelist. His books
often fall into one of three series.

Biography
As a baby, he was sick with cerebral malaria for ten days, but made a
full recovery. He grew up on a cattle ranch and spent his childhood
hunting and hiking. His mother gave him novels of escape and
excitement, which piqued his interest in fiction; however, his father
dissuaded him from pursuing writing.

After education at Cordwalles Preparatory School, Michaelhouse in

Natal and Rhodes University, in the Eastern Cape of South Africa, he
became a journalist, writing about social conditions in South Africa, but
his father's advice to "Get a real job" prompted him to resentfully
become a tax accountant.

He published his first novel, When the Lion Feeds, in 1964, written
while he worked for Salisbury Inland Revenue. The book gained a film
deal and its success encouraged him to become a full-time writer. His
publisher and later agent, Charles Pick, gave him advice he never
forgot: "Write for yourself, and write about what you know best."

He married and had two children after he qualified as a Chartered

Accountant. The marriage ended in divorce at the age of twenty four.
He married again following the publication of his first novel, this too
ended in divorce. He married Danielle Thomas in 1971, dedicating his
books to her until her death in 1999. He married Mokhiniso Rakhimova,
from Tadjikistan, in May 2000.

He states that Africa is his major inspiration, and currently he has over
30 novels published. Smith now lives in London, but avows an abiding
concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent.

In 2002, Wilbur Smith was granted the Inaugural Sport Shooting

Ambassador Award by the World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting
Activities.

The Courtney Series

The Courtney series can be split into three parts, each part following a
particular era of the Courtney family.

In chronological order it goes the Third Sequence, First Sequence, then

the Second Sequence.

The First Sequence

The first sequence beginning with When the Lion Feeds follows the
life of Sean Courtney. Sean and Garrick Courtney are twins who
couldn't be more different. The jealous schemes of a woman draw
them apart as the nation prepares for war against the Zulu. Sean,
believed dead, returns home to find that Garrick has married his
pregnant girlfriend. She wants to be with Sean but when he refuses her
she tricks Garrick into thinking Sean raped her, causing Garrick to hate
his twin.

Sean places himself in self-exile and wanders the African plains

searching for fame. He meets and befriends Duff and they start a gold-
mining business together in Johannesburg which makes them rich.
They lose their money to a shady deal and travel the wilderness
together where Duff dies after an attack by a rabid jackal. Sean
eventually meets a Boer family and marries the daughter. She
becomes ill and commits suicide at the end of the book but not before
giving birth to a boy, Dirk.

The Sound of Thunder is set several years after the first book. Sean
and his son Dirk finally leave the wilderness and discover that a war is
brewing between the English and the Boers. He meets and falls in love
with a woman called Ruth and they conceive a daughter during a
thunderstorm. Ruth runs away to return to her husband who is a soldier
in the Boer War. Later, Sean wins many victories in the war and
befriends Saul, Ruth's husband. The commander of the Boers is none
other than Sean's old brother-in-law, Jan Paulus Leroux. They fight but
decide to leave each other alone. Saul is killed in battle and Sean,
although feeling unnecessarily guilty, finds Ruth and marries her.
Sean's daughter, named Storm, grows to be pretty and bright but
Sean's first-born, Dirk has become evil with jealousy for his father's
attention. The book ends with Sean's brother Garrick forgiving him and
Dirk running away, promising to ruin the Courtneys.

A Sparrow Falls is the concluding part of Sean Courtney's life story. It

begins with a young soldier named Mark Anders being sent out to kill a
German sniper in the First World War. Sean admires him and offers him
a job. Mark returns home to find his land taken and his grandfather
murdered. He makes an investigation and discovers that Dirk Courtney
is trying to build a dam which would destroy all life over a massive
area including his stolen land. Father and son clash and Dirk swears to
kill Sean. Mark falls in love with Sean's daughter, Storm, and South
Africa moves towards a tumultuous civil war. In the climax of the book,
Dirk brutally kills Sean and Ruth but is then killed by Mark. Mark
regains his land and becomes the warden and lives with Storm in
relative happiness.

The original Courtney trilogy has a power and historical content that
few books can claim. Covering a period of South African history from
before the Zulu Wars to the establishment of the Union of South Africa
makes the books a very interesting mirror of the period. Wilbur Smith
drives his characters through this period of history with a multitude of
side plots, effective characters both minor and major, brutal violence
and the inclusion of the most human situations that every reader can
relate to.

The Second Sequence

The second sequence of Courtney novels begins with The Burning

Shore. It follows Michael, the first-born, illegitimate son of Sean
Courtney and his exploits as a pilot during World War I in Europe.
Michael meets and falls in love with Centaine de Thiry, a Frenchwoman,
and in a night of stolen passion they conceive a baby. Before Centaine
discovers she is pregnant, Michael asks Centaine to marry him and
takes her to meet his 'Uncle' Sean, who is biologically his father.
Michael is killed on their wedding day, before the ceremony takes
place, and Centaine goes to Sean for help. Consumed with grief for his
unacknowledged first born son, Sean sends Centaine and her nurse,
Anna, to his brother Garrick in South Africa. However the Hospital Ship
they are traveling on is torpedoed by a German submarine and
Centaine is shipwrecked, alone and pregnant, on the coast of South
West Africa. Only through her incredible determination to live for the
sake of Michael's unborn son does Centaine survive, and eventually
she is adopted by an old San (Bushmen) couple who teach her the
language and the ways of the Kalahari Desert. They also take her to
'The Place of All Life', a San Holy Place, Where Centaine discovers a
beautiful stone. After the birth of her son, who she names Michael
Shasa Courtney, Centaine is tracked down by a German South Afican,
Lothar De La Rey, a renegade outlaw who has demanded Garrick trade
the safe delivery of Centaine and her child for a Free Pardon. Lonely
and deprived of contact with her own kind, Centaine falls for Lothar
and conceives him a child in the desert. After she discovers that Lothar
murdered H'ani and O'wa, her adopted San family, Centaine turns on
Lothar and insists he take the baby from the child-bed and that she
never wants to see Lothar or their bastard child again. While hiding in
the desert awaiting the child's birth, Centaine pegs out and lays mining
claims on the 'Place of all life', guided by the promise in the glittering
stone she found years before upon returning to the colony, Centaine
and Shasa are accepted into the Courtney family and the fact she and
Michael Courtney never legally married remains as closely guarded a
secret as the maternity of Lothar De La Rey's son, and the newly
christened H'ani Diamond Mine makes Centaine Courtney one of the
richest women in the world.

The second sequence continues through four more books following the
exploits of the Courtneys:
Power of the Sword focuses on the lives of Centaine de Thiry
Courtney's sons — Shasa Courtney and Manfred De La Rey — caught
up in South Africa's tumultuous history through almost two decades.
The two are unaware that they are half-brothers and are on opposite
sides of South Africa's white community. The story opens in the days of
the depression, with Centaine Courtney fighting to keep her mine and
her company afloat under the crippling yoke of the De Beers diamond
company and their set diamond selling quotas. In the process of saving
her company Centaine ruins that of Lothar De La Ray and her
unacknowledged son Manfred. From their first meeting, the two young
boys, Manfred and Shasa, recognize in each other that they have
intertwined destinies. From schoolboys days their lives are glaringly
different. Shasa spends his early years in the affluent British South
African world of private schools, polo ponies and a luxurious family
estate, Weltevreden, while Lothar spends them in the squatter camps
of the unemployed and impoverished. After the De La Reys execute a
daring raid on Centaine's diamonds, which goes horribly wrong, Lothar
is jailed and Manfred is sent to live with his Uncle Tromp Bierman, a
well known and much respected Minister of the Dutch Reformed
Church. With the training of his uncle Tromp, Manfred becomes first a
champion boxer, then a firm believer in the superiority and the Divine
right of his people, the Afrikaner, to the Promised Land of South Africa.
He joins the Ossewa Brandwag, a Nazi-Supporting Secret Society for
elite pure-blooded Afrikaners and with one objective: to raise the
interests of the Afrikaner people above all others. Both Shasa and
Manfred are included in the South African team in the 1936 Olympics in
Hitler's Berlin and there Manfred discovers his true calling. He marries
Heidi, a German Intelligence Officer, and becomes a formidable secret
agent dubbed 'White Sword.' His mission is to assassinate the Prime
Minister of South Africa, and leave the country ripe for revolution but a
simple mistake destroys the plan (he killed Garrick Courteney) and the
pathways of destiny for Shasa and Manfred cross once again.
Meanwhile, in the mines and native labour camps across South Africa,
the black workers start to grow dissatisfied with the conditions of their
lives and unions are forming. Led by the ruthless half brothers Moses
Gama and Hendrik Tabaka, as well as other revolutionaries such as
Nelson Mandela and Louis Botha The ANC (African National Congress)
begins to grow in power and influence and spreads it's arms across the
troubled nation.

In Rage It is 1952 and in the wake of World War two, South Africa
enters a new political era. The seeds of apartheid have been sown and
the restlessness of the Black tribes is growing. Shasa Courtney and
Manfred De La Ray, unacknowledged half brothers who have grown up
in different worlds in the same country, are both heavily involved in the
political arena on opposite sides of the floor. Early in the book, Manfred
De La Rey discovers the circumstances surrounding Shasa's illegitimate
birth, and subsequently uncovers the truth of his own maternity.
Politically, the National Party, of which Manfred De La Rey is a minister,
is now in government in South Africa and in the interest of political
gain, the party reaches out to Shasa Courtney and lures him to their
side with the one bait the Shasa cannot resist... A Ministerial post and
the promise and power the position will bring. However under the
noses of the White administration of the country, the ANC has formed a
military wing, 'Umkhonto we Sizwe'or 'The Spear of The Nation,' and
guided by the ruthless half brothers Moses Gama and Hendrik Tabaka,
begins to shake the very foundations of apartheid. Moses Gama, in his
determination to seize control of the country by blood shed and
revouloution, seduces Tara Courtney, Shasa's wife, and unbeknownst
to Shasa, skillfully turns her into an instrument of the struggle, spying
on her husband and her father, both powerful men. Tara even bears
Moses a son, Benjamin Afrika, in secret. With Tara's assistance, Moses
puts into play a plan to destroy the government, the Prime Minister and
the policy of apartheid in the most brutal way possible. Only the
cunning and insight of Shasa Courtney and his new ally Manfred De La
Rey stops the plan with minimum blood shed, but the rage of the
people is burning and Rage is a powerful thing. In the meanwhile Shasa
discovers that Manfred killed Garrick Courtney and the plan to take the
power of the party falls; in the end Manfred dies in his country house.

Golden Fox (set in 1969) focuses on Isabella Courtney, the youngest

child and only daughter of Shasa and Tara Courtney. Isabella and Shasa
are living in London, where Shasa is the ambassador for South Africa.
In what is, unknown to Isabella, a carefully planned operation, Bella is
drawn into the trap of the handsome and dashing Ramon, the 'Golden
Fox'. On the surface an exiled Spanish nobleman but in reality a close
relative of Fidel Castro and a KGB operative. Just like her mother,
Isabella is seduced and impregnated by Ramon, and shortly after the
birth of her son Nicholas, Ramon and the baby disappear. Shortly
afterwards, Isabella is shown a video of her son being tortured, and is
told he will continue to be tortured, mutilated and eventually
murdered, if she doesn't co-operate. Torn between love for her son and
loyalty to her country, Isabella becomes a traitoress, drawn into the
KGB plot against her will and forced to spy on her father, now heavily
involved in Armscor, a government military operation that amongst
other things, is developing a nuclear bomb and a deadly chemical gas
for use in warfare. With the promise of access to her son, Isabella
delivers all of the details of her country's most secret activities to their
bitter enemies. Eventually her betrayal is discovered and the full
resources of the Courtney empire including Isabella's now famous
brother Sean, one of the top commanders in the Rhodesian army, are
thrown into the rescue of young Nicolas and delivery of him safe into
the arms of his great grandmother Centaine De Thiry Courtney.

A Time To Die (set in 1987) is focused on Sean Courtney Jnr, Eldest

son of Shasa Courtney and a veteran of the Rhodesian anti-guerilla war
who has turned into a professional hunter. The dying wish of an old
friend and client draws him to follow a legendary elephant into
Mozambique accompanied by his friend's beautiful and spirited
daughter Claudia. However Claudia is captured by Renamo, the anti
government forces, and Sean is forced to co-operate with them to save
the life of the woman he has fallen in love with. The former
Zimbabwean freedom fighter in charge of the regiment, General China,
is a hard and ruthless man who is determined to win power of the
shattered country. Only one thing stands in his way- the newly acquired
Hind Helicopter fleet of the Frelimo government threatens to wipe out
the Renamo rebels. One thing alone can penetrate the defenses of the
titanium plated aircraft and Sean is sent into Zimbabwe to steal a
shipment of Stinger Missiles to deliver to China. This leads to a violent
conflict between the warring Renamo and Frelimo, with Sean and
Claudia caught in the middle and desperately trying to escape to South
Africa.

The Third Sequence

The third sequence is set between the late-1600s and the mid-1700s,
each book laying focus on succeeding generations of the Courtneys.

Birds of Prey begins with the Anglo-Dutch naval war drawing to a

close. Sir Francis Courtney, Master Navigator of the Order of St George
and The Holy Grail and his son, Henry (Hal) sail off the coast of
southern Africa waiting for a Dutch galleon which they soon take over.
Francis is betrayed by a brother knight, and they are captured and
imprisoned by the Dutch. Sir Francis is publicly executed in front of Hal.
The rest of the crew escape after a year of hard labour and make Hal
their captain, and he sets off to avenge his father's death. Along the
way he must deal with dangers such as war and the man responsible
for his fathers death. By the end of the book, he becomes a Knight and
a Privateer and assists the ruler of Ethiopia, Prester John in repelling
Arab invaders.

Monsoon follows the adventures of Hal's sons, William, Tom, Guy and
Dorian. An Arab Corsair is ambushing merchant and war ships in the
Indian Ocean and the English send Hal to contest him. The twin
brothers, Tom and Guy, fall out over a woman and Guy leaves for India
while William remains home in England. Dorian is captured by slavers
and sold to the Prince of Oman, al-Malik who adopts him as his son.
There he meets Yasmini, one of the many daughters of the Prince. They
fall in love and Dorian saves her from Zayn al-Din, another of the
Prince's sons. Eventually Dorian (known as al-Salil, The Drawn Sword)
and Yasmini run away, damned for committing incest. Many years of
searching leave Tom tired of battle but by chance he faces Dorian in
battle and almost kills him. Recognizing each other, they reunite and
escape to Africa.

Blue Horizon follows the adventures of Tom's son Jim, and Dorian's
son, Mansur. Living in the Cape of Good Hope, Jim rescues Louisa, a
prisoner from the Dutch who he falls in love with and together they
escape across Africa while being pursued by the Dutch East India
Company. Meanwhile, Tom, Dorian and their entourage escape Good
Hope to avoid retribution from the Dutch for Jim's escape. Once
escaped they settle, where Dorian's wife Yasmini is assassinated and
this leads to him reclaiming his place as Caliph of Oman with Mansur
by his side. They fight in a civil war against Zayn al-Din, who took the
throne after al-Malik's death and ruled with an iron fist.

Triumph of the Sun is the fourth book of this sequence. 'It is 1884,
and in the Sudan, decades of brutal misgovernment by the ruling
Egyptian Khedive in Cairo precipitates a bloody rebellion and Holy War.
The charismatic new religious leader, the Mahdi or "Expected One",
has gathered his forces of Arab warlords in preparation for a siege on
the city of Khartoum. The British are forced to intervene to protect
their national interests and to attempt to rescue the hundreds of British
subjects stranded in the city. British trader and businessman Ryder
Courtney is trapped in the capital city of Khartoum under the orders of
the infamously iron-willed General Charles George Gordon. It is here
that he meets skilled soldier and swordsman Captain Penrod
Ballantyne of the 10th Hussars and the British Consul, David Benbrook,
as well as Benbrook's three beautiful daughters. Against the vivid and
bloody backdrop of the Arabs’ fierce and merciless siege these three
powerful men must fight to survive. It is in this book that Smith
establishes the link between the earlier and later Courtney novels, by
revealing that Ryder Courtney is the brother of Waite Courtney, father
of twins Sean and Garrick. At one point Ryder considers investing in his
nephew Sean's Gold Mine.

Assegai is the fifth book of this sequence. In 1913 Leon Courtney, an

ex-soldier turned professional hunter in British East Africa, guides rich
and powerful men from America and Europe on big game safaris in the
territories of the Masai tribe. Leon has developed a special relationship
with the Masai. One of Leon's clients is Count Otto Von Meerbach, a
German industrialist whose company builds aircraft and vehicles for
the Kaiser's burgeoning army. Leon is recruited by his uncle Penrod
Ballantyne (from The Triumph of the Sun) who is commander of the
British forces in East Africa to gather information from Von Meerbach.
Instead Leon falls desperately in love with Von Meerbach's beautiful
and enigmatic mistress, Eva Von Wellberg. Just prior to the outbreak of
World War I Leon stumbles on a plot by Count Von Meerbach to raise a
rebellion against Britain on the side of Germany amongst the
disenchanted survivors of the Boer War in South Africa. He finds
himself left alone to frustrate Von Meerbach's design. Then Eva Von
Wellberg returns to Africa with her master and Leon finds out who and
what she really is behind the mask...

The Ballantyne Series

A Falcon Flies

In 1860 the slave trade is still flourishing in southern Africa.Fuller

Ballantyne, a famous missionary and explorer, has disappeared in the
wild areas of the sub-continent. His two children, Robyn (a daughter)
and Zouga (a son) set out on an expedition to find their father. She is
determined to bring Christianity, medicine and commerce to the
Africans, but he wants to seek his fortune. They get passage on a
clipper from England, only to discover that the captain, Mungo St John,
is a slaver. She falls in love with him but is determined to fight his
trade in human flesh. She gets the support of a naval captain, Clinton
Codrington, who is himself a fanatical anti-slave trader. He falls in love
with her.

Zouga goes hunting for ivory and gold. In his travels he comes across a
secret cavern of an African oracle and steals a soapstone falcon figure
from the ruins of an ancient city. Unwittingly, he is fulfilling a prophecy
which states that loss of the stone falcons shall bring desolation to the
people and the land.

As Robyn locates the slave traders' route, she almost becomes a victim
of the slavers herself; she's saved in the nick of time by Mungo St John
and has to accompany him on his ship. She makes a successful
attempt to contact Clinton and eventually causes the sea battle
between the two men who love her. St John is then tried for his crimes.

Men of Men

This is the second of the Ballantyne sequence of books, which gives a

fictionalized account of the origins of Rhodesia and its later violent
transformation into Zimbabwe. In this novel, the Ballantyne saga
continues with the interaction between Zouga Ballantyne, Cecil Rhodes
and the other whites who took over southern Africa. Zouga has now got
a frail wife and two sons, Ralph and Jordan. He hopes to raise enough
resources from the new diamond working in Kimberley. His wife dies
but his sons thrive and grow into young men with differing
personalities: Ralph becomes impetuous, determined and very loyal to
his father; Jordan becomes as delicate as his mother and rises in the
ranks of diamond sorters. Cecil Rhodes enters the tale and becomes
Zouga's ally for some years, until Zouga makes a daring gamble and
loses everything - his claim, his money and his sons.

A grown-up Ralph sets out to retrieve his father's stash of ivory, while
Jordan becomes Rhodes' personal secretary. The labourers at the
Kimberley diamond workings scatter and one of them, named Bazo,
returns to his homeland in Matabeleland with illegally obtained
diamonds. Rhodes uses his wealth obtained from Kimberley to open up
the land north of the Limpopo River: he sponsors a "Pioneer"
expedition and gives Zouga the task of negotiating with Lobengula,
king of the Matabele people. Through machinations and betrayal,
Rhodes annexes the land of the Matabele people and lays the
foundation for the land that became Rhodesia. All the principal
protagonists - Zouga, Ralph, Jordan, Robyn, Codrington, Mungo St John
and Bazo - become inextricably bound up in the birth of the new
country.

The Angels Weep

This is the third in the Ballantyne sequence of novels. It tells about how
the Black Africans of Rhodesia tried to fight for their land but were
defeated by the White settlers who were determined to carve out a
homeland for themselves.

The Black Africans, after having been defeated in "Men of Men", now
plan to rebel against the unwelcome White settlers. The Matabele rise
and avenge their last defeat. They kill Mungo St John and Ralph's
pregnant wife, Cathy. This breeds hatred in Ralph and he ruthlessly
suppresses the Matabele uprising, killing his childhood friend Bazo in
the process.

In the second part, the action moves fast forward to the 1970s as
Rhodesia is caught up in a violent freedom struggle. The tactics of
terror are employed by the freedom fighters, carrying firearms and
operating in highly organised commando groups. Opposing them are
the Rhodesian "Ballantyne Scouts", one of whose members is Roland
Ballantyne, great-grandson of Ralph. His gentler cousin, Craig Mellow,
is forced into a war where he has to clash with a childhood friend,
Tungata, who is a descendant of Bazo. A trap is laid by Tungata for
Roland, who is killed when he falls for it. Craig is crippled when he
loses a leg. It takes a long time for Craig and his lover to find
happiness.

The Leopard Hunts in Darkness

Following Rhodesia's independence (and its renaming as Zimbabwe),

some white people left the country. One of those exiles is Craig Mellow,
who now lives in New York. However, he misses his homeland, so he
decides to return and buys back his family's farm. Within the country
there is a re-emergence of ancient tribal rivalries, African pitted against
African. The Matabele man named Tungata is now a government
minister. Inadvertently Craig gets caught up in tribal politics.
Fungabera, a Shona man, dupes Craig into framing Tungata for an
ivory-poaching racket. Then Fungabera turns on Craig by accusing him
of being a CIA agent and confiscating the farm he had bought.

When he realises that he has been used, Craig plots with Tungata's
fiancee to free his erstwhile friend from a maximum security camp.
They carry out the rescue and are chased by Shona soldiers. At last
Fungabera is shown to be the head of the ivory-poaching ring. He is
also discovered to be plotting an overthrow of the Zimbabwean
government.

The Egyptian Series

A historical fiction series based in a large part on Pharaoh Thutmose
III's time along with his story and that of his stepmother Hatshepsut
through the eyes of his mother's vizier Senemut mixing in elements of
the Hyskos' domination and eventual overthrow.

River God

River God follows the fate of the Egyptian Kingdom through the eyes of
Taita, a multi-talented and highly skilled eunuch slave. Taita is owned
by Lord Intef and primarily looks after his daughter, Lostris, but also
plays a large role in the day to day running of Lord Intef's estate.

The Pharaoh of Egypt is without a male heir, and Taita inadvertently

causes Pharaoh to take an interest in Lostris. Lostris meanwhile is in
love with the soldier Tanus, who unbeknownst to her is hated by her
father. Eventually Pharaoh marries Lostris and Intef reluctantly gives
Taita to her as a wedding gift.
Meanwhile, Tanus has angered Pharaoh by speaking bluntly about the
troubles Egypt is in - most prominently the growing bandit threat which
terrorizes all who travel outside of the major cities. Pharaoh condemns
him to death for his actions, but is convinced to allow Tanus to redeem
himself by attempting to eliminate all the bandits from Egypt within
two years. Since his sentence is revealed on the last day of the festival
of Osiris, he is to return on that day of the next festival with his task
complete or face death by strangulation.

Tanus, with the help of Taita, hunts down and captures the leaders of
the Shrike bandits. On presenting them to Pharaoh, it is revealed that
their leader is Lord Intef. Tanus has his death sentence lifted, but Intef
manages to escape before he can be punished for his crimes. After the
sentence is announced a storm sweeps through allowing Lostris and
Tanus time to be secretly alone together. During this time Lostris
conceives Tanus' first born, and before the secret can be discovered
Taita arranges for her to resume her wifely duties to Pharaoh. When the
child is born he is named Memnon and claimed by the Pharaoh as his
own, and his true paternity is known only to Lostris, Taita, and Tanus.

A new threat to the kingdom emerges - the warlike Hyksos. Equipped

with the horse and chariot, as well as a superior recurved bow, their
technological superiority is far greater than the Egyptian army's. The
Pharaoh is killed, forcing a majority of the Egyptian nobility (including
Lostris, Tanus, and Taita) to flee Egypt by heading up the Nile with the
remaining army.

During their exile Lostris gives birth to two more of Tanus' children,
both daughters, but as their relationship has been a secret Taita
creates a cover story where the ghost of Pharaoh sires the child.
During their period in exile, they regain their technical superiority -
Taita replicates and improves both the chariots and bows he has seen
used to such great effect on the battlefield.

While searching for a suitable burying place for Pharaoh's body, Taita is
taken captive by one of the Ethiopian chieftains of the area - the brutal
Arkoun. While in captivity, Taita becomes close friends with Masara, a
fellow captive and the daughter of one of the rival chieftains. Taita
eventually escapes captivity due to a freak flooding, finds the father of
Masara, and strikes a deal with him to rescue Masara. With the help of
Tanus, Memnon, and the Egyptian army, Arkoun is defeated. Tanus is
mortally wounded during the battle and dies. Masara and Memnon fall
in love and become married, with a wedding gift of several thousand
horses which further boost the Egyptian army. Led by their new
Pharaoh Tamose (formerly Prince Memnon), they return to Egypt. With
their new-found weaponry and tactics, they defeat the Hyksos invaders
and regain the upper kingdom of Egypt from Elephantine to Thebes.

The novel contains a two-page afterword in which Smith claims the

novel is based on a set of scrolls discovered in an Egyptian tomb which
dates back to approximately 1780 BCE. The scrolls were discovered by
an Egyptologist, Dr. Duraid al-Simma, who passed the translations onto
Smith to transcribe into a novel. This is a false claim, as Smith later
reveals in the afterword of the sequel, The Seventh Scroll.

The Seventh Scroll

This book is set in the present day and follows the exploits of
adventurer Nicholas Quenton-Harper and his love interest, the
beautiful Dr. Royan Al Simma as they try and uncover the tomb of
Tanus as described in River God. Wilbur Smith makes references to
himself in the book, parodying the conventions of violence and sex
often seen in his work.

Duraid Al Simma and his wife Royan decipher the seventh scroll, which
Taita had placed in the tomb of Lostris. Unfortunately, before they
could proceed further, they are attacked and their work is stolen.
Duraid is brutally murdered, but Royan manages to escape into the
night, for help. She narrowly escapes death for the second time. Royan
heads to England and there convinces an old friend of Duraid, Nicholas,
of the existence of the fabulous treasure that is in the tomb of Pharaoh
Mamose. During her stay in England she narrowly escapes death for
the third time as she and her mother drive back home. Struck with
confusion, fear and insecurity, she entrust herself into Nicholas's
companionship. Together they travel to Ethiopia following clues laid out
by Taita.

As the pair journey along together, they grow fond of each other's
company, with heart-felt love and romance.

They find the location of the tomb, but are then attacked by the
Pegasus group, which was also behind earlier attempts on Royan's life.
Once again Royan and Nicholas's work are stolen. They barely manage
to make it out alive.

It is revealed that the Pegasus group is owned by Herr von Schiller, a

ruthless German collector who will stop at nothing to get what he
wants. With the help of his right hand man Jake Helm, Colonel Nogo,
and Duraid's former assistants under his command, he acquires a
strong force that are willing to go to extreme lengths for his sake.
Colonel Nogo was put in charge of keeping Royan and Nicholas out of
their way and Duraid's assistant was in charge of exploiting the works
Nicholas and Royan discovered, while Jake Helm provided them with
Pegasus's facilities.

Meanwhile, with the help of an old friend of Nicholas, Mek Nimmur

(leader of a notorious force of Christian gangs, 'Shuftas'), Nicholas and
Royan sneak back into Ethiopia for the second time, but this time
illegally and with equipment to search for the treasure. Accompanying
them is an old fisherman who has knowledge of building dams. He is
employed under Nicholas's demand, to help in their quest.

With spies of Herr Von Schiller's gloating around Nicholas and Royans's
premises, the question of how Nicholas and Royan manage to find the
tomb and escape from von Schiller forms the rest of the novel.

Warlock

Warlock is a sequel to River God that details the later life of Taita 60
years on from the death of Lostris. Taita is no longer a slave but a
powerful warlock with great fame throughout Egypt and the
surrounding nations, and has become the most influential man in Egypt
through his close connection to the Pharaoh Tamose. The story begins
with Pharaoh Tamose, accompanied by his most trusted companion,
Lord Naja, marching towards the Hyksos main camp and planning a
surprise attack from the rear. Lord Naja, however, has deviously tricked
Pharaoh, for he is of Hyksos blood, and kills Pharaoh Tamose. However
no one sees this tragedy, and Naja convinces the army of Pharaoh that
he has been slain by the Hyksos and orders the army to retreat back to
Thebes. When Naja arrives at Thebes, he cunningly sways the council
members to appoint him as Regent, successfully obtaining power of
the Upper Kingdom. Meanwhile, Taita has been visited in a dream by
the former Queen Lostris, and he returns to Thebes and is appointed as
Nefer Seti's tutor, who is next in line for the throne.

As the story develops, Taita's talents are spotted by Naja and he is

appointed as his personal advisor. Naja then reveals to Taita that he is
no longer to be Nefer's tutor and is separated from him indefinitely.
Taita is aware of Naja's cruel intentions and the truth behind Pharaoh's
death, however he does not reveal this to Naja, and instead uses his
influence of him to gain some small control. Nefer's two sisters,
Heseret and Merykara are force-wedded to Naja and become his wives,
placing him next in line, after Nefer, through marriage. After
complications arise, Naja confides in Taita for advice on how to restore
peace between the two kingdoms. Taits suggests a treaty, and is sent
to King Apepi, the Hyksos leader, to require that he attends a meeting
between the two leaders. After a long debate which lasts many days, a
treaty is agreed and both leaders sign it, restoring peace throughout
the land. However, Apepi is killed not long after, and Trok, who was
Apepi's general, and is also related to Naja, takes the role of Regent of
the Lower Kingdom. All of Apepi's kin die, except Princess Mintaka, who
later becomes Nefer Seti's wife.

The two False Pharaohs join forces and begin an expedition to conquer
more land and extend their kingdom. Taita, using his vast knowledge
and cunning, rescues Mintaka from Trok and reunites her with Nefer
Seti, with whom she has fallen in love. The three, with loyal followers
such as Meren Cambyses, begin to build up their own army over the
next years. Nefer rescues his youngest sister, Merykara, who
immediately falls in love with Meren. However Heseret has fallen in
love with Naja, whom she was forced to marry, and is convinced he is
the one true ruler of Egypt. When Naja and Trok are both slain by the
combined efforts of Nefer, Taita and Meren, Heseret becomes
dillusional and kills her sister when she is captured along with Mintaka.
She escapes into the desert, determinedly searching for her long-dead
husband, but is caught by Nefer and punished for killing his sister.
Nefer hands her over to Meren and he kills her as revenge for killing
Merykara, to whom he was betrothed.

The story ends with Nefer taking his rightful place at the throne of
Egypt, with Queen Mintaka at his side, and with Taita and Meren
leaving Egypt on a journey which leads them to the next book, "The
Quest".

The Quest

Egypt is struck by a series of terrible plagues that cripple the kingdom,

and then the ultimate disaster follows. The Nile fails. The waters that
nourish and sustain the land dry up.

Something catastrophic is taking place in the distant and totally

unexplored depths of Africa, from where the mighty river springs. In
desperation the Pharaoh sends for Taita, the only man who might be
able to win through to the source of the Nile and discover the cause of
all their woes.

In this final adventure of Taita, the beloved Magus is now 156 years old
but through his powerful magic, has managed to live longer than most
people (with the exception of a few other magicians). He is sent to
investigate the blockage at the source of the Nile and defeat a
seeminly immortal witch named Eos. During his journey, he gains new
abilities as a Magus and can even detect the aura of living beings and
discern their personalities. Travelling with a small army which includes
his friend Meren, Taita finds a little girl living as a savage amongst a
tribe of cannibals. He rescues her and over the months that follow,
trains her to be decent and takes her under his wing. He names the girl
Fenn and it is revealed that she is the reincarnation of Lostris, Taita's
mistress who died at the end of River God. The group survives many
hazards and eventually comes across a paradise-like city called Jarri.
The original natives there are descended from a rebel group of
Egyptians who are mentioned in River God. They rule the seemingly
peaceful community by using fear, especially on the newcomers. It is
discovered that they are under the spell of Eos who plans to ravage
Egypt and then take it as her own Kingdom.

Local doctors eventually manage to regenerate Taita's castrated penis

and he becomes a whole man once more. However, this was planned
by Eos whose speciality is to absorb the power, youth and knowledge
from her victims through sex. Taita knows this all along and uses his
new "weapon" to defeat Eos. He then locates the Font (The Fountain of
Youth) and becomes young again.

The rebel Jarrians ally themselves to Taita and they flee back to Egypt,
but not before the Red Stones are cast down and the Nile flows again.
On the journey home, Fenn begins to have recurring nightmares about
Taita remaining forever young while she succumbs to old age and dies.
Taita therefore decides to leave Egypt with Fenn and search for the
Font (which can relocate itself) in order for Fenn to become immortal
also.

In a heartfelt climax, Taita bids farewell to his companion Meren, and

the Pharaoh Nefer Seti and the word is spread that The Magus had
fallen in battle. Egypt mourns his loss, and Taita uses the distraction to
leave with Fenn.

Criticisms
Critics of Wilbur Smith argue that his novels often contain sexist and
racist assumptions [1][2] and that they may have a political agenda.
Wilbur Smith has denied any such assumptions.[citation needed] Fans of
Smith[citation needed] argue that the assumptions or actions that these
critics refer to simply reflect the values and culture of a society at the
point in time the novels are set, and that the racist/sexist nature of
some of Smith's characters add historical accuracy and are not a
reflection of his personal beliefs and opinions.

List of Novels
Below is a list of all of Wilbur Smith's novels.

Courtney (chronologically)

• [When the Lion Feeds] 1964

• The Sound of Thunder 1966
• A Sparrow Falls 1977
• The Burning Shore 1985
• Power of the Sword 1986
• Rage'' 1987
• A Time to Die 1989
• Golden Fox 1990
• Birds of Prey 1997
• Monsoon 1999
• Blue Horizon 2003
• The Triumph Of The Sun 2005 (Courtney and Ballantyne)
• Assegai 2009

Ancient Egyptian

• River God 1993

• The Seventh Scroll 1995
• Warlock 2001
• The Quest 2007

Ballantyne

• A Falcon Flies aka Flight of the Falcon 1980

• Men of Men 1981
• The Angels Weep 1982
• The Leopard Hunts in Darkness 1984
• The Triumph Of The Sun 2005 (Courtney and Ballantyne)

Wilbur Smith has also written many standalone novels:

• The Dark of the Sun 1965

• Shout At the Devil 1968
• Gold Mine aka Gold 1970
• The Diamond Hunters 1971
• The Sunbird 1972
• Eagle in the Sky 1974
• The Eye of the Tiger 1975
• Cry Wolf 1976
• Hungry As the Sea 1978
• Wild Justice 1979
• Elephant Song 1991
Clive Cussler
Clive Eric Cussler (born July 15, 1931 in Aurora, Illinois)[1][2] is an
American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist.

Biography
Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra,
California. He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14.[3]
He attended Pasadena City College[4] for two years and then enlisted in
the United States Air Force during the Korean War. During his service in
the Air Force, he was promoted to Sergeant and worked as an aircraft
mechanic and flight engineer for the Military Air Transport Service
(MATS).[5]

Clive Cussler married Barbara Knight in 1955, and they remained

married for nearly fifty years until her death in 2003.[6] Together they
had three children, Teri, Dirk and Dayna who have given him four
grandchildren.

After his discharge from the military, Cussler went to work in the
advertising industry, first as a copywriter and later as a creative
director for two of the nation's most successful advertising agencies. [7]
As part of his duties Cussler produced radio and television
commercials, many of which won international awards including an
award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Following the publication in 1996 of Cussler's first nonfiction work, The

Sea Hunters, he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree in 1997 by
the Board of Governors of the State University of New York Maritime
College who accepted the work in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis.[8] This was the
first time in the college's 123-year history that such a degree had been
awarded.[9]

Cussler is a fellow of the Explorers Club of New York, the Royal

Geographic Society in London, and the American Society of
Oceanographers.[10]

Literary career
Clive Cussler began writing in 1965 when his wife took a job working
nights for the local police department where they lived in California.
After making dinner for the kids and putting them to bed he had no
one to talk to and nothing to do so he decided to start writing.[11] His
most famous creation is marine engineer, government agent and
adventurer Dirk Pitt. The Dirk Pitt novels frequently take on an
alternative history perspective, such as "what if Atlantis was real?", or
"what if Abraham Lincoln wasn't assassinated, but was kidnapped?"

The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, were
relatively conventional maritime thrillers. The third, Raise the Titanic!,
made Cussler's reputation and established the pattern that subsequent
Pitt novels would follow: A blend of high adventure and high
technology, generally involving megalomaniacal villains, lost ships,
beautiful women, and sunken treasure.

Cussler's novels, like those of Michael Crichton, are examples of

techno-thrillers that do not use military plots and settings. Where
Crichton strives for scrupulous realism, however, Cussler prefers
fantastic spectacles and outlandish plot devices. The Pitt novels, in
particular, have the anything-goes quality of the James Bond or Indiana
Jones movies, while also sometimes borrowing from Alistair MacLean's
novels. Pitt himself is a three-dimensional, larger-than-life hero
reminiscent of Doc Savage and other characters from pulp magazines.

Clive Cussler has had more than seventeen consecutive titles reach
The New York Times fiction best-seller list.

Life imitating art

As an underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered more than sixty

shipwreck sites[12] and has written non-fiction books about his findings.
He is also the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency
(NUMA), a non-profit organization with the same name as the fictional
government agency that employs Dirk Pitt. Cussler owns a large
collection of classic cars,[12] several of which (driven by Pitt) appear in
his novels.

Cussler's web site claims that NUMA discovered, among other

shipwrecks, the Confederate submarine Hunley. This claim is disputed
by underwater archaeologist E. Lee Spence who first reported finding it
in 1970[13] and there is a collection of evidence supporting Spence on
www.ShipWrecks.com. However, both claims appear to have elements
of truth. Spence described finding the partially exposed wreck of the
Hunley in 1970, but claimed it had been reburied by shifting sands
before he returned to photograph it. Spence claims he relocated it with
a magnetometer at various times in the 1970s but it was always buried
and without the proper permits was unable to do any excavation on the
site. The first expedition to dig into the site and bring back
videographic evidence was the 1994/1995 SCIAA/NUMA H.L. Hunley
expedition, directed by underwater archaeologist Dr. Mark M. Newell.
That was largely financed by Cussler, thus his claim to have discovered
it. Based on sworn statements by Dr. Newell, that expedition relied, at
least to some extent, on Spence's maps of his earlier work. The dive
team that took the video was led by diver Ralph Wilbanks who is on
NUMA's Board of Directors.

In what started as a joke in the novel Dragon that Cussler expected his
editor to remove, he now often writes himself into his books; at first as
simple cameos, but later as something of a deus ex machina, providing
the novel's protagonists with an essential bit of assistance or
information.

A regular name in Cussler novels was Leigh Hunt. Seventeen books

have had a character named Hunt appear in the opening prologues,
usually dying. In the introduction to "Arctic Drift," Cussler says there
was a real Leigh Hunt who died in 2007 and the novel is dedicated to
him.

Important finds by Cussler's N.U.M.A. include

The Carpathia. The ship famed for being the first to come to the aid of
Titanic survivors.

The Mary Celeste. The famed ghost ship that was found abandoned
with cargo intact.

The Manassas. The first ironclad of the civil war, formerly the
icebreaker Enoch Train.

Cinematization
• The first attempt to film one of Cussler's novels—Raise The
Titanic! (1980)—was a critical and commercial failure. Its failure
was widely attributed[by whom?] to a weak script, wooden acting,
poor special effects and the casting of Richard Jordan as Pitt.[14]

• Paramount Pictures released Sahara on April 8, 2005, starring

Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, Steve Zahn as Al Giordino,
William H. Macy as Admiral Sandecker, and Penélope Cruz as Eva
Rojas. Again the film was a box-office failure, which Cussler
blamed on the film not staying true to his storyline. Even before
the film was completed, Cussler and Crusader Entertainment (the
film's producers) filed lawsuits against each other in a dispute
over the film departing too severely from the novel.[15]
In May 2007, the trial jury delivered a mixed verdict, ordering Cussler
to pay Crusader $5 million (they were seeking $115 million) for making
derogatory comments about the film and encouraging his readers to
boycott it. The jury suggested Crusader pay Cussler $8.5 million for
second-picture rights to another book, but left that decision to Judge
John Shook since the option was never exercised. Cussler's attorney
indicated that he would end up with $3.5 million after paying Crusader
the $5 million previously ordered if the Judge rules in his favor. If not,
Cussler could be further sued by Crusader for lawyer fees. Some news
accounts have suggested that both sides may have ended up spending
more on legal costs than they were awarded, but each side would be
liable for the other's fees depending on the Judge's ruling. On January
8, 2008, Judge John Shook denied Cussler's claim for the $8.5 million,
making the author solely liable to Crusader for $5 million for breach of
contract.[16]

On 10 March 2009 Judge John P. Shook ordered Clive Cussler to pay

$13.9 million in legal fees to the production company that turned his
novel "Sahara" into a motion picture. In his ruling, Judge Shook agreed
with lawyers for Crusader Entertainment that an original contract
between the two parties called for an award of legal fees if either side
breached. "The issue boils down to whether the fees requested are
reasonable and necessary," Shook said. He concluded that they were.
Cussler sued Crusader in 2004, claiming the company reneged on a
contract that gave him approval rights over the film's screenplay.
Crusader, which is owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, countersued,
accusing Cussler of duping it into adapting his book into a film based
on an inflated number of novels sold. Jurors ruled in May 2007 in favor
of the production company, and the author was ordered to pay
Crusader $5 million.

Bibliography
Dirk Pitt adventure novels

(in chronological order)

1. The Mediterranean Caper (1973) NB: Released as "MAYDAY!" in

the United Kingdom.
2. Iceberg (1975)
3. Raise the Titanic! (1976)
4. Vixen 03 (1978)
5. Night Probe! (1981)
6. Pacific Vortex! (1983) NB: Was written before The Mediterranean
Caper.
 7. Deep Six (1984)
8. Cyclops (1986)
9. Treasure (1988)
10. Dragon (1990)
11. Sahara (1992)
12. Inca Gold (1994)
13. Shock Wave (1996)
14. Flood Tide (1997)
15. Atlantis Found (1999)
16. Valhalla Rising (2001)
17. Trojan Odyssey (2003)
18. Black Wind (2004)
19. Treasure of Khan (2006)
20. Arctic Drift (2008)

There is also a Dirk Pitt reference book:

• Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (1998)

Novels featuring Pitt's children, Dirk and Summer

(co-authored with Dirk Cussler)

• Valhalla Rising (2001), First mention of Dirk Jr. and Summer, (Part
Six, Chp. 58)
• Trojan Odyssey (2003)
• Black Wind (2004)
• Treasure of Khan (2006)
• Arctic Drift (2008)

NUMA Files adventure novels

(co-authored with Paul Kemprecos) This series of books focuses on Kurt

Austin, Team Leader of NUMA's Special Assignments division and his
adventures. Some characters from the Pitt novels appear such as
Sandecker, Rudi Gunn, Hiram Yaeger and St. Julien Perlmutter. Pitt
makes brief appearances in the books "Serpent", "White Death" and
"Polar Shift."

1. Serpent (1999)
2. Blue Gold (2000)
3. Fire Ice (2002)
4. White Death (2003)
5. Lost City (2004)
 6. Polar Shift (2005)
7. The Navigator (2007)
8. Medusa (June 2009)

The Oregon Files

(co-authored with Craig Dirgo on first two, Jack DuBrul on the rest) The
Oregon Files focuses on "The Oregon," introduced in "Flood Tide."
While appearing to be a decrepit freighter, it's actually a high-tech
advanced ship used by the Corporation, under the leadership of Juan
Cabrillo. The ship is run like a business, with its crew shareholders,
taking jobs for the CIA and other agencies to help stop terrorism and
other crimes. The crew is adept at disguises, combat, computer
hacking and more to aid their missions. Both Kurt Austin and Dirk Pitt
make a cameo in the fourth book, 'Skeleton Coast.' Juan speaks to Pitt
on the telephone, and Austin and Zavala appear at the end.

1. Golden Buddha (2003)

2. Sacred Stone (2004)
3. Dark Watch (2005)
4. Skeleton Coast (2006)
5. Plague Ship (2008)
6. Corsair (2009)

Isaac Bell tales

These books stand-alone from the other Cussler novels, set in the early
part of the 20th century. They center around Isaac Bell, a brilliant
investigator for the Van Dorn Detective agency. Like Pitt, Bell has an
affinity for automobiles and is a crack shot. The first book does reveal
Bell survives into 1950 with a wife and grown children.

• The Chase (2007)

• The Wrecker (November 17, 2009)

Upcoming books

• Medusa (June 2, 2009) Numa Files adventure novel

• Spartan Gold (September 1, 2009) Fargo Adventure novel
• The Wrecker (November 17, 2009) Isaac Bell novel

Non-Fiction

• The Sea Hunters: True Adventures With Famous Shipwrecks

(1996)
 • The Sea Hunters II: Diving the World's Seas for Famous
Shipwrecks (2002)
• Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (1998)

Children's Books

• The Adventures of Vin Fiz (2006)

Trivia
• In the novel Lost City, it is said that in the book The Island of
Doctor Moreau, Moreau turned humans into beasts when actually
he turned animals into near humans.
• Cussler is the father of Dirk Cussler, who co-wrote Black Wind
(2004) and the December 2006 release Treasure of Khan (2006)
• The Doxa Dive watch company has an official Clive Cussler
edition of their famous orange faced dive watch.
• The SS Oregon is based on the current State University of New
York Maritime College training ship the TS Empire State VI. The
ship's original name was the SS Oregon.

Colin Forbes
Colin Forbes was the principal pseudonym of British novelist
Raymond Harold Sawkins (born in Hampstead, London on 14 July
1923, died on 23 August 2006). Sawkins wrote over 40 books, mostly
as Colin Forbes. He was most famous for his long-running series of
thriller novels in which the principal character is Tweed, Deputy
Director of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Life
Sawkins attended The Lower School of John Lyon in Harrow, London. At
the age of 16 he started work as a sub-editor with a magazine and
book publishing company. He served with the British Army in North
Africa and the Middle East during World War II. Before his
demobilisation he was attached to the Army Newspaper Unit in Rome.
On his return to civilian life he joined a publishing and printing
company, commuting to London for 20 years, until he became
successful enough to be a full-time novelist.

Sawkins was married to a Scots-Canadian, Jane Robertson (born March

31, 1925, died 1993). Together they had one daughter, Janet.
Sawkins died of a heart attack on August 23, 2006.

Work
His first book, Snow on High Ground, was written under his own name
in 1966. Two more books in the Snow series were also published under
his own name. Over the next few years Sawkins experimented with
books under three pseudonyms: Richard Raine, Colin Forbes, and Jay
Bernard (though the latter is not to be confused with the UK poet).
Tramp in Armour was the first book published as Colin Forbes, in 1969.
Apart from a book called The Burning Fuse written as Jay Bernard in
1970, all subsequent books except one have been written as Forbes.

Sawkins was often quoted as personally visiting every location he

features in his books to aid the authenticity of the writing.

As a result, there is detailed description of the places where the action

in his books takes place. On the downside, though, the content of the
stories was often sorely lacking. Especially during the 90's, the plots
became repetitive. Forbes's favourite characters, the Tweed team,
were the centre of many of his novels. They would always be trying to
keep a devious millionaire from changing the world or simply ruling it.
The author seems to express his own right-winged views on topics such
as immigration, equality and the political climate of the UK through the
character of Tweed. For example, female characters in Forbes's novels
are not portrayed in a positive light. With the exceptions of Paula Grey,
Tweed's long standing number two, and the occasional femme fatal,
female characters tended to be dismissed as waitresses, receptionists
or prostitutes.[citation needed]

Critics were not too fond of these works of his, pointing out that
members of the team surrounding Tweed always remained unscathed
in even the most dangerous of circumstances. The laws of physics and
logics never seemed to concern Forbes. There are instances where
Tweed's team would kill people by throwing grenades while their
opposition was unable to use their machine guns because they were
out of reach. Some argue he was beginning to suffer from dementia. A
common thread in his later work was the incorporation of climatic
conditions, especially fog. His works are also notable for his frequent
inclusion of a prologue and epilogue. Plots in Forbes novels tend to be
rather thin and insubstantial. The writing can also be considered rather
simplistic, such as in its overuse of superlative forms.

Sawkins released some stories in the German language only, including

a novel he wrote in 1979 under the pseudonym Harold English.
Sawkins did not appear to welcome wide knowledge of his earlier
books, or the fact that Colin Forbes was a pseudonym. He preferred to
be known for just the books written as Forbes.

Just one of Forbes' novels was made into a film: Avalanche Express,
directed by Mark Robson and starring Lee Marvin and Robert Shaw,
which was released in 1979 to generally poor reviews.

His last book, The Savage Gorge, was published posthumously in

November 2006.

Bibliography
Raymond Sawkins

• Snow on High Ground (1966)

• Snow in Paradise (1967)
• Snow Along The Border (1968)

Richard Raine

• A Wreath for America (1967) (published in the United States as

The Corder Index)
• Night of the Hawk (1968)
• Bombshell (1969)

Jay Bernard

• The Burning Fuse (1970)

Colin Forbes

• Tramp In Armour (1969)

• The Heights of Zervos (1970)
• The Palermo Ambush (1972)
• Target 5 (1973)
• The Year of the Golden Ape (1974)
• The Stone Leopard (1975)
• Avalanche Express (1976)
• The Stockholm Syndicate (1981)
• Double Jeopardy (1982)
• The Leader and the Damned (1983)
• Terminal (1984)
• Cover Story (1985)
• The Janus Man (1987)
 • Deadlock (1988)
• The Greek Key (1989)
• Shockwave (1990)
• Whirlpool (1991)
• Cross of Fire (1992)
• By Stealth (1992)
• The Power (1994)
• Fury (1995)
• Precipice (1995)
• The Cauldron (1997)
• The Sisterhood (1997)
• This United State (1998)
• Sinister Tide (1999)
• Rhinoceros (2000)
• The Vorpal Blade (2001)
• The Cell (2002)
• No Mercy (2003)
• Blood Storm (2004)
• The Main Chance (2005)
• The Savage Gorge (2006)

Jack Higgins
Jack Higgins (born July 27, 1929) is the principal pseudonym of UK
novelist Harry Patterson. Higgins is the author of more than sixty
novels. Most have been thrillers of various types and, since his
breakthrough novel The Eagle Has Landed in 1975, nearly all have
been bestsellers. The Eagle Has Landed sold tens of millions of copies
worldwide[citation needed].

Life
Patterson was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. He moved to
Belfast, Northern Ireland with his mother after his parents' marriage
foundered, and was raised there amid religious and political violence.
First in Belfast and later in Leeds, Patterson proved to be an indifferent
student and left school without completing his studies.[citation needed] He
found a home in the British Army, however, and served two years as a
non-commissioned officer in the Household Cavalry on the East
German border during the 1950s. Patterson found, during his military
service, that he possessed both considerable sharpshooting skills and
considerable intelligence (scoring 147 on an army intelligence
test).[citation needed] After leaving the army, he returned to school, studying
sociology at London School of Economics and Political Science while
supporting himself as a driver and labourer. After completing his
degree, he worked for a time as a teacher and began writing novels in
1959. The growing success of his early work allowed him to take time
off from his teaching, and he eventually left the classroom to become a
full-time novelist. He currently lives in Jersey, in the Channel Islands,
and continues to publish a new novel annually.[citation needed]

Work
Patterson's early novels, written under his own name as well as under
the pseudonyms James Graham, Martin Fallon, and Hugh Marlowe, are
brisk, competent, but essentially forgettable thrillers that typically
feature hardened, cynical heroes, ruthless villains, and dangerous
locales. Patterson published thirty-five such novels (sometimes three or
four a year) between 1959 and 1974, learning his craft). East of
Desolation (1968), A Game for Heroes (1970) and The Savage Day
(1972) stand out among his early work for their vividly drawn settings
(Greenland, the Channel Islands, and Belfast, respectively) and offbeat
plots.

Patterson began using the pseudonym "Jack Higgins" in the late 1960s,
but it was the publication of The Eagle Has Landed in 1975 that made
"Higgins'" reputation. The Eagle Has Landed represented a step
forward in the length and depth of Patterson's work. Its plot (concerned
with a German commando unit sent into England to kidnap Winston
Churchill) was fresh and innovative (although the plot is clearly
reminiscent of Alberto Cavalcanti's wartime film Went the Day Well?),
and the characters had significantly more depth than in his earlier
work. One in particular stood out: Irish gunman, poet, and philosopher
Liam Devlin. Higgins followed The Eagle Has Landed with a series of
equally ambitious thrillers, including several (Touch the Devil,
Confessional, The Eagle Has Flown) featuring return appearances by
Devlin.

The third phase of Patterson's career began with the publication of Eye
of the Storm in 1992, a fictionalized retelling of an unsuccessful mortar
attack on Prime Minister John Major by a ruthless young Irish gunman-
philosopher named Sean Dillon, hired by an Iraqi millionaire. Cast as
the central character over the next series of novels it is apparent that
Dillon is in many ways an amalgamation of Patterson's previous heroes
- Chavasse with his flair for languages, Nick Miller's familiarity with
martial arts and jazz keyboard skills, Simon Vaughn's Irish roots, facility
with firearms and the cynicism that comes with assuming the
responsibility of administering a justice unavailable through a civilized
legal system.
Bibliography
Series

Paul Chavasse

• The Testament of Caspar Schultz (1962) aka The Bormann

Testament'
• Year of the Tiger (1963)
• The Keys of Hell (1965)
• Midnight Never Comes (1966)
• Dark Side of the Street (1967)
• A Fine Night for Dying (1969)
• Day of Judgment (1978)

Simon Vaughn

• The Savage Day (1972)

• Day of Judgement (1979) (a number of sources have this listed
as featuring Paul Chavasse, but they are in error; this is a prequel
to The Savage Day)

Nick Miller (writing as Harry Patterson)

• The Graveyard Shift (1965)

• Brought in Dead (1967)
• Hell Is Always Today (1968)

Liam Devlin

• The Eagle Has Landed (1975)

• Touch the Devil (1982)
• Confessional (1985)
• The Eagle Has Flown (1985)

Dougal Munro and Jack Carter

• Night of the Fox (1986)

• Cold Harbour (1989)
• Flight of Eagles (1998)

Sean Dillon

• Eye of the Storm (1992) aka Midnight Man

 • Thunderpoint (1993)
• On Dangerous Ground (1994)
• Angel of Death (1995)
• Drink with the Devil (1996)
• The President's Daughter (1997)
• The White House Connection (1998)
• Day of Reckoning (2000)
• Edge of Danger (2001)
• Midnight Runner (2002)
• Bad Company (2003)
• Dark Justice (2004)
• Without Mercy (2005)
• The Killing Ground (Feb 2008)
• Rough Justice (Aug 2008)
• Darker Place (Jan 2009)
• Wolf at the Door (Sep 2009)

Rich and Jade (written with Justin Richards)

• Sure Fire (2006)

• Death Run (2007)
• Sharp Shot (2009)
• First Strike (2009)

Non-Series Novels

Writing as Harry Patterson

• Sad Wind from the Sea (1959)

• Cry of the Hunter (1960)
• The Thousand Faces of Night (1961)
• Comes the Dark Stranger (1962)
• Hell Is Too Crowded (1962)
• The Dark Side of the Island (1963)
• Pay the Devil (1963)
• Thunder At Noon (1964) aka Dillinger
• Wrath of the Lion (1964)
• A Phoenix in the Blood (1964)
• The Iron Tiger (1966)
• Toll for the Brave (1971)
• To Catch a King (1979) aka The Judas Gate

Writing as Hugh Marlowe

• Seven Pillars to Hell aka Sheba (1963)

 • Passage By Night (1964)
• A Candle for the Dead (1966) aka The Violent Enemy

Writing as James Graham

• A Game for Heroes (1970)

• The Wrath of God (1971)
• The Khufra Run (1972)
• The Run to Morning (1974) aka Bloody Passage

Writing as Jack Higgins

• East of Desolation (1968)

• In the Hour Before Midnight (1969) aka The Sicilian Heritage
• Night Judgement At Sinos (1970)
• The Last Place God Made (1971)
• The Savage Day (1972)
• A Prayer for the Dying (1973)
• Storm Warning (1976)
• The Valhalla Exchange (1976)
• Solo (1980) aka The Cretan Lover
• Luciano's Luck (1981)
• Exocet (1983)
• A Season in Hell (1988)
• Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo (1989)
• Sheba (1995)

Duncan Kyle
John Franklin Broxholme (born June 11, 1930 Bradford, died June
2001[1]) is an English thriller writer who published fifteen novels in a
little over twenty years (1971-1993) using the pen name of Duncan
Kyle.

Reminiscent of the work of Desmond Bagley, Kyle's books typically

involve a tough, resourceful individual who unexpectedly becomes
involved in danger and intrigue in an exotic setting. A Cage of Ice, for
example, involves a London physician who accompanies a hand-picked
team of adventurers on a snowmobile journey across the Arctic to
rescue a defecting Soviet scientist. Green River High follows another
group of adventurers into the jungles of Borneo in search of a plane
that crashed there during World War II. Kyle's novels are, like those of
Bagley and Alistair MacLean, stronger on plot and setting than on
characterization. They are invariably well-crafted, however, and two--
The King's Commissar and The Dancing Men--are classics of the
historical fiction and historical detective story genres, respectively.

Works
A Cage of Ice

In A Cage of Ice, a British doctor living in New York, receives a mystery

package addressed to Professor Ed Ward. His name is Doctor Edwards.
Upon receiving the parcel, there are attempts on his life. He escapes
the murderers and begins to look for Mr. Ed Ward. Soon, he is
"kidnapped" by an agent of the US government. He is informed of who
Professor Ed Ward is, and is sent on a mission to the Arctic along with
an international cast of highly professional personages.

The following is from 'New and Noteworthy' By Patricia T. O'Conner;

February 15, 1987, New York Times.

'The C.I.A. airlifts a team into the Arctic to rescue a Russian scientist
held prisoner at a remote, frozen outpost in the Soviet Union. Duncan
Kyle's novel has a few special twists that are worth waiting for, Thomas
Lask said in The Times in 1971. He called it a good tight thriller that
provides first-rate armchair excitement with a tension that doesn't let
up until the last page.'

Flight Into Fear

John Shaw is a freelance pilot working for the company Airflo. He is told
by his boss, John Lennox, to deliver a parcel in San Francisco, and pick
up a customer. This passenger is supposed to be kept secret from
everybody. Shaw arrives in San Francisco, is kidnapped, and taken to a
Chinese Restaurant. He meets up with an anti-narcotics agent. Later,
Shaw and his passenger evade their pursuers through the San
Francisco bay. Eventually, they reach the plane and head to England.
Along the way, the aeroplane is hijacked and has numerous
malfunctions. Shaw discovers, upon arriving in England, his passenger
is not who he thought, and climaxes with a dizzying cat and mouse
chase.

The Suvarov Adventure (also released as 'A Raft of Swords.')

The following is from the back of the book.

'As plans go ahead for an International Peace Conference in Vancouver,
a number of shadowy, unrelated characters head towards the
Canadian shore.

They include:

A Greek shipping magnate with Russian connections

A British expert on 'mini-subs'

A team of frogmen with exaggerated 'American' accents

The head of the Russian sections of British Intelligence

When six Sword nuclear missiles are dislodged from the floor of the
ocean, the scene is set from some desperate international intrigue...'

Terror's Cradle

The following is from the back of the book.

'In Las Vegas journalist John Sellers, on a routine assignment to

interview a movie star. is run out of town after a treat on his life.

In Gothenberg Alison, the girl he plans to marry, disappears with a vital

piece of microfilm, leaving clues that only Sellers can understand.

In the Shetlands hunted by helicopter and powerboat, he pits his wits

against both CIA and KGB as he barters desperately for Alison's life...'

Whiteout (also released as 'In Deep.')

The following is from the summary on the back of the book.

'Camp Hundred lay a hundred miles from nowhere in one of the coldest
and most dangerous places on earth. And to this strange, hostile world
high above the Arctic Circle Harry Bowes had come to test the TK4 --
the most advanced hovercraft ever built -- and walked into a nightmare
on ice.

Isolated, dependent on technology for survival, 300 hand-picked

soldiers had been battling the freezing weather, the loneliness, the
fear. And now they were losing... as one by one they began to die.

Outside the camp raged a lethal blizzard, but Bowes suspected a more
deadly enemy waited within. And there was no escape... except in a
chilling race for survival against the merciless Arctic and a cold, brutal
killer.'

Black Camelot

The Following is from Reviving the Story-Telling Art, Time Magazine' Oct
30, 1978.

'Black Camelot is all Kyle guile. The novel is set in the waning months
of World War II, when the Third Reich's slimier survivors are engaged in
a last-ditch struggle.

The Nazis' scheme is to smuggle to the Soviets lists of Britons who

have supported the German war effort. Their hope is to inflame Stalin's
deep distrust of his allies. The plan goes agley when the documents,
hand-carried to Sweden, are used instead to blackmail English
industrialists.

Kyle's antihero is 35-year-old Hauptsturmführer Franz Rasch, a much

decorated Waffen SS commando. Assigned to deliver the lists in
Stockholm, he is betrayed by his bosses. His trail leads to neutral
Ireland and England and finally back to Germany. There the
disillusioned Rasch attempts to capture vital files from Schloss
Wewelsburg, the Black Camelot that Himmler assembled as a Teutonic
perversion of King Arthur's court. In one of the best siege narratives
since The Guns of Navarone, Rasch and other embittered SS men
infiltrate the monstrous castle at the same time that it is being
destroyed on Himmler's orders.

Happy endings are not the Kyle style. But time is a great provider.
Today, the author informs us, the castle has been reconstructed as a
youth hostel. Such truths are comforting; but it is fiction like Black
Camelot that makes history live.'

Stalking Point From the back of the book:

The Mission: Assassinate FDR and Churchill at their top secret meeting
aboard the battleship Prince of Wales.

The Plan: Commandeer the specially designed and lethal seaplane, the
Canso -- and take it on a suicide mission for the glory of Der Führer.

The Men: Ernie Miller, America's top acrobatics pilot, with the skill to fly
low, fast, and deadly... blackmailed into choosing between his country
and the woman he loves. Von Galen, the ruthless German diplomat
obsessed with being the man who can win the war for Hitler. Alec Ross,
crack test pilot, in an airborne race to stop his best friend from turning
traitor... by shooting him down.

The Semonov Impulse

This was also written under the pseudonym 'James Meldrum'

From the back of the book:

Josef Budzinski was a man of impulse...a man obsessed...a hot-headed

hunter of war criminals. Now his prize was within reach: Joachim
Schmidt, the Butcher of Leyerhausen, en route to Rome on an Aeroflot
jet. It was an impulse that triggered the hijack plan...another that set
him on a desperate run for his life. Now one more might redeem him
and place his hated quarry in his hands...It was the most dangerous
impulse of all. THE SEMONOV IMPULSE

The King's Commissar

The following is from Seymour Epstein, New York Times; May 20, 1984.

'The downfall of Russia's Czar Nicholas, the Bolshevik takeover and all
the murky, bloody doings in that corner of history are, and probably
will remain, as irresistible to novelists as catnip to cats. Duncan Kyle, a
British practitioner of the suspense genre, has peeked once again into
that corner with convoluted but engaging results. Although the novel is
set in the present, it revolves around a plot initiated in 1917 by
Britain's King George V and the nefarious Sir Basil Zaharoff to rescue
Czar Nicholas from the hands of the Bolsheviks. For their purpose they
employed an English naval officer, whose background made him as
fluent in Russian as he was in English, to offer $:50-million to the
harried Bolsheviks to save the Czar. Mr. Kyle's tale alternates between
the details of this plot (revealed through excerpts from the memoirs of
the naval officer) and current events in the English banking house that
is still paying out $:50,000 a year to an account in a Swiss bank, with
no questions asked. This sum has been paid out since 1920 even
though Sir Basil died in 1936. The British bank executives, in their
inimitable way, have never questioned the practice, but a new
American partner does question it and thereby sets into motion events
that have been lying dormant for almost 50 years. The mission to
Moscow, the Czar's immense gold treasure, the intrigues and passions
surrounding the capture of the royal family, and the devilishly clever
ruse the English naval officer uses to get both revenge and a final
airing of his story are all revealed in rococo detail.
Sometimes the turns become a bit too rococo, but a sense of humor
and a poignant sense of history combine to give The King's Commissar
a tense, sustained fascination'

The Dancing Men

The following is by John Gross, Books of the Times. New York Times.
Aug, 22, 1986.

'In The Dancing Men, on the other hand, the plot is emphatically what
counts. Most of the characterization is no more than adequate, and
there are some hefty implausibilities, but Duncan Kyle keeps your
curiosity simmering away too effectively for you to mind very much.

The background is political, with nothing less than the Presidency itself
at stake. A new candidate enters the lists, radiating charisma - a
natural choice, it would seem, for his party's nomination. But you can't
be too careful, and his advisers decide to check out everything about
him, including an Irish grandfather about whom almost nothing is
known. A genealogist is put on the trail, so discreetly that when the
man who hired him is killed in a car crash the other advisers don't
know how to contact him. But what they do know is that he has begun
to unearth a series of ever-deepening scandals.

Both the genealogist's hunt for the truth and the politicians' hunt for
the genealogist yield some exciting twists, in a plot that zigzags
halfway round the world. Toward the end of the story, though, there is
a certain running out of steam, as the chief villain turns out to be a bit
too melodramatic even by the prevailing standards.'

The Honey Ant

From the back of the book

The yellowed envelope goes to John Close, a young Perth solicitor. The
Green estate, eighty square miles of priceless lan in Western Australia,
has been left to Captain Strutt who lives on the other side of the world
in England. For John Close, it should be another routine matter. For
Strutt -- tough, resolute, touchy -- it could be a dream come true.

Both for both of them it quickly turns into a dance with death, as
mysterious and dangerous opponents try to thwart the terms of the
Will. As they struggle to unravel the knot that is stitched tight around
Stringer Station, sixty years of remote tranquility erupt into a brutal,
terrible violence...
Exit

The following is from the jacket cover.

'Who was Peterkin? Perth lawyer John Close knew him only as a client:
a strange, silent immigrant whom Close had defeated twice in court.
But now Peterkin's death in prison leaves Close with a mystery to
solve. Peterkin has left a bizarre trail of clues, in the form of glazed
pottery leaves, that will reveal first his own true identity, then the
secret that made him a hunted man for the greater part of his life.

Close follows the carefully laid trail -- from Western Australia to London
to Yorkshire -- a trail going back in time to the great refuge dispersals
of the Second World War. He's not the only one interested: there's a
remnant of the KGB, angry CIA operative and an unpleasant British SIS
agent, all intent on uncovering what Peterkin had hidden so carefully,
though no one knows quite what it might be. After a series of
breathtaking chases and dramatic escapes, Close discovers the secret
-- but if anything, the knowledge puts him into an even more
dangerous position.

Set against the momentous changes of recent history and building to a

set-piece climax of unrelenting tension, Duncan Kyle's thirteenth novel
will be welcomed by his many fans as one of his very best.'

Bibliography
Novels (as Duncan Kyle)

• A Cage of Ice (1970)

• Flight Into Fear (1972)
• The Suvarov Adventure (1973) paperback title "A Raft of Swords"
• Terror's Cradle (1974)
• The Semonov Impulse (1975) originally published using
pseudonym "James Meldrum"
• In Deep (1976) paperback title "Whiteout!"
• Black Camelot (1978)
• Green River High (1979)
• Stalking Point (1981)
• The King's Commissar (1983)
• The Dancing Men (1985)
• The Honey Ant (1988)
• Exit (1993)
Novels (as J.F. Broxholme)

• The War Queen (1967)

Non-fiction (as contributor John Franklin Broxholme)

• The Practice of Journalism (1968)

Non-fiction (uncredited editor)

• Stephen Ward Speaks (1963)

Craig Thomas
David Craig Owen Thomas (born 24 November 1942) is a Welsh
author of thrillers, notably the "Mitchell Gant" series.

He was educated at Cardiff High School and University College, Cardiff,

obtaining his M.A. in 1967. His best-known novel, Firefox (1977)
became a successful Hollywood film. Other books include: Snow Falcon
and A Different War. Although the invention of the techno-thriller genre
is often attributed to the better-known Tom Clancy, many feel that
Thomas was its true originator.

Most of Thomas's novels are set within MI-6 and feature the characters
of Sir Kenneth Aubrey and Patrick Hyde.

Bibliography
• Rat Trap – Michael Joseph, London (1976)
• Firefox – Michael Joseph, London (1977)
• Wolfsbane – Michael Joseph, London (1978)
• Moscow 5000 – Michael Joseph, London (1979) (as David Grant)
• Snow Falcon – Michael Joseph, London (1980)
• Emerald Decision – Michael Joseph, London (1980) (as David
Grant)
• Sea Leopard – Michael Joseph, London (1981)
• Jade Tiger – Michael Joseph, London (1982)
• Firefox Down – Michael Joseph, London (1983)
• The Bear's Tears – Michael Joseph, London (1985) (published in
the USA as Lion's Run)
• Winter Hawk – Collins, London (1987)
• All the Grey Cats – Collins, London (1988) (published in the USA
as Wildcat (1989))
 • The Last Raven – Collins, London (1990)
• A Hooded Crow – HarperCollins, London (1992)
• Playing with Cobras – HarperCollins, London (1993)
• A Wild Justice – HarperCollins, London (1995)
• A Different War – Little Brown, (1997)
• Slipping into Shadow – Little Brown, (1998)

A. J. Quinnell
A. J. Quinnell was the pen name of Philip Nicholson (born on June
25, 1940 in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, UK - died July 10, 2005 on Gozo,
Malta), a mystery and thriller writer. He traveled throughout his life and
several of the minor characters in his books are actual people he met.
He was married three times. His last wife, Elsebeth Egholm, is a Danish
mystery novelist. The couple resided on the island of Gozo and
Denmark.

When the author was getting ready to publish his first book, he decided
he wanted to keep his real identity a secret. During a conversation in a
bar, his agent (who is also J. K. Rowling's agent) told him he could use
a pseudonym. The author chose "Quinnell" after rugby union player
Derek Quinnell and "A. J." because they were the initials of the
bartender's son.

The author's best known creation was the character of Marcus Creasy,
an American-born former member of the French Foreign Legion. The
Creasy novels are cult favorites in Japan.

Man on Fire was adapted to film twice, in 1987 and 2004. This has
resulted in a wider demand for Quinnell's books, especially those
featuring Creasy, including The Blue Ring and Message From Hell.

Bibliography
• Man on Fire (1980) - Creasy
• The Mahdi (1981)
• Snap Shot (aka The Snap) (1982)
• Blood Ties (1985)
• Siege of Silence (1986)
• In the Name of the Father (1987)
• The Perfect Kill (1992) - Creasy
• The Shadow (1992)
• The Blue Ring (1993) - Creasy
• Black Horn (1994) - Creasy
 • Message from Hell (1996) - Creasy
• The Trail of Tears (1999)
• A Quiet Night in Hell (2001)
• The Scalpel (2001)

Walter Wager
Walter Herman Wager (September 4, 1924—July 11, 2004) was an
American novelist.

Wager grew up in the East Tremont section Bronx, N.Y., the son of a
Russian Jewish Immigrants; his father, Max, was a doctor and his
mother, Jessie, was a nurse. A graduate of Columbia University and the
Harvard Law School, he received a master's degree in aviation law
from Northwestern University in 1949. He was best known as an author
of mystery and spy fiction; his works included 58 Minutes, adapted to
become the action film Die Hard 2 in 1990. Two of his other novels also
became major motion pictures. The novel Telefon was adapted to
Telefon and Viper Three, which was released as Twilight's Last
Gleaming. Wager wrote a number of original novels in the 1960s, under
the pseudonym John Tiger, based upon the TV series I Spy and Mission:
Impossible.

Prior to making his reputation as a novelist, Wager a Fullbright Fellow

at the Sorbonne in Paris and diplomatic adviser to Israel's Director of
Civil Aviation. He was also a writer and producer for CBS radio, CBS
television, and NBC television and was editor-in-chief at Playbill from
1963 to 1966. In addition, Wager in public relations for ASCAP and the
University of Hartford.

He died in 2004 at Amsterdam House, a home for the elderly in

Manhattan.

Bibliography
• Death Hits the Jackpot (1954)
• Operation Intrigue (1956)
• I Spy (1965)
• I Spy #2: Masterstroke (1966)
• I Spy #3: Superkill (1967)
• I Spy #4: Wipeout (1967)
• I Spy #5: Countertrap (1967)
• I Spy #6: Doomdate (1967)
• Mission: Impossible (1967)
 • I Spy #7: Death-Twist (1968)
• Mission: Impossible #4: Code Name Little Ivan (1969)
• Sledgehammer (1970)
• Warhead (1971)
• Viper Three (1972)
• Swap (1973)
• Telefon (1975) adapted to movie Telefon 1977
• Time of Reckoning (1977)
• Blue Leader (1979)
• Blue Moon (1981)
• Designated Hitter (1982)
• Otto's Boy (1985)
• Raw Deal (1986)
• 58 Minutes (1987) adapted to movie Die Hard 2 1990
• The Spirit Team (1996)
• Tunnel (2001)
• Kelly's People (2002)

The I Spy and Mission: Impossible books were published under the
name "John Tiger". Operation Intrigue (1956) was published under
"Walter Hermann".

Gavin Lyall
Gavin Tudor Lyall (9 May 1932 - 18 January 2003) was a English
author of espionage thrillers.

Biography
Lyall was born in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, as the son of a
local accountant, and educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham.
After completing his two years of National Service, 1951 to 1953, as a
Pilot Officer in the Royal Air Force, he went to Pembroke College,
Cambridge University, graduating in 1956 with honours in English.

He worked briefly as a reporter for the Birmingham Gazette, Picture

Post and Sunday Graphic newspapers and then as a film director for
the BBC's Tonight programme. In 1958, he married the author
Katharine Whitehorn, with whom he was to have two sons.

Lyall lived in Hampstead and enjoyed sailing on the Thames in his

motor cruiser. From 1959 to 1962 he was a newspaper reporter and the
aviation correspondent for the Sunday Times. His first novel, The
Wrong Side of the Sky, was published in 1961, drawing from his
personal experiences in the Libyan Desert and in Greece. It was an
immediate success; P.G. Wodehouse said of it, "Terrific: when better
novels of suspense are written, lead me to them."[1] Lyall then left
journalism in 1963 to become a full-time author.

Lyall's first seven novels in the 1960s and early 1970s were action
thrillers with different settings around the world. The Most Dangerous
Game (1963) was set in Finnish Lapland, and was meticulously
researched with local details. The film rights to Midnight Plus One
(1965), in which an ex-spy is hired to drive a millionaire to
Liechtenstein were purchased by actor Steve McQueen, who had
planned to adapt it to the cinema before he died. Shooting Script
(1966) is about a former RAF pilot hired to fly a camera plane for a
filming company is set around the Caribbean. The protagonists of Judas
Country (1975) are again former RAF pilots, and the setting is now in
Cyprus and the Middle East.

Lyall is credited as co-writer (together with Frank Hardman and Martin

Davison) of the original story on which the screenplay of the 1969
science-fiction film Moon Zero Two is based.

Lyall won the British Crime Writers' Association's Silver Dagger award
in both 1964 and 1965. In 1966-67 he was Chairman of the British
Crime Writers Association. Lyall was not a prolific author, attributing his
slow pace to obsession with technical accuracy. According to a British
newspaper, “he spent many nights in his kitchen at Primrose Hill, north
London, experimenting to see if one could, in fact, cast bullets from
lead melted in a saucepan, or whether the muzzle flash of a revolver
fired across a saucer of petrol really would ignite a fire”. [2] He
eventually published the results of his research in a series of
pamphlets for the Crime Writers' Association in the 1970s. Lyall signed
a contract in 1964 by the investments group Booker similar to one they
had signed with Ian Fleming. In return for a lump payment of £25,000
and an annual salary, they and Lyall subsequently split his royalties,
51-49. [2]

Up to the publication in 1975 of Judas Country, Lyall's work falls into

two groups. The aviation thrillers (The Wrong Side Of The Sky, The
Most Dangerous Game, Shooting Script, and Judas Country), and what
might be called "Euro-thrillers" revolving around international crime in
Europe (Midnight Plus One, Venus With Pistol, and Blame The Dead). All
these books were written in the first person, with a sardonic style
reminiscent of the "hard-boiled private-eye" genre. Despite the
commercial success of his work, Lyall began to feel that he was falling
into a predicable pattern, and abandoned both his earlier genres, and
the first-person narrative, for his “Harry Maxim" series of espionage
thrillers beginning with The Secret Servant published in 1980. This
book, originally developed for a proposed BBC TV Series, featured
Major Harry Maxim, an SAS officer assigned as a security adviser to 10
Downing Street, and was followed by three sequels with the same
central cast of characters. In the 1990s Lyall changed literary direction
once again, and wrote four semi-historical thrillers about the fledgling
British secret service in the years leading up to World War I.

Lyall died of cancer in 2003.

Works
• The Wrong Side of the Sky (1961)
• The Most Dangerous Game (1963)
• Midnight Plus One (1965)
• Shooting Script (1966)
• Venus With Pistol (1969)
• Freedom's Battle: The War in the Air 1939-1945 (1971)
• Blame the Dead (1973)
• Judas Country (1975)
• Operation Warboard: How to Fight World War II Battles in
Miniature (1976) non-fiction, in collaboration with his son Bernard
Lyall
• The Secret Servant (1980)
• The Conduct of Major Maxim (1982)
• The Crocus List (1985)
• Uncle Target (1988)
• Spy's Honour (1993)
• Flight from Honour (1996)
• All Honourable Men (1997)
• Honourable Intentions (1999)

John Gardner
John Edmund Gardner (November 20, 1926 – August 3, 2007 ) was
[1]

an English spy novelist.

Early life
Gardner was born in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. [1] He graduated
from St. John's College, Cambridge and did postgraduate study at
Oxford. During World War II Gardner served in the Home Guard until he
became of age to volunteer for service in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm
then transferred to the Royal Marines 42 Commando serving in the
Middle East and Far East[2]. Gardner's father was a clergyman in the
Church of England and encouraged Gardner to follow his example.
Gardner was ordained and served as a priest for seven years before
deciding he did not have the proper vocation and withdrawing from the
clergy. He then worked as a journalist and theatre critic.

Career
In 1964, Gardner began his novelist career with The Liquidator, in
which he created a richly comic character named Boysie Oakes who
inadvertently is mistaken to be a tough, pitiless man of action and is
thereupon recruited into a British spy agency. Oakes is, in actuality, a
devout coward with many other character failings who wants nothing
more than to be left alone and is terrified by the situations into which
he is constantly being forced. The book appeared at the height of the
fictional spy mania and, as a send-up of the whole business, was an
immediate success. It was made into a movie by MGM of the same
title, and another seven light-hearted novels about the cowardly Oakes
appeared over the next 12 years.

Following the success of his Oakes books, Gardner continued to write

with new characters: Derek Torry, Herbie Kruger, and the Railton
family, which he intended as more serious works in the spy novel
genre. Gardner also wrote three novels (the third of which was never
released due to a dispute with the publisher) using the character of
Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes series.

In 1981, Gardner was asked to revive Ian Fleming's James Bond series
of novels. Between 1981 and 1996, Gardner wrote fourteen James
Bond novels, and the novelizations of two Bond films. While the books
were commercial successes, Gardner was ambivalent about writing
novels with a character he hadn't created. In 1996, Gardner officially
retired from writing Bond novels. Glidrose Publications quickly chose
Raymond Benson to continue the literary stories of James Bond.

In the late 1990s, Gardner stopped writing for several years due to a
prolonged battle with cancer and the death of his wife in 1997. Gardner
recovered and returned to print in 2001 with a new novel, Day of
Absolution, which was widely praised by critics. Gardner also began a
series of books with a new character, Suzie Mountford, a 1930s police
detective.

Death
Gardner died on Friday 3 August 2007 from suspected heart failure. He
collapsed while out shopping in Basingstoke, and thinking he had
fainted, called his daughter Alexis. He took a turn for the worse and
was rushed to hospital where he later died.[3] [1]

Bibliography
Boysie Oakes novels

• The Liquidator (1964)

• Understrike (1965)
• Amber Nine (1966)
• Madrigal (1967)
• Founder Member (1969)
• The Airline Pirates aka Air Apparent (1970)
• Traitor's Exit (1970)
• Killer for a Song (1976)

Two Boysie Oakes short stories in The Assassination File

Derek Torry novels

• A Complete State of Death (1969)

• Corner Men (1974)

Professor Moriarty novels

• Return of Moriarty (1974)

• Revenge of Moriarty (1975)
• Moriarty (2008)

Herbie Kruger novels

• Nostradamus Traitor (1979)

• Garden of Weapons (1980)
• Quiet Dogs (1982)
• Maestro (1993)
• Confessor (1995)

James Bond novels

• Licence Renewed (1981)

• For Special Services (1982)
• Icebreaker (1983) Considered by fans to be Gardner's best Bond
novel
 • Role of Honour (1984)
• Nobody Lives For Ever (1986)
• No Deals, Mr. Bond (1987)
• Scorpius (1988)
• Win, Lose or Die (1989)
• Licence to Kill (1989) - novelization of a film script
• Brokenclaw (1990)
• The Man from Barbarossa (1991)
• Death Is Forever (1992)
• Never Send Flowers (1993)
• SeaFire (1994)
• GoldenEye (1995) - novelization of a film script
• COLD aka Cold Fall (1996)

The Railton family novels

• Secret Generations (1985)

• The Secret Houses (1988)
• The Secret Families (1989)

Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford novels

• Bottled Spider (2002)

• The Streets of Town (2003)
• Angels Dining at the Ritz (2004)
• Troubled Midnight (2005)
• No Human Enemy (2007)

Other books

• Hideaway (1968) - short story collection

• The Censor (1970)
• Every Night's a Bullfight (1971)
• Assassination File (1974) - short story collection
• To Run a Little Faster (1976)
• The Werewolf Trace (1977)
• The Dancing Dodo (1978)
• Golgotha (1980)
• Garden of Weapons (1980)
• The Director (1982)
• Flamingo (1983)
• Day of Absolution (2001)

James Herbert
James Herbert (born 8 April 1943, London) is an English novelist
known for his work in the horror genre. He has been widely recognised
as a writer of simple yet compelling sensationalist novels, which are
notable for their use of horrific set pieces. His heroes are usually
young, rather cynical men, whose fight against the horror is abetted by
the growth of a strong sexual relationship.

Born in London, James Herbert has worked as a singer and the art
director of an advertising agency. Today, he lives near Brighton with his
wife and daughters, and is a full-time writer. He also designs his own
book covers and publicity.

Overview
His first two books, The Rats and The Fog, are gruesome disaster
novels, influenced by the science fiction works of John Wyndham. The
horror - man-eating Giant Black Rats in the first, an accidentally
released chemical weapon in the second - is symbolic of flaws in
society: urban poverty and neglect in The Rats, political and military
incompetence in The Fog. The premise of The Fog bears considerable
resemblance to that of George A. Romero's 1973 film The Crazies: as in
Romero's film, the chemical weapon induces violent psychosis in those
who are exposed to it. In both books, government authority is seen as
callous, bungling, and - despite the presence of honourable individuals
- inclined to cover up mistakes rather than look for solutions.

Herbert has written three sequels to The Rats; Lair deals with a second
outbreak of the mutants, this time in the countryside around Epping
Forest rather than in the first book's London slums; In Domain, one of
Herbert's bleakest and most ironic books, a nuclear war means that the
rats have become the dominant species in a devastated city. The third
sequel, the graphic novel The City, is an adventure set in the post-
nuclear future.

With his third novel, the ghost story The Survivor, Herbert used
supernatural horror rather than the science fiction horror of his first two
books. The Dark showed the novelist's moralistic stance in a powerful
story of a supernatural darkness which aggravates people's character
flaws into hideous evil. In Shrine he explored his Roman Catholic
heritage with the story of an apparent miracle which turns out to be
something much more sinister. He also showed that, despite his
apparently Christian beliefs, he was not afraid to show the Church in an
unflattering light.
Haunted, the story of a sceptical paranormal investigator taunted by
malicious ghosts, began life as a screenplay for the BBC, though this
was not the screenplay used in the eventual film version. The story is
somewhat after the fashion of Nigel Kneale, whose Quatermass stories
had influenced Herbert's first novels. Along with its sequel The Ghosts
of Sleath and Herbert's earlier The Magic Cottage, Haunted showed the
novelist essaying a greater subtlety of style and atmosphere.

Others of Herbert's books, such as Moon, Sepulchre and Portent, are

structured as thrillers, and include espionage and detective story
elements along with the supernatural, after the fashion of John
Blackburn. The Jonah is in large part the story of a police investigation,
albeit by a policeman whose life is overshadowed by a supernatural
presence. The Spear deals with a neo-Nazi cult in Britain and an
international conspiracy which includes a right-wing US general and a
sinister arms dealer. '48 is set in an alternate world of 1948 in which
the Second World War ended with the release of a devastating plague
by the defeated Hitler and, like The Spear, features British characters
who sympathise with the Nazis. Others presents the story of a
physically deformed private detective whose condition is explicitly
presented as a payoff for the immorality of his previous existence.

Herbert had previously tackled the theme of reincarnation in his fourth

novel, Fluke, which horrified his publishers because of its lack of
gruesome violence or explicit sex. Instead, it was a tragicomic
picaresque story of a dog who somehow remembers his previous life as
a human being. Rumbo, one of the characters from Fluke also turns up
in The Magic Cottage, which is also comparatively gentle by Herbert's
standards. Once..., an attempt at an "adult fairy tale", also includes
various in-jokes referring to Herbert's previous works, including another
reference to the character of Rumbo. Nobody True continues the theme
of life after death, being narrated by a ghost whose investigation of his
own death results in the destruction of his illusions about his life.

Herbert has described Creed as his Abbott and Costello Meet

Frankenstein. The ironically named Joe Creed is a cynical, sleazy
paparazzo who is drawn into a blackly comic plot involving fed-up and
underappreciated monsters. (The book's tagline was "Demons today
are a shoddy lot...") No one believes in anything any more, least of all
cynics like Creed, and the reader's own disbelief is actively solicited by
a highly intrusive narrative voice which constantly reminds us (e.g. by
referring to Creed as "our hero" or smugly informing the reader:
"You've just suffered a dramatic pause") that the story is only a story.

A new novel, The Secret of Crickley Hall, originally scheduled for

release in April 2006, was eventually released in October. A long novel
about a haunted country house in England, it examined the
relationship between religious zealotry and child abuse while revisiting
several Herbert themes: the psychic phenomena of Haunted and The
Ghosts of Sleath, the British anti-semitism of The Spear and '48 and
the nature of the afterlife as in Others and Nobody True. One of the
characters in this novel is named after a real person, who won the
honour by having the winning bid in the 2004 BBC Radio 2 Children in
Need Auction.

Various biographical and critical pieces by and about Herbert have

been collected in James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, edited by Stephen
Jones, and also in James Herbert: Devil in the Dark by Craig Cabell.

Herbert released a new novel every year between 1974 and 1988,
wrote six novels during the 1990s and to date has released three new
works in the 2000s.

"I am very insecure about being a writer", he stated in the book Faces
of Fear. "I don't understand why I am so successful. And the longer I
stay that way, the better it's going to be, because that's keeps me on
the edge, striving if you like."

Works
Novels

• The Rats (1974), made into a film in 1982 under the title Deadly
Eyes; adapted into a computer game for the Commodore 64 and
Sinclair Spectrum in 1985
• The Fog (1975) (not related to the John Carpenter film of the
same name)
• The Survivor (1976), made into a film of the same name in 1981
• Fluke (1977), made into a film in 1995
• The Spear (1978)
• Lair (1979)
• The Dark (1980)
• The Jonah (1981)
• Shrine (1983)
• Domain (1984)
• Moon (1985)
• The Magic Cottage (1986)
• Sepulchre (1987)
• Haunted (1988), made into a film in 1995
• Creed (1990)
• Portent (1992)
 • The City (1993),
• James Herbert's Dark Places
• The Ghosts of Sleath (1994)
• '48 (1996)
• Others (1999)
• Once (2001)
• Nobody True (2003)
• The Secret of Crickley Hall (2006)
• Untitled Third David Ash Novel (2009/10)

Short stories

• "Breakfast" (a chapter cut from some editions of Domain, about a

woman who continues with her chores after the armageddon)

Available in Scare Care, ed. Graham Masterton, Tor 1989 and

James Herbert: By Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

• "Maurice and Mog" (like "Breakfast" cut from some editions of

Domain, about a man living in his nuclear shelter with a cat)

Available in Masques #2, ed. J. N. Williamson 1987; The Best of

Masques, ed. J. N. Williamson, Berkley 1988; Dark Masques, ed. J.
N. Williamson, Kensington/Pinnacle 2001, and James Herbert: By
Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

• "Halloween's Child" (published in the Daily Mail)

Available in The Complete Masters of Darkness, ed. Dennis

Etchison, Underwood-Miller 1990; Masters of Darkness III, ed.
Dennis Etchison, Tor 1991, and James Herbert: By Horror
Haunted, NEL 1992.

• '"They Don't Like Us"

Available in A Feast of Stories by Britain’s Favourite Authors, ed.

Clare Francis & Ondine Upton, Pan 1997 and James Herbert: By
Horror Haunted, NEL 1992.

• "Extinct"

Available in James Herbert: Devil in the Dark, Craig Cabell, Metro

Publishing Ltd. 2003

• "Cora's Needs" (a restoration of a chapter from Sepulchre that

was cut down before publication)
 Available in James Herbert: Devil in the Dark, Craig Cabell, Metro
Publishing Ltd. 2003

Peter O'Donnell
Peter O'Donnell (born 11 April 1920 in Lewisham, London), is a
British writer of mysteries and of comic strips, best known as the
creator of Modesty Blaise, a female action hero / undercover trouble-
shooter / enforcer. He is also an historical romance novelist who wrote
under the female pseudonym Madeleine Brent.[1]

Biography
O'Donnell began to write professionally prior to World War II at the age
of 16. From 1938 and during the war he served as an NCO in mobile
radio detachment (3 Corps) of Royal Signals Corps in 9th army in Persia
in 1942. Afterwards his unit was moved to Syria, Egypt, the Western
Desert, Italy, and Greece in October 1944.

After the war O'Donnell began to script comic strips, including the
Daily Express adaptation of the James Bond novel, Dr. No. From 1953-
1966 he wrote for Garth, and from 1956-1962 Romeo Brown (with Jim
Holdaway as an artist).

In addition to the comic strips and graphic novels based on Modesty

Blaise, O'Donnell published two collections of short stories and twenty
novels. He wrote a play which was widely performed in the 1980s, "Mr.
Fothergill's Murder," and wrote for television and film. He also wrote for
women's magazines and children's papers early in his career.

His most famous creation, Modesty Blaise, was first published in 1963
in comic strip form. For the first seven years, the strip was illustrated
by Holdaway until his death in 1970. Enrique Badia Romero then
became the artist, and except for a seven-year period (1979-1986) he
drew the strip until it ended in 2001.

In 1965, O'Donnell novelized his screenplay for a motion picture

version (the final release of which in 1966 used virtually nothing of
O'Donnell's original material), which was published as Modesty Blaise.
This book was a huge success and O'Donnell would publish a dozen
more novels and short story collections until 1996. Kingsley Amis said
the novels were "endlessly fascinating"[1] and that Blaise and Garvin
were "one of the great partnerships in fiction, bearing comparison with
that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson." [2]

At the request of publisher Ernest Hecht, he began writing gothic

romance and adventure novels under the pen name of Madeline Brent.
The novels are not a series, but feature a variety of strong female
protagonists. They are written in first person, take place in the late
Victorian era, and although every protagonist has connections to
England, part of each book is set in various locations around the world
-- including China, Australia, Afghanistan, and Mexico. Identity -- the
need to discover who she really is -- is often a major part of the
protagonist's struggle.

In 2001, O'Donnell retired from writing the Modesty Blaise comic strip
and is said to have retired from full-time writing. Since 2003 he has
been writing the introductions for a series of Modesty Blaise comic strip
reprint volumes published by Titan Books. He was also interviewed by
director Quentin Tarantino for a special feature included on the DVD
release of the 2002 film My Name Is Modesty, which was based on his
creation.

O'Donnell is on record as stating it is his wish that no one else write

any future Modesty Blaise stories, but it remains to be seen whether
this will hold true.

In 2007, working with young women students at Bullers Wood and

Newstead Wood schools, he established an official Web site, Modesty
Blaise, Ltd.

Bibliography
The Modesty Blaise book series consists of:

• Modesty Blaise (1965)

• Sabre-Tooth (1966)
• I, Lucifer (1967)
• A Taste for Death (1969) (not to be confused with the novel of
the same name by P. D. James)
• The Impossible Virgin (1971)
• Pieces of Modesty (1972) (short stories)
• The Silver Mistress (1973)
• Last Day in Limbo (1976)
• Dragon's Claw (1978)
• The Xanadu Talisman (1981)
• The Night of Morningstar (1982)
 • Dead Man's Handle (1985)
• Cobra Trap (1996) (short stories)

O'Donnell has also written romance books and television (Take a Pair
of Private Eyes) and movie (Revenge of She) scripts.

"Mr. Fothergill's Murder" first opened on 25 October 1982 at the Duke

of York theatre, London, and was published by the English Theatre
Guild. Among others, it was performed at the English Theatre of
Hamburg in the 1987-88 season.

His other famous books are historical romances written under the
pseudonym Madeleine Brent. The fact that Brent was O'Donnell was
not made public until after the publication of the last of the Brent
books.

Books written under the name Madeleine Brent:

• Tregaron's Daughter (1971)

• Moonraker's Bride (1973)
• Kirkby's Changeling (1975) (also as Stranger at Wildings)
• Merlin's Keep (1977)
• The Capricorn Stone (1979)
• The Long Masquerade (1981)
• A Heritage of Shadows (1983)
• Stormswift (1984)
• Golden Urchin (1986)

Daniel Carney
Daniel Carney (1944 - 1987) was a popular novelist. Three of his
novels have been made into films.

Daniel Carney was born in Beirut in 1944. In 1963 he settled in

Rhodesia and joined the British South Africa Police, where he served for
three and a half years. In 1968 he co-founded the real-estate firm Fox
and Carney in Salisbury, Rhodesia.

Published Works
The Whispering Death (1969) made into a movie by the name
Whispering Death a.k.a. Night of the Askaris a.k.a. Albino[1], set in
Rhodesia.
The Wild Geese ISBN 0552108693 (originally titled The Thin White
Line) (1977) made into a movie with Reginald Rose (author of 12 Angry
Men) as screenplay writer[2]. Set in a central African state.

Under a Raging Sky (1980), set in Rhodesia. The film was optioned by
the producer of The Wild Geese and Wild Geese II Euan Lloyd but was
not filmed.[3]

The Square Circle (republished as The Wild Geese II and The Return of
the Wild Geese ISBN 0553253808) (1982), made into a movie by the
name of Wild Geese II[4]. Set in Germany.

Macau (1985), set in Macau.

Hammond Innes
Ralph Hammond Innes (July 1, 1913 – June 10, 1998) was an English
author who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel
books.

Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex and educated at the Cranbrook

School in Kent. He left in 1931 to work as a journalist, initially with the
Financial Times (at the time called the Financial News). The
Doppelganger, his first novel, was published in 1937. In WWII he
served in the Royal Artillery, eventually rising to the rank of Major.
During the war, a number of his books were published, including
Wreckers Must Breathe (1940), The Trojan Horse (1941) and Attack
Alarm (1941); the last of which was based on his experiences as an
anti-aircraft gunner during the Battle of Britain. After being demobbed
in 1946, he worked full-time as a writer, achieving a number of early
successes. His novels are notable for a fine attention to accurate detail
in descriptions of places, such as in Air Bridge (1951), set partially at
RAF Gatow, RAF Membury after its closure and RAF Wunstorf during the
Berlin Airlift.

Innes went on to produce books in a regular sequence, with six months

of travel and research followed by six months of writing. Many of his
works featured events at sea. His output decreased in the 1960s, but
was still substantial. He became interested in ecological themes. He
continued writing until just before his death. His last novel was Delta
Connection (1996).

Unusually for the thriller genre, Innes' protagonists were often not
"heroes" in the typical sense, but ordinary men suddenly thrust into
extreme situations by circumstance. Often, this involved being placed
in a hostile environment (the Arctic, the open sea, deserts), or
unwittingly becoming involved in a larger conflict or conspiracy. The
protagonist generally is forced to rely on his own wits and making best
use of limited resources, rather than the weapons and gadgetry
commonly used by thriller writers.

Four of his early novels were made into films: Snowbound (1948) from
The Lonely Skier (1947), Hell Below Zero (1954) from The White South
(1949), Campbell's Kingdom (1957) from the book of the same name
(1952), and The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) also from the book of
the same name (1956). His 1973 novel Golden Soak was adapted into
a six-part television series in 1979.

Innes' great love and experience of the sea, as an experienced

yachtsman, was reflected in many of his novels. At his death he left the
bulk of his estate to the Association of Sea Training Organisations, to
enable others to gain training and experience in sailing the element he
loved.

Novels
• The Doppelganger (1937)
• Air Disaster (1937)
• Sabotage Broadcast (1938)
• All Roads Lead to Friday (1939)
• Wreckers Must Breathe (1940)
• The Trojan Horse (1940)
• Attack Alarm (1941)
• Dead and Alive (1946)
• Killer Mine (1947)
• The Lonely Skier (1947)
• The Blue Ice (1948)
• Maddon’s Rock (1948)
• The White South (1949)
• The Angry Mountain (1950)
• Air Bridge (1951)
• Campbell’s Kingdom (1952)
• The Strange Land (1954)
• Wreckers must breathe (1955?)
• The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1956)
• The Land God Gave to Cain (1958)
• The Doomed Oasis (1960)
• Atlantic Fury (1962)
• The Strode Venturer (1965)
• Levkas Man (1971)
 • Golden Soak (1973)
• North Star (1975)
• The Big Footprints (1977)
• Solomons Seal (1980)
• The Black Tide (1982)
• High Stand (1985)
• Medusa (1988)
• Isvik (1991)
• Target Antarctica (1993)
• Delta Connection (1996)

• The Last Voyage: Captain Cook’s Lost Diary (fiction) (1978)

• Some non-fiction, including Sea and Sky, Sea and Islands and
children's literature

Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter (born March 25, 1946) is an American novelist,
essayist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic. He currently resides in
Columbia, Maryland.

Biography
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Hunter grew up in Evanston, Illinois as
one of 10 children to Charles Francis Hunter, a Northwestern University
speech professor, and Virginia Ricker Hunter, a writer of children's
books. After graduating from Northwestern in 1968 with a degree in
journalism, he spent two years in the United States Army as a
ceremonial soldier in The Old Guard (3rd Infantry Regiment) in
Washington, D.C., and later wrote for a military paper, the Pentagon
News.

He joined The Baltimore Sun in 1971, working at the copy desk of the
newspaper's Sunday edition for a decade. He became its film critic in
1982, a post he held until moving to The Washington Post in the same
function in 1997. According to Metacritic he generally grades films
lower than the average critic (While working for the Baltimore Sun, it
was a joke that if Stephen Hunter didn't like a film, you probably
would). He is a frequent guest on The Tony Kornheiser Show for his
movie reviews. In 1998 Hunter won the American Society of
Newspaper Editors Distinguished Writing Award in the criticism
category, and in 2003 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. After
a divorce, he married current Baltimore Sun columnist Jean Marbella in
2005. He has two children.

While respected for his film criticism, Hunter is more widely known for
his thriller novels. Of these, Point of Impact, Black Light and Time to
Hunt form a trilogy featuring Vietnam veteran and sniper Bob "the
Nailer" Swagger. (The 2007 film Shooter was based on Point of
Impact.) Hot Springs, Pale Horse Coming, and Havana form another
trilogy centered on Bob Swagger's father, Earl. His novels are all
violent, a theme on which he once commented, "My feelings about
violence are very powerful. It seems to provoke my imagination in an
odd way, because the only one who can create a new world is
me."[citation needed]

Many of Hunter's novels take place within a single loosely-defined

world; even those which do not star the same main characters often
feature links to each other. The Bob Lee Swagger story Black Light
builds on the events and characters of Dirty White Boys, and has a
cameo appearance by one of the main characters from The Second
Saladin. Time to Hunt, the third of the Bob Lee Swagger novels,
includes a small role for Dick Puller, a main character in The Day
Before Midnight. Black Light also contains a brief but crucial off-screen
appearance of Frenchy Short, the CIA agent and Earl Swagger protege
who appears in The Second Saladin, Hot Springs and Havana; Short's
life is intertwined with those of both Bob Lee and Earl, and his history
and character are gradually revealed over the course of these three
books.

Hunter's novels are known for their intricate plotting, with great
complexities that are, however, resolved by the story's end. At the
same time, in each novel the exposition is always done from the point
of view of one or several characters, in an intensely subjective (and
sometimes lyrical) way peculiar to that character, and this very
successfully humanizes what might otherwise seem an overly
complicated plot. The combination of these two features is somewhat
unusual in modern thriller writing, and may be responsible for some of
the novels' popularity.

President Bill Clinton was famously pictured during the Monica

Lewinsky affair holding a copy of Time to Hunt, an association that
affected Hunter's decision not to name Mena as the county seat of Polk
County, Arkansas, in Pale Horse Coming, due to "a whole conspiracy
culture based around suspicions that Bill Clinton used the Mena airport
to ship cocaine into Arkansas."[1]
Hunter has written three non-fiction books: Violent Screen: A Critic's 13
Years on the Front Lines of Movie Mayhem (1995), a collection of
essays from his time at The Sun; American Gunfight (2005), an
examination of the November 1, 1950 assassination attempt on Harry
S. Truman at Blair House in Washington, D.C.; and Now Playing at the
Valencia (2005), a collection of pieces from The Washington Post.
Hunter has also written a number of non-film-related articles for the
The Post, including one on Afghanistan: "Dressed To Kill—From Kabul to
Kandahar, It's Not Who You Are That Matters, but What You Shoot". The
47th Samurai, continuing the story of Bob Lee Swagger, was published
in September 2007. His newest novel, Night of Thunder, another Bob
Lee Swagger installment, was published in 2008.

Works
Novels

• 1980 The Master Sniper

• 1982 The Second Saladin
• 1985 Target (film novelization)
• 1985 The Spanish Gambit (reissued as Tapestry of Spies)
• 1989 The Day Before Midnight
• 1993 Point of Impact
• 1994 Dirty White Boys
• 1996 Black Light
• 1998 Time to Hunt
• 2000 Hot Springs
• 2001 Pale Horse Coming
• 2003 Havana
• 2007 The 47th Samurai
• 2008 Night of Thunder

Non-fiction

• 1995 Violent Screen: A Critic's 13 Years on the Front Lines of

Movie Mayhem
• 2005 Now Playing at the Valencia : Pulitzer Prize-Winning Essays
on Movies
• 2005 American Gunfight : The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the
Shoot-out that Stopped It

Robert Katz
Robert Katz (born 27 June 1933) is an American novelist,
screenwriter, and non-fiction author.[1]

Katz was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Sidney and Helen Katz,
née Holland, and married Beverly Gerstel on September 22, 1957. The
couple had two sons: Stephen Lee Katz, Jonathan Howard Katz.

He studied at Brooklyn College 1951-53 then went on to being a

photojournalist, filmmaker, United Hias Service, NYC 1953-57. As a
writer he began at the American Cancer Society in New York (1958-63)
and then at the United Nations in New York and Rome (1963-64). He
has been a freelance writer since 1964.

He has fulfilled academic roles at numerous institutions, including

being Visiting Professor of Investigative Journalism at the University of
California, Santa Cruz (1986-92). Awarded an ongoing Guggenheim
Fellowship in 1970, he has also been a fellow of Adlai E. Stevenson
College; University of California during 1986 to 1992. He becane a
grantee of the American Council Learned Societies in 1971; and a
recipient of the Laceno d'Oro (best screenplay) award at the Neorealist
Film Festival in Avellino, Italy (1983).

Katz lives in Tuscany, Italy.

Non-fiction writings
• Death in Rome, Macmillan, 1967.
• Black Sabbath: A Journey through a Crime against Humanity,
Macmillan, 1969.
• The Fall of the House of Savoy, Macmillan, 1971.
• A Giant in the Earth, Stein & Day, 1973.
• Days of Wrath: The Ordeal of Aldo Moro, the Kidnapping, the
Execution, the Aftermath, Doubleday, 1980. (Pulitzer Prize
nomination 1981)
• Il caso Moro (with G. Ferrara and A. Balducci) , Pironti, 1987.
• Love is Colder than Death: The Life and Times of Rainer Werner
Fassbinder, Random House, 1987.
• Naked by the Window: The Fatal Marriage of Carl Andre and Ana
Mendieta, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1990.
• Dossier Priebke, Rizzoli, 1997.
• The Battle for Rome: the Germans, the Allies, the Partisans and
the Pope, September 1943-June 1944, Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Novels
 • The Cassandra Crossing, Ballantine, 1976.
• Ziggurat, Houghton, 1977.
• The Spoils of Ararat, Houghton, 1978.

Filmography
• Massacre in Rome (1973) (book "Death in Rome") (screenplay)
• The Cassandra Crossing (1976) (screenplay) (story)
• The Salamander (1981) (writer)
• La pelle (1981) (screenplay)
• Kamikaze 1989 (1982) (writer)
• Dolce e selvaggio (1983) (English dialogue)
• Il Caso Moro (1986) (book Days of Wrath) (screenplay)
• Il Cugino americano (1986) (story)
• Hotel Colonial (1987) (writer)
• La Peste (1992) (narration)
• The Contractor (2007) (V) (story)

Christopher Wood
Christopher Wood (November 5, 1935 in London) is an English
screenwriter and novelist best known under the pseudonym 'Timothy
Lea' for the Confessions series of novels and films. Under his own
name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who
Loved Me (1977 with Richard Maibaum) and Moonraker (1979).

Wood was the first author to write novelizations of Bond films. His
novelization of The Spy Who Loved Me, renamed James Bond, The Spy
Who Loved Me to avoid confusion with Ian Fleming's original novel, has
nothing in common with the Fleming book. Similarly, the plot of
Moonraker, renamed James Bond and Moonraker, is almost entirely
written by Wood, although it does share some similarities with
Fleming's original novel, in particular the villain Sir Hugo Drax. Bond
fans generally rate Wood's novelizations highly. Kingsley Amis wrote in
the The New Statesman that, despite several reservations, "Mr Wood
has bravely tackled his formidable task, that of turning a typical late
Bond film, which must be basically facetious, into a novel after Ian
Fleming, which must be basically serious. ... the descriptions are
adequate and the action writing excellent."

Wood was also responsible for the Confessions series of novels and
their film adaptations, written under the pseudonym 'Timothy Lea'.
Wood also created a female counterpart, Rosie Dixon, and these were
likewise written in the first person perspective and published
pseudonymously under the name "Rosie Dixon". Although nine Rosie
Dixon novels were published, only one was made into a film, Rosie
Dixon - Night Nurse (1978). The other titles were Confessions of a
Night Nurse, Confessions of a Gym Mistress, Confessions From an
Escort Agency, Confessions of a Lady Courier, Confessions From a
Package Tour, Confessions of a Physical WRAC, Confessions of a Baby
Sitter, Confessions of a Personal Secretary, and Rosie Dixon, Barmaid.

He also wrote the 1985 action film Remo Williams: The Adventure
Begins with Fred Ward, which was directed by former Bond director
Guy Hamilton.

Wood has also written many novels. His novels divide into four groups:
semi-autobiographical literary fiction, historical fiction, adventure
novels, and pseudononymous humorous erotica.

Novels

Ye
Title Notes
ar

1 literary fiction (reissued in

Make It Happen to Me
969 paperback as Kiss Off 1970)

1
"Terrible Hard", Says Alice literary fiction
970

1
John Adam - Samurai historical fiction
971

1
John Adam in Eden historical fiction
973

1 The Further Adventures of

historical fiction
976 Barry Lyndon by Himself
1 James Bond, The Spy Who adventure novel / James Bond
977 Loved Me novelization

1 adventure novel / James Bond

James Bond and Moonraker
979 novelization

1 WWII adventure novel (published in

Fire Mountain
979 the U.S. as North to Rabaul)

1
Dead Centre woman's adventure novel
980

1
Taiwan adventure novel
981

1
A Dove Against Death WWI adventure novel
983

1
Kago adventure novel
985

Sincere Male Seeks Love and

2
Someone to Wash His literary fiction [1]
004
Underpants

2
California, Here I Am literary fiction [2]
004

2
James Bond, The Spy I Loved memoirs
006
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE (April 16, 1922 – October 22, 1995)
was an English novelist, poet, critic and teacher. He wrote more than
twenty novels, three collections of poetry, short stories, radio and
television scripts, and books of social and literary criticism. According
to his biographer, Zachary Leader, Amis was 'the finest British comic
novelist of the second half of the twentieth century'.[1] He is the father
of the English novelist Martin Amis.

Biography
Kingsley Amis was born in Clapham, south London, the son of William
Robert Amis, a mustard manufacturer's clerk.[2] He was educated at the
City of London School, and in April 1941 was admitted to St. John's
College, Oxford, where he read English. It was there that he met Philip
Larkin, with whom he formed the most important friendship of his life.
After only a year, he was called up for Army service in July 1942. After
serving in the Royal Corps of Signals in the Second World War, Amis
returned to Oxford in October 1945 to complete his degree. Although
he worked hard and got a first in English in 1947, he had by then
decided to give much of his time to writing. In 1946, he became a
member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

In 1946 he met Hilary Bardwell, and they married in 1948. He became

a lecturer in English at the University of Wales Swansea (1949–61).[3]
Amis achieved popular success with his first novel Lucky Jim, which
was considered to have 'caught the temper' of Britain in the 1950s[4]
and ushered in a new style of fiction.[5] By 1972, in addition to
impressive sales in Britain, one and a quarter million paperback copies
had been sold in the United States, and it was eventually translated
into twenty languages, including Czech, Hebrew, Korean, and Serbo-
Croat.[6] The novel won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction and
Amis was associated with the writers labelled the Angry Young Men.
Lucky Jim was the first British campus novel, setting a precedent for
later generations of writers such as Malcolm Bradbury, David Lodge,
Tom Sharpe and Howard Jacobson. As a poet, Amis was associated with
The Movement.

During 1958-59 he made the first of two visits to the United States,
where he was Visiting Fellow in Creative Writing at Princeton University
and a visiting lecturer in other northeastern universities. On returning
to Britain, he felt in a rut, and he began looking for another post; after
thirteen years at Swansea, Amis became a fellow of Peterhouse at
Cambridge (1961–63). He regretted the move within a year, finding
Cambridge an academic and social disappointment and resigned in
1963, intent on moving to Majorca; he went no further than London.[7][8]

In 1963, Hilary discovered Kingsley's love affair with novelist Elizabeth

Jane Howard. Hilary and Kingsley separated in August; he went to live
with Jane. He divorced Hilary in 1965, and then married Jane the same
year; Jane and Kingsley divorced in 1983. In his last years, Amis shared
a house with his first wife Hilary and her third husband, Alastair Boyd,
7th Baron Kilmarnock. Hilary and Kingsley Amis had three children,
among them novelist Martin Amis, who wrote the memoir Experience
about the life and decline of his father.

Kingsley Amis was knighted in 1990. In August 1995 he fell, suffering a

suspected stroke. After apparently recovering, he worsened, was re-
admitted to hospital, and died on 22 October 1995 at St Pancras
Hospital, London.[9][10] He was cremated; his ashes are at Golders Green
Crematorium.

Literary work
Amis is chiefly known as a comedic novelist of mid- to late-20th
century British life, but his literary work extended into many genres —
poetry, essays and criticism, short stories, food and drink writing,
anthologies and a number of novels in genres such as science fiction
and mystery. His career initially developed in a pattern which was,
ironically, the inverse of that followed by his close friend Philip Larkin.
Before becoming known as a poet, Larkin had published two novels;
Amis, on the other hand, originally wished to be a poet, and turned to
writing novels only after publishing several volumes of verse. He
continued throughout his career to write poetry which is known for its
typically straightforward and accessible style, which yet often, e. g. in
“Bookshop Idyll” or “Against Romanticism”, masks a nuance of
thought, just as it does in his novels.

Amis’s first novel, Lucky Jim (1954), is perhaps his most famous. Taking
its germ from Amis's observation of the common room at the
University of Leicester, where his friend Larkin held a post,[11] the novel
satirizes the high-brow academic set of a redbrick university, seen
through the eyes of its protagonist, Jim Dixon, as he tries to make his
way as a young lecturer of history. The novel was perceived by many
as part of the Angry Young Men movement of the 1950s which reacted
against the stultifications of conventional British life, though Amis
never encouraged this interpretation. Amis’s other novels of the 1950s
and early 1960s similarly depict situations from contemporary British
life, often drawn from Amis’s own experiences. That Uncertain Feeling
(1955) centres on a young provincial librarian (again perhaps with
reference to Larkin, librarian at Hull) and his temptation towards
adultery; I Like It Here (1958) presents Amis’s contemptuous view of
“abroad” and followed upon his own travels on the Continent with a
young family; Take a Girl Like You (1960), perhaps Amis’s second best-
known novel, steps away from the immediately autobiographical, but
remains grounded in the concerns of sex and love in ordinary modern
life, tracing the courtship and ultimate seduction of the heroine Jenny
Bunn by a young schoolmaster, Patrick Standish.

With The Anti-Death League (1966), Amis begins to show some of the
experimentation — with content, if not with style — which would mark
much of his work in the 1960s and 70s. Amis’s departure from the
strict realism of his early comedic novels is not so abrupt as might first
appear. He had avidly read science fiction since a boy, and had
developed that interest into the Christian Gauss Lectures of 1958,
while visiting Princeton University. The lectures were published in that
year as New Maps of Hell: a Survey of Science Fiction, a serious but
light-handed treatment of what the genre had to say about man and
society. Amis was particularly enthusiastic about the dystopian works
of Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth, and in New Maps of Hell coined
the term "comic inferno" to describe a type of humorous dystopia,
particularly as exemplified in the works of Robert Sheckley. Amis
further displayed his devotion to the genre in editing, with the
Sovietologist Robert Conquest, the science fiction anthology series
Spectrum I–V, which drew heavily upon 1950s numbers of the
magazine Astounding Science Fiction.

Though not explicitly science fiction, The Anti-Death League takes

liberties with reality not found in Amis’s earlier novels, and introduces
a speculative bent into his fiction, one which would continue to develop
in other of his genre novels, such as The Green Man (1969)
(mystery/horror) and The Alteration (1976) (alternate history). Much of
this speculation was about the improbable existence of any benevolent
deity involved in human affairs. In The Anti-Death League, The Green
Man, The Alteration and elsewhere, including poems such as “The
Huge Artifice: an interim assessment” and “New Approach Needed,”
Amis showed frustration with a God who could lace the world with such
cruelty and injustice, and championed the preservation of ordinary
human happiness — in family, in friendships, in physical pleasure —
against the demands of any cosmological scheme. The matter of
Amis’s religious views is perhaps ultimately summed up in his
response, reported in his Memoirs, to the Russian poet Yevgeny
Yevtushenko’s question, in his broken English: “You atheist?” Amis
replied, “It’s more that I hate Him.”
During this time, Amis had not turned completely away from the
comedic realism of Lucky Jim and Take a Girl Like You. I Want It Now
(1968) and Girl, 20 (1971) both depict the “swinging” atmosphere of
London in the late '60s, in which Amis certainly participated, though
neither book is strictly autobiographical. Girl, 20, for instance, is
framed in the world of classical (and pop) music, of which Amis was not
a part — the book’s relatively impressive command of musical
terminology and opinion shows both Amis’s amateur devotion to music
and the almost journalistic capacity of his intelligence to take hold of a
subject which interested him. That intelligence is similarly on display
in, for instance, the presentation of ecclesiastical matters in The
Alteration, when Amis was neither a Roman Catholic nor, for that
matter, a devotee of any Church.

Throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s, Amis was regularly producing
essays and criticism, principally for journalistic publication. Some of
these pieces were collected in 1968’s What Became of Jane Austen?
and Other Essays, in which Amis’s wit and literary and social opinions
were on display ranging over books such as Colin Wilson’s The
Outsider (panned), Iris Murdoch’s debut novel Under the Net (praised),
or William Empson’s Milton’s God (inclined to agree with). Amis’s
opinions on books and people tended to appear (and often, be)
conservative, and yet, as the title essay of the collection shows, he was
not merely reverent of “the classics” and of traditional morals, but was
more disposed to exercise his own rather independent judgment in all
things.

Amis became associated with Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, which
he greatly admired, in the late 1960s, when he began composing
critical works connected with the fictional spy, either under a
pseudonym or uncredited. In 1965, he wrote the popular The James
Bond Dossier under his own name. That same year, he wrote The Book
of Bond, or, Every Man His Own 007, a tongue-in-cheek how-to manual
about being a sophisticated spy, under the pseudonym "Lt Col. William
('Bill') Tanner", Tanner being M's Chief of Staff in many of Fleming's
Bond novels. In 1968 the owners of the James Bond franchise
attempted to continue the series by hiring different novelists, all of
whom were to publish under the pseudonym "Robert Markham". In the
event, Amis's Colonel Sun was the only Bond novel to be published
under that name.

With the possible exception of The Old Devils, a Booker Prize winner,
Amis's literary style and tone changed significantly after 1970; several
critics accused him of being old fashioned and misogynistic, while
others said his output lacked the humanity, wit and compassion of
earlier efforts.
This period also saw Amis the anthologist, a role in which his wide
knowledge of all kinds of English poetry was on display. The New
Oxford Book of Light Verse (1978), which he edited, was a revision of
the original volume done by W. H. Auden. Amis took the anthology in a
markedly new direction; where Auden had interpreted light verse to
include “low” verse of working-class or lower-class origin, regardless of
subject matter, Amis defined light verse as essentially light in tone,
though not necessarily simple in composition. The Amis Anthology
(1988), a personal selection of his favourite poems, grew out of his
work for a London newspaper, in which he selected a poem daily and
presented it with a brief introduction.[12]

Personal life and political views

As a young man at Oxford, Amis briefly joined the Communist Party. He
later described this stage of his political life as "the callow Marxist
phase that seemed almost compulsory in Oxford." [13] Amis remained
nominally on the Left for sometime after the war, declaring in the
1950's that he would always vote for the Labour Party. [14]But he
eventually moved further right, a development he discussed in the
essay "Why Lucky Jim Turned Right" (1967); his conservativism and
anti-communism can be seen in such later works of his as the
dystopian novel Russian Hide and Seek (1980).

Amis was by his own admission and as revealed by his biographers a

serial adulterer for much of his life. Inevitably this was one of the main
contributory factors in the breakdown of his first marriage. A famous
photograph of a sleeping Amis on a Yugoslav beach shows the slogan
(written by wife Hilly) on his back "1 Fat Englishman - I fuck anything".

In one of his memoirs, Amis wrote: "Now and then I become conscious
of having the reputation of being one of the great drinkers, if not one of
the great drunks, of our time".[15] He suggests that this is due to a
naive tendency on the part of his readers to apply the behaviour of his
characters to himself. This was disingenuous; the fact was that he
enjoyed drink, and spent a good deal of his time in pubs. Hilary
Rubinstein, who commissioned Lucky Jim, commented "I doubted
whether Jim Dixon would have gone to the pub and drunk ten pints of
beer ... I didn't know Kingsley very well, you see".[16] Clive James
comments: "All on his own, he had the weekly drinks bill of a whole
table at the Garrick Club even before he was elected. After he was, he
would get so tight there that he could barely make it to the taxi."[17]
Amis was, however, adamant in his belief that inspiration did not come
from a bottle: "whatever part drink may play in the writer's life, it must
play none in his or her work."[15] That this was certainly the case is
attested to by Amis's highly disciplined approach to writing. For 'many
years',[18] Amis imposed a rigorous daily schedule upon himself in
which writing and drinking were strictly segregated. Mornings were
devoted to writing with a minimum daily output of 500 words.[19] The
drinking would only begin around lunchtime when this output had been
achieved. Amis's prodigious output would not have been possible
without this kind of self discipline. Nevertheless, according to Clive
James, Amis reached a turning point when his drinking ceased to be
social, and became a way of dulling his remorse and regret at his
behaviour toward Hilly. "Amis had turned against himself deliberately
... it seems fair to guess that the troubled grandee came to disapprove
of his own conduct." His friend Christopher Hitchens ironically said,
"The booze got to him in the end, and robbed him of his wit and charm
as well as of his health."[20]

Family
Amis was married firstly for fifteen years to Hilary Bardwell[21], daughter
of a shoe millionaire,[22] by whom he had two sons and one daughter.

1. Philip Amis, a graphics designer, who is divorced and

remarried.[23][22]
2. Martin Amis the novelist; who has been twice married, firstly in
1984 (divorced) to Antonia Phillips, a widowed Bostonian
philosophy teacher, with two sons Louis and Jacob, and then to
Isabel Fonseca with two daughters.[23]
He also has an illegitimate daughter named Delilah.[24]
3. Sally Amis, who died 2000.[23]

He married 2ndly the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, by whom he had

no issue. At the end of his second marriage, he went to live with his ex-
wife Hilary and her third husband, in a deal brokered by their two sons
Philip and Martin, so that he could be cared for until his death.[23]

Raymond Benson
Raymond Benson (born September 6, 1955) is an American author
best known for being the official author of the adult James Bond novels
from 1997 to 2003. Benson was born in Midland, Texas and graduated
from Permian High School in Odessa in 1973. In primary school Benson
took an interest in the piano which would later in his life develop into
an interest in composing music. Benson also took part in drama at
school and became the vice president of his high school's drama
department an interest that he would later pursue by directing stage
productions. Other hobbies include films, writing, and designing
computer games.

James Bond works

In 1996, John Gardner resigned from writing Bond books. Glidrose
Publications promptly chose Benson to replace him. As a James Bond
novelist, Raymond Benson was initially controversial for being
American, and for ignoring much of the continuity established by
Gardner. Benson had previously written The James Bond Bedside
Companion, a book dedicated to Ian Fleming, the official novels, and
the films. The book was initially released in 1984 and later updated in
1988. It was nominated for an Edgar Award by Mystery Writers of
America in the Best Biographical/Critical Work category. Benson also
contributed to the creation of a module in the popular James Bond 007
role-playing game in the 1980s. In total, Benson wrote six James Bond
novels, three novelizations, and three short stories. He was the first
Bond author since Ian Fleming to write short stories, although Benson's
stories are uncollected unlike Fleming who had two anthology books
published.

Glidrose changed its name to Ian Fleming Publications commencing

with Benson's novel, High Time to Kill. Benson resigned from writing
Bond books in 2003.

1. "Blast from the Past" (short story, 1997)

2. Zero Minus Ten (1997)
3. Tomorrow Never Dies (novelization, 1997)
4. The Facts of Death (1998)
5. "Midsummer Night's Doom" (short story, 1999)
6. "Live at Five" (short story, 1999)
7. The World Is Not Enough (novelization, 1999)
8. High Time to Kill (1999)
9. Doubleshot (2000)
10. Never Dream of Dying (2001)
11. The Man with the Red Tattoo (2002)
12. Die Another Day (novelization, 2002)

Benson's novel The Man with the Red Tattoo inspired the government
of Japan's Kagawa Prefecture in 2005 to erect a permanent museum
(the "007 Man with the Red Tattoo Museum", dedicated to the book)
and honor Benson with the title of Goodwill Ambassador.
In 2008 High Time to Kill, Doubleshot, Never Dream of Dying and his
1997 short story "Blast from the Past" were grouped and released as
an omnibus called The Union Trilogy.

Other works
Since authoring Bond novels, Benson has had a number of books
published, including original suspense novels Face Blind (2003), Evil
Hours (2004), and Sweetie's Diamonds (2006) as well as the non-fiction
work The Pocket Essential Guide to Jethro Tull (Jethro Tull biography)
(2002).

In 2004, Benson began writing the first of two books based on the
acclaimed video game series, Splinter Cell, although both are credited
to the pseudonym, David Michaels. Further titles in the Splinter Cell
series have also been credited to David Michaels, but were not
authored by Benson. The first book, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell was
published in 2004 followed by Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Operation
Barracuda in 2005.

In 2008 Benson wrote A Hard Day's Death about a private investigator

who looks into the death of a rock star. The book spawned a series with
the second novel due out in 2009 called Dark Side of the Morgue.

Benson also wrote the novelization to the video game Metal Gear Solid
in 2008[1] and will follow that up in 2009 with a novelization of Metal
Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.

Raymond Benson continues to write a series of classic film reviews for

the publication "Cinema Retro".

Matthew Reilly
Matthew John "Matty" Reilly (born 2 July 1974 in Sydney) is an
Australian action thriller writer. His novels are noted for their fast pace,
twisting plots and intense action.

Biography
After graduating from Sydney's St. Aloysius' College[1] in 1992, Reilly
wrote his first book Contest in 1994 whilst studying law at the
University of New South Wales[2], where he was also a contributor to
the student law society publication "Poetic Justice". It was rejected by
every major publishing company in Sydney, leading Reilly to self-
publish 1,000 copies using money borrowed from his family.
Unfortunately, some books were stolen from the back of his car and
the original Contest books have become such a rarity that they have
been known to fetch up to $300.

Reilly went to a bookstore in Sydney and asked if he could place the

copies on one of their book shelves. They accepted the offer and
placed them up. Very shortly after, the books had sold out and the
owner of the bookstore called Reilly to order more books.

One copy was read by Cate Patterson, Commissioning Editor for Pan
Macmillan and signed Reilly up for Ice Station, which became an
international best-seller.

In the years to come, he wrote Temple, Area 7, and Scarecrow, which

have since been published in over fifteen countries, including Norway,
Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany,
The Netherlands, South Africa, Japan and China.

Reilly's main influences include Michael Crichton, Steven Spielberg,

George Lucas, and possibly [Karl V]. His latest work is a novel called
The Six Sacred Stones, the sequel to Seven Deadly Wonders.

Matthew Reilly has completed an eleven minute trailer that depicts the
beginning sequences of his book Contest. This trailer will form the
basis of promotions in Hollywood to help secure funding/distribution for
a full length film of Contest directed by himself.

In August 2005, as part of the Australian Books Alive Promotion, Reilly

penned the novella Hell Island, a close-to-100-page short story
following on from Scarecrow.

Reilly owns and drives a De Lorean, modified to have the driver's seat
on the right-hand side, one of only a few in Australia. He also has a life-
size replica of Han Solo encased in carbonite.[3]

Heroes
Many of Reilly's heroes are men with distinguishing features, three of
them acquired during a previous life-defining experience; the
exception, William Race, the hero of Temple, has a triangular birthmark
on his cheek just under his left eye. Shane Schofield, nicknamed
"Scarecrow", the hero of Ice Station and its sequels Area 7, Hell Island
and Scarecrow, bears two scars across his eyes from when he was
captured and tortured. Stephen Swain, the main character of Contest,
has a scar on his upper lip from when he confronted a gunman in the
hospital where he worked. The Australian hero of Seven Deadly
Wonders, Jack West Jr, has a bionic arm from when he was forced to
plunge his hand through a wall of lava to escape a room. There is only
one exception to this rule - Jason Chaser, the 14-year-old child from
Hover Car Racer. All of Reilly's heroes are adept at finding solutions to
the many problems they encounter.

Books
Stand alone novels

• 1996 Contest (Self-published in 1996; published by Pan

Macmillan in 2000)
• 1999 Temple (appears to be set in the same universe as Reilly's
other novels, is referred to in passing in both Area 7 and
Scarecrow.

[The Shane Schofield series

See Shane Schofield

• 1998 Ice Station

• 2001 Area 7
• 2003 Scarecrow
• 2005 Hell Island (Novella which was an Australian "Books Alive"
exclusive; reworked version for people with reading difficulties,
released for the "Quick Reads" program in UK

The Jack West Jr series

• 2005 Seven Ancient Wonders (Also known as Seven Deadly

Wonders in the U.S.)
• 2007 The Six Sacred Stones (Sequel to Seven Ancient Wonders)
• 2009 The Five Greatest Warriors (Sequel to The Six Sacred
Stones)(Being released 20 October 2009)[4]

Hover Car Racer

• 2004 Hover Car Racer (released online at

www.hovercarracer.com; published by Pan Mac same
year)Printed version illustrated by Roy Govier
• 2005 Crash Course (US release only; 1st third of Hover Car Racer
novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi)
 • 2006 Full Throttle (US release only; 2nd third of Hover Car Racer
novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi)
• 2007 Photo Finish (US release only; final third of Hover Car Racer
novel, illustrated by Pablo Raimondi)

David Morrell
David Morrell (born April 24, 1943 in Kitchener, Ontario) is a
Canadian novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood,
which would later become a successful film franchise starring Sylvester
Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated
into 26 languages.[1] He has also written the 2007-2008 Captain
America comic book miniseries The Chosen.

Early life and career

Morrell decided to become a writer at the age of 16, after being
inspired by the writing in the classic television series Route 66. Morrell
moved to the United States in 1966 to study with Hemingway scholar
Philip Young at Pennsylvania State University, where he would
eventually receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in American literature. During his
time at Penn State he also met science fiction writer Philip Klass, better
known by the pseudonym William Tenn, who taught the basics of
writing fiction.[1]

Morrell began work as an English professor at the University of Iowa in

1970. In 1972, his novel First Blood was published; it would eventually
be made into the 1982 film of the same name starring Sylvester
Stallone. Morrell continued to write many other novels, including The
Brotherhood of the Rose, the first in a trilogy of novels, which was
adapted into a 1989 NBC miniseries starring Robert Mitchum.
Eventually tiring of the two professions, he gave up his tenure at the
university in 1986 in order to write full time.[1]

Morrell had a son named Matthew, who died of a rare form of bone
cancer in 1987. The trauma of his loss influenced Morrell's work, in
particular in his memoir about Matthew, Fireflies, and the novel
Desperate Measures, whose main character experiences the loss of a
son.[1]

Morrell is the co-president of the International Thriller Writers

organization.[1]

Personal life
Morrell is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for
wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of
Corporate Security. He is also an honorary lifetime member of the
Special Operations Association and the Association of Former
Intelligence Officers.[1]

According to his website, he has been trained in firearms, hostage

negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-
terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes
in his novels.[1]

Bibliography
Fiction

• 1972 First Blood aka Rambo I - Alone against everyone

• 1975 Testament
• 1977 Last Reveille
• 1979 The Totem
• 1982 Blood Oath
• 1983 The Hundred-Year Christmas - illustrated by R. J. Krupowicz
• 1984 Brotherhood of the Rose
• 1985 Fraternity of the Stone
• 1985 Rambo: First Blood Part II aka Rambo II - Mission in the
Apocalips
• 1987 The League of Night and Fog
• 1988 Rambo III aka Rambo III - The price of friendship
• 1990 Fifth Profession
• 1991 The Covenant of the Flame
• 1993 Assumed identity
• 1994 Desperate Measures
• 1994 The Totem - unabridged
• 1996 Extreme Denial
• 1998 Double Image
• 1998 Front Man
• 1999 Black Evening
• 2000 Burnt Sienna
• 2002 Long Lost
• 2003 The Protector
• 2004 Nightscape
• 2005 Creepers
• 2007 Scavenger
• 2008 The Spy Who Came for Christmas

Nonfiction
 • 1976 John Barth: An Introduction
• 1988 Fireflies
• 2002 Lessons from a Lifetime of Writing: A Novelist Looks at His
Craft

Comic books

• 2007 - 2008 Captain America: The Chosen

Jack Du Brul
Jack Du Brul (1968- ) is a New York Times Best-Selling Author from
Vermont who writes techno thrillers. Born in Burlington, Vermont on
October 15, 1968, he remained in Vermont all through his childhood,
though he did go to a private school, Westminster, in Connecticut for
grades 9 through 12. After college he moved to Florida where he wrote
his first book. He has since moved back to Vermont.

Writing in a similar manner to writer Clive Cussler, his own novels focus
on his character, Dr. Philip Mercer, a successful mining engineer and
geologist, who gets involved in various threats to the world.

Jack Du Brul has written seven Phillip Mercer books: Vulcan's Forge,
Charon's Landing, The Medusa Stone, Pandora's Curse, River of Ruin,
Deep Fire Rising, and Havoc.

Recently, he has been co-authoring "The Oregon Files" novels with

Clive Cussler, taking over from Craig Dirgo with the third novel. He has
coauthored Dark Watch, Skeleton Coast, Plague Ship, and Corsair so
far.

Phillip Mercer
Phillip Mercer is a geologist by trade; he received his Bachelor’s degree
and his PhD from Penn State. In between those degrees at Penn State,
he received a master’s degree from the Colorado School of Mines. He is
called Mercer by everyone who knows him. He has never been married
though he was once engaged to an English detective by the name of
Tori Wilkes. Mercer lives in a brownstone in Washington DC. He is
frequently found at his local pub by the name of Tiny's. His best friend
is an 80+ year old veteran by the name of Harry White. Harry is a
sworn bachelor and content "alcohol enthusiast" with one leg.
Phillip Mercer, a man's man of sorts, is replete with his own personal
trademarks similar to Cussler's Dirk Pitt. He is known to quaff a
Heineken in a few gulps and then open a second. His drink of choice is
a vodka gimlet as opposed to tequila while his choice sidearm is a
Beretta 92FS as opposed to a Colt 1911. He makes his appearance in
Vulcan's Forge in a black Jaguar SJS convertible, which is destroyed
during his escape from Ivan Kerikov's henchmen. A similar car, a Jaguar
SJX with tan interior, cellular phone, CD player, and an aftermarket
turbo charger is given to him by Dick Henna, the head of the FBI, as a
replacement.

Works
Phillip Mercer

• Vulcan's Forge (1998)

• Charon's Landing (1999)
• The Medusa Stone (2000)
• Pandora's Curse (2001)
• River of Ruin (2002)
• Deep Fire Rising (2003)
• Havoc (2006)

Oregon Files (with Clive Cussler)

• Dark Watch (2005)

• Skeleton Coast (2006)
• Plague Ship (2008)
• Corsair (2009)

Peter Tonkin
Peter Francis Tonkin born 1950 is the author of the critically acclaimed
"Mariner" series that have been compared with the books of Alistair
MacLean, Desmond Bagley and Hammond Innes.

Bibliography
Richard Mariner Series

1. The Coffin Ship (1989)

2. The Fire Ship (1990)
3. The Leper Ship (1992)
 4. The Bomb Ship (1993)
5. Iceberg (1994)
6. The Pirate Ship (1995)
7. Meltdown (1996)
8. Tiger Island (1997)
9. Hell Gate (1998)
10.Powerdown (1999)
11.High Water (2000)
12.Thunder Bay (2001)
13.Titan 10 (2004)
14.Wolf Rock (2005)
15.Resolution Burning (2006)
16.Cape Farewell (2006)
17.The Ship Breakers (2007)
18.High Wind in Java (2007)
19.Benin Light (2008)

Master of Defence Series

1. The Point of Death (2001)

2. One Head Too Many (2002)
3. The Hound of the Borders (2003)
4. The Silent Woman (2003)

Non Series Fictions

1. Killer (1978)
2. The Journal of Edwin Underhill (1981)
3. The Action (1996)
4. The Zero Option (1997)

Arthur Hailey
Arthur Hailey (April 5, 1920 – November 24, 2004) was a
British/Canadian novelist.

Biography
Born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, Hailey served in the Royal Air
Force from the start of World War II in 1939 until 1947, when he went
to live in Canada. After working at a number of jobs and writing part-
time, he became a full-time writer in 1956, encouraged by the success
of the CBC television drama, Flight into Danger (in print as Runway
Zero Eight). Following the success of Hotel in 1965, he moved to
California; in 1969, he moved to the Bahamas to avoid Canadian and
U.S. income taxes, which were claiming 90% of his income.

Each of his novels has a different industrial or commercial setting and

includes, in addition to dramatic human conflict, carefully researched
information about the way that particular environments and systems
function and how these affect society and its inhabitants.

Critics often dismissed Hailey's success as the result of a formulaic

potboiler style in which he centered a crisis on an ordinary character,
then inflated the suspense by hopping among multiple related
plotlines. However, he was so popular with readers that his books were
guaranteed to become best-sellers.

He would spend about one year researching a subject, followed by six

months reviewing his notes and, finally, about 18 months writing the
book. That aggressive research — tracking rebel guerrillas in the
Peruvian jungle at age 67 for The Evening News (1990), or reading 27
books on the hotel industry for Hotel - gave his novels a realism that
appealed to readers, even as some critics complained that he used it
to mask a lack of literary talent.

Many of his books have reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller
list and more than 170 million copies have been sold worldwide in 40
languages. Many have been made into movies and Hotel was made
into a long-running television series. Airport became a blockbuster
movie with stunning visual effects.

A Canadian citizen whose children live in Canada and California, Hailey

made his home in Lyford Cay, an exclusive residential resort on New
Providence Island in the Bahamas with his second wife Sheila (who
wrote "I Married a Best-Seller" in 1978). Hailey's grandchildren include
Paul Hailey, Emma Hailey, Charlotte Hailey and Brooke Hailey, who are
students in Northern California; Ryan Hailey, a talented young bass
player and vocalist in a San Francisco band [1] and the more lyrically
conscious "Erogenous Jones" [2], described as "music that humiliates
my mother but makes my uncles proud"; and Chris Hailey, who is
completing an audio engineering degree in Seattle, Washington.

Hailey died in 2004.

Bibliography
• Runway Zero-Eight (1958) - in-flight medical emergency, caused
by food poisoning; spoofed in the movie Airplane!. This story
 started as the CBC TV movie Flight into Danger, then became the
1957 Paramount Pictures movie Zero Hour!, and was finally
published as the novel Runway Zero-Eight (ISBN 0-440-17546-1).
• The Final Diagnosis (1959) - hospital politics as seen from the
pathology department
• In High Places (1960) - Cold War Era politics in North America
• Hotel (1965) - hotels
• Airport (1968) - airport politics
• Wheels (1971) - automobile industry
• The Moneychangers (1975) - banks
• Overload (1979) - power crisis in California
• Strong Medicine (1984) - pharmaceutical industry
• The Evening News (1990) - newscasters
• Detective (1997) - investigation politics

Lester Dent
Lester Dent (October 12, 1904 – March 11, 1959) was a prolific pulp
fiction author of numerous stories, best known as the main author of
the series of stories about the superhuman scientist and adventurer,
Doc Savage. The stories were credited to the house name Kenneth
Robeson.

Early years
Dent was born in 1904 in La Plata, Missouri. He was the only child of
Bernard Dent, a rancher, and Alice Norfolk, a teacher before her
marriage. The Dents had been living in Wyoming for some time, but
had returned to La Plata so that Mrs. Dent could be with her family
during the birth. The Dents returned to Wyoming in 1906, where they
worked a ranch near Pumpkin Buttes, Wyoming.

Dent's early years were spent in the lonely hills of Wyoming. He

attended a local one-room school house, often paying for tuition with
furs that he had caught. He had few companions or friends; this early
loneliness may have helped develop his talents as a story-teller.

Around 1919, the Dent family returned to La Plata for good, where
Dent's father took up dairy farming. Dent completed his elementary
and secondary education there.

In 1923, Dent enrolled at Chillicothe Business College in Chillicothe,

Missouri. His original goal was to become a banker. However, while
standing in the application line, he began talking to a fellow applicant
about career options. He found out that the starting salary for a
telegraph operator was $20 a week more than a bank clerk, so he
changed his major to telegraphy. After completing the course, he
taught at CBC for a short time.

In 1924, Dent became a telegraph operator for Western Union in

Carrollton, Missouri. In 1925, he moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, to
work as a telegrapher for Empire Oil and Gas Company. It was in Ponca
City that he met his future wife Norma Gersling. They were married on
August 9, 1925.

Writing career

In 1926, the Dents moved to Chickasha, Oklahoma, where Dent worked

as a telegrapher for the Associated Press. One of Dent's co-workers
had published a story in a pulp magazine, earning the huge sum (for
that time) of $450. Dent, a voracious reader, was very familiar with
pulp magazines of the day, and was sure he could write as least as
well, if not better. He took advantage of the slow time during the
graveyard shift to write. His first professional sale was an action story
entitled "Pirate Cay"; it appeared in the September 1929 issue of Top
Notch magazine.

Shortly after the publication of his story, Dent was contacted by Dell
Publishing in New York City. They were willing to offer him $500 a
month if he would write exclusively for their magazines. Dent, stunned
by the good fortune, took some time considering the offer, but
eventually accepted. The Dents relocated to New York, arriving January
1, 1931. Dent quickly learned the trade of the pulp author, teaching
himself how to write quickly and with few rewrites. He soon surpassed
Dell's needs, and began writing for the other pulp chains.

In 1932, Henry Ralston of Street and Smith Publications contacted Dent

with a proposition for a new magazine. Ralston had scored a great
success with The Shadow magazine, and was interested in developing
a second title around a central character. He had in mind a gadget
oriented detective, which appealed to Dent's love of gimmicks. While
Dent was unhappy that his stories would be published under a house
name, he found it hard to turn down the $500 per novel (which would
later increase to $750), and accepted Ralston's offer.

Issue Number 1 of Doc Savage magazine hit the stands in March, 1933;
within 6 months it was one of the top selling pulp magazines on the
market. Much of the success stemmed from Dent's fantastic
imagination, fueled by his own personal curiosity. Dent was able to use
the freedom that his new-found financial security allowed him, to learn
and to explore. In addition to being a wide-ranging reader, Dent also
took courses in technology and the trades. He earned both his amateur
radio and pilot license, passed both the electricians' and plumbers'
trade exams, and was an avid mountain climber. His usual method was
to learn a subject thoroughly, then move on to another. An example is
boating: in the late 1930s, Dent bought a 40 foot two-masted
schooner. He and his wife lived on it for several years, sailing it up and
down the eastern coast of the US, then sold it in 1940. The Dents
traveled extensively as well, enough to earn Lester a membership in
the Explorers Club.

In 1940, the Dents returned to La Plata for good. Dent continued to

write for Doc Savage, but also found time to work in the other pulp
genres. His post-1941 Doc Savage work benefited from this; the later
Savage novels are known for their tighter plotting, improved dialogue,
and a shift towards mystery instead of super-science. Doc Savage
himself begins to shed his superhuman image, and to show more
fallible, human side.

Doc Savage Magazine ceased publication in 1949. Of the 181 Doc

Savage novels published by Street and Smith, 179 were credited to
Kenneth Robeson; and all but twenty were written by Dent. The first
novel, The Man of Bronze, used the name Kenneth Roberts, but this
was changed after it was discovered that there was another author
named Kenneth Roberts. The March 1944 issue, "The Derelict of Skull
Shoal", was accidentally credited to Lester Dent. This was the only time
during the run of the magazine that Dent's real name was used.
Following his tenure on Doc Savage, Dent found continuing success as
a mystery and western writer. His final published story was a Western
entitled "Savage Challenge", published in the February 22, 1958 issue
of the Saturday Evening Post.

Dent suffered a heart attack in February 1959. He was hospitalized, but

subsequently died on March 11, 1959. Dent is buried in the La Plata
cemetery.

Dent appears as a character in the 2006 novel The Chinatown Death

Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont. The novel describes friendship and rivalry
among pulp writers of the 1930s; it also includes Walter Gibson,
creator of The Shadow.

Martin Cruz Smith

Martin Cruz Smith (né Martin William Smith) was born in Reading,
Pennsylvania, in 1942. He originally wrote under the name Martin
Smith only to discover there were other writers with the same name.
His agent Knox Burger asked Smith to add a third name and Smith
chose Cruz, the shortest name in his family.[citation needed] Privately, he is
known as 'Bill'.

Smith was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, and received a

Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing in 1964. From 1965 to 1969 he
worked as a journalist, and began writing fiction in the early 1970s. His
first mystery, featuring a Gypsy art dealer in New York named Roman
Grey, Gypsy in Amber (1971), was nominated for an Edgar Award.
Nightwing was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a 1979
feature film.

Smith is best known for his novels featuring the Russian Investigator
Arkady Renko. In 1981, Smith wrote Gorky Park, which was called the
"thriller of the '80s" by Time Magazine. It became a bestseller and won
a Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Renko
has appeared in five other novels by Smith, Polar Star, Red Square,
Havana Bay, Wolves Eat Dogs and Stalin's Ghost.

In the 1970s, Smith wrote two Slocum adult action westerns, under the
pen name Jake Logan. Smith also wrote a number of other paperback
originals, including a series about a character named 'The Inquisitor',
who can be described as a James Bond-type agent employed by the
Vatican.

Martin Cruz Smith now lives in San Rafael, California with his wife and
three children.

Bibliography
• The Indians Won (1970)
• Gypsy in Amber (1971)
• Canto for a Gypsy (1972)
• Analog Bullet (1972)
• Inca Death Squad (1972) (As Nick Carter)
• The Devil's Dozen (1973) (As Nick Carter)
• The Devil in Kansas (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #1) (As Simon
Quinn)
• The Last Time I Saw Hell (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #2) (As
Simon Quinn)
• Nuplex Red (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #3) (As Simon Quinn)
• His Eminence, Death (1974) (The Inquisitor Series #4) (As Simon
Quinn)
 • The Midas Coffin (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #5) (As Simon
Quinn)
• The Human Factor (1975) (As Simon Quinn)
• The Wilderness Family (1975) (As Martin Quinn)
• Last Rites for the Vulture (1975) (The Inquisitor Series #6) (As
Simon Quinn)
• Nightwing (1977)
• Ride for Revenge (A Slocum western) (as Jake Logan)
• Gorky Park (1981) (The Arkady Renko Series #1)
• Stallion Gate (1986)
• Polar Star (1989) (The Arkady Renko Series #2)
• Red Square (1992) (The Arkady Renko Series #3)
• Rose (1996)
• Havana Bay (1999) (The Arkady Renko Series #4)
• December 6 (2002) (also published as Tokyo Station)
• Wolves Eat Dogs (2004) (The Arkady Renko Series #5)
• Stalin's Ghost (2007) (The Arkady Renko Series #6)

Sue Grafton
Sue Taylor Grafton (born April 24, 1940) is a contemporary American
author of detective novels.

Biography
Early years

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Sue Grafton is the daughter of novelist C.

W. Grafton and Vivian Harnsberger, both of whom were the children of
Presbyterian ministers. Grafton and her sister Ann were raised in
Louisville. She attended both the University of Louisville (freshman
year) and Western Kentucky State Teachers College (sophomore and
junior years)[2] before graduating from the University of Louisville in
1961 with a bachelors degree in English Literature and minors in
Humanities and the Fine Arts. [3]

During the latter part of her study, her mother, who was wracked with
cancer, took her own life on Sue's 20th birthday.[citation needed] Her father
later remarried.

After graduating, Grafton held various jobs as a hospital admissions

clerk, cashier, and medical secretary in Santa Monica, California and
Santa Barbara, California.[3]
Writing career

Grafton began writing when she was 18 and finished her first novel
four years later. She continued writing, and completed six more
manuscripts. Two of these seven novels were published. [2] Unable to
find success with her novels, Grafton turned to screenplays. She spent
the next fifteen years writing screenplays for television movies,
including Sex and the Single Parent, Mark, I Love You, and Nurse. Her
screenplay for Walking Through the Fire earned a Christopher Award in
1979. In collaboration with her husband, Steven Humphrey, she also
adapted the Agatha Christie novels A Caribbean Mystery and Sparkling
Cyanide for television, as well as cowriting Killer in the Family and Love
on the Run.[3][4]

Her experience as a screenwriter taught her the basics of structuring a

story, writing dialogue, and creating action sequences, and Grafton felt
ready to return to writing fiction.[4] While going through a "bitter
divorce and custody battle that lasted 6 long years" Grafton would
make herself feel better by imagining ways to kill or maim her ex-
husband. Her fantasies were so vivid that she decided to write them
down.[5]

She had long been fascinated by mysteries that had related titles,
including those by John D. MacDonald, whose titles referenced colors,
and Harry Kemelman, who used days of the week. While reading
Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies, which is an alphabetical
picture book of children who die by various means, she had the idea to
write a series of novels based on the alphabet. She immediately sat
down and made a list of all of the crime-related words that she knew. [4]
This exercise led to her best known works, a chronological series of
mystery novels. Known as "the alphabet novels," the stories are set in
and around the fictional town of Santa Teresa, California, which is
based on the author's primary city of residence, Santa Barbara,
California. (Grafton chose to use the name Santa Teresa as a tribute to
the author Ross Macdonald, who had previously used this as an
alternative name for Santa Barbara in his own novels.)[6]

All novels of the series are written from the perspective of a female
private investigator named Kinsey Millhone who lives in Santa Teresa,
California. Grafton's first book of this series is "A" Is for Alibi, written
and set in 1982. The series continues with "B" Is for Burglar, "C" Is for
Corpse, and so on through the alphabet. After the publication of "G" Is
for Gumshoe, Grafton was able to quit her screenwriting job and focus
on her novels.[5] The timeline of the series is slower than real-time - "Q"
Is for Quarry, for example, is set in 1987, even though it was written in
2002. Her latest book, "T" Is for Trespass, was released in December
2007, and "U is for Undertow" is to follow. Grafton has publicly stated
that the final novel in the series will be titled "Z" Is for Zero.[7]

Grafton's novels have been published in 28 countries, in 26 languages

including Bulgarian and Indonesian.[8] She has refused to sell the film
and television rights to her books, as her time writing screenplays had
"cured" her of the desire to work with Hollywood.[4] Grafton has even
threatened to haunt her children if they sell the film rights after she is
dead.[9]

Awards

Grafton's "B" Is for Burglar and "C" Is for Corpse won the first two
Anthony Awards, which are selected by the attendees of the annual
Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, ever awarded.[10] She has won
the Anthony Award once more, and has been the recipient of three
Shamus Awards.[11]

On June 13, 2000, Sue Grafton was the recipient of the 2000 YWCA of
Lexington Smith-Breckinridge Distinguished Woman of Achievement
Award.[12]

In 2004, Grafton received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, given to

"a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary
excellence."

In 2008 Grafton was awarded the Cartier Dagger by the British Crime
Writers' Association, honouring a lifetime's achievement in the field.

Family

Grafton, who has been divorced twice,[5] has been married for more
than 20 years to Steven F. Humphrey. She has three children from
previous marriages and several grandchildren, including a
granddaughter named Kinsey and Kinsey's older sister, Erin.[3] They
live in Santa Barbara, California and Louisville, Kentucky, as Humphrey
teaches at universities in both cities.[5]

Bibliography
Early novels

• Keziah Dane (1967)

• The Lolly Madonna War (1969) - filmed as Lolly-Madonna XXX[13]
Kinsey Millhone series

• "A" Is for Alibi (1982)

• "B" Is for Burglar (1985)
• "C" Is for Corpse (1986)
• "D" Is for Deadbeat (1987)
• "E" Is for Evidence (1988)
• "F" Is for Fugitive (1989)
• "G" Is for Gumshoe (1990)
• "H" Is for Homicide (1991)
• "I" Is for Innocent (1992)
• "J" Is for Judgment (1993)
• "K" Is for Killer (1994)
• "L" Is for Lawless (1995)
• "M" Is for Malice (1996)
• "N" Is for Noose (1998)
• "O" Is for Outlaw (1999)
• "P" Is for Peril (2001)
• "Q" Is for Quarry (2002)
• "R" Is for Ricochet (2004)
• "S" Is for Silence (2005)
• "T" Is for Trespass (2007)
• "U" Is for Undertow (2009)

Also published

• Kinsey and Me (1992) - a collection of Kinsey Millhone short

stories along with other short stories about Grafton's own
mother.

In popular culture
• In the "Mayham" episode of The Sopranos, Carmela sits by Tony's
bedside in the hospital, reading Sue Grafton's "G" Is for
Gumshoe.[14]
• In the "Local Ad" episode of The Office, Phyllis went to the mall to
a Sue Grafton book signing to try to get her to be in the Dunder
Mifflin Scranton Branch commercial.[15] She was told by Michael
Scott to not take "no" for an answer. After waiting in line, Phyllis'
turn comes, only to be rebuffed by Sue Grafton.[15] Phyllis
continues to ask until being thrown out of the store. Meanwhile,
Andy and Creed talk about how "crazy hot" the author is.
• A scene in the film Stranger Than Fiction shows Prof. Hilbert,
reading a Sue Grafton novel ("I" Is for Innocent) while serving as
a lifeguard.[16][17]
 • In the Season 7 episode of Gilmore Girls titled "To Whom It May
Concern", Sookie confesses that she sits at the ski lodge reading
R Is for Richocet and S Is for Silence.
• In Reaper, one of the things Ben looks for in his ideal woman is
an interest in Sue Grafton novels.

Tom Clancy
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. (born April 12, 1947) is an American author,
best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science
storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War. His name is
also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and
many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged
biographies of key leaders. He is also part-owner of the Baltimore
Orioles, a Major League Baseball team. He officially is the Orioles' Vice
Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs.

Biography
Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. was born in Baltimore County, Maryland, United
States. He attended Loyola Blakefield in Towson, Maryland, graduating
with the class of 1965. He studied English Literature at Loyola College
in Baltimore, graduating in 1969.[1] Though he wanted to serve in the
United States military, he was rejected after failing a required hearing
exam in the ROTC. Before making his literary debut, he spent some
time running an independent insurance agency.

In 1993, Tom Clancy joined a group of investors that included Peter

Angelos and bought the Baltimore Orioles from Eli Jacobs. In 1998, he
reached an agreement to purchase the Minnesota Vikings, but had to
abandon the deal due to the cost of his divorce settlement.

On June 26, 1999, Clancy, at age 53, married freelance journalist

Alexandra Marie Llewellyn, who at 32 years of age was 21 years his
junior."[2] Llewellyn is the first cousin of Colin Powell, who originally
introduced the couple to each other.[3]

In 2008, the use of Clancy's name was purchased by French video

game manufacturer Ubisoft for an undisclosed sum. It will be used in
conjunction with video games and related products such as movies,
and books.[4]

Political views
Clancy has generally been regarded as a political conservative, and
has donated over US$256,000 to Republican Party political
candidates.[5]

A week after the 9/11 attack, on The O'Reilly Factor, Clancy stated that
left-wing politicians in the United States were partly responsible for
September 11 due to their "gutting" of the CIA.[3] Clancy has also
associated himself with General Anthony Zinni, a critic of the George
W. Bush administration, and has been critical of former Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.[6] He was categorized as a northern
paleoconservative.[7]

Some of his books bear dedications to Republican political figures,

most notably Ronald Reagan. In his novels countries portrayed as
hostile to the U.S. include the former Soviet Union, China, India, Iran,
and Japan while Russia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Kingdom
are shown as close allies of the USA.

The 9/11 Attack

In his 1994 novel Debt of Honor, Clancy writes of an attack on the U.S.
Capitol building by Japanese terrorists - a catastrophy that, through
succession, promotes protagonist Jack Ryan to the U.S. Presidency.
Seven years later, in reality, "Islamic" terrorists launch just such an
attack against major U.S. targets using the same weapon - U.S. jet
airliners.

Clancy's prophetic plot is not lost on the news media. On the tense
afternoon of September 11th, 2001, Mr. Clancy is interviewed by Judy
Woodruff on CNN[8]. Among other observations during this interview,
Mr. Clancy criticises the new media's treatment of the U.S. intelligence
community. Mr. Clancy appeared again on that fateful day, this time on
PBS's Charlie Rose [9], where he debated Vice-Presidential candidate
Senator John Edwards. News media interest in Clancy and his novel
then seemed to evaporate, until his September 21, 2001, O'Reilly
Factor interview on Fox News.

In 1977 the motion picture Black Sunday (a veiled reference to the

infamous Palestinian terrorist group Black September) dramatized a
similar terrorist attack against the United States using a hovering blimp
to attack a crowded football stadium.

Freedom of speech and creative expression in Western society bears

the inherent risk that enemies of that society may use this uncontrolled
knowledge against it. In another quote from his The O'Reilly Factor
interview, regarding the publication of his Debt of Honor Mr. Clancy
states:

"Bill, that's the price you pay for living in a free society, as we have
today. If you want to go be like the Soviet Union, where it was illegal,
for example, to take a photograph of a train station, just -- you know,
you can restrict our civil liberties that far, but you end up being like the
Soviet Union was, and that was a failure."

So while it is likely that many enemies of Western society were

educated in the West or have heavy exposure to Western popular
culture [10], it is unproven whether the publication of Mr. Clancy's novel
Debt of Honor or news media coverage of the U.S. Intelligence
community contributed to the the success of the 9/11 attacks.

Other Tom Clancy novels involve plots with terrorists triggering a

nuclear device at the Super Bowl in Colorado Sum of All Fears (1991)
and teams of armed terrorists assaulting crowded U.S. shopping malls
with automatic weapons Teeth of the Tiger (2003).

Bibliography
The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger,
and The Sum of All Fears have been turned into commercially
successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Harrison
Ford as Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his
second most famous character John Clark has been played by actors
Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. The first NetForce novel was adapted
as a television movie, starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first
Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television
mini-series of the same name (Tom Clancy's Op-Center) starring Harry
Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the mini-series didn't continue the
book series did, but it had little in common with the first mini-series
other than the title and the names of the main characters.

The website IMDB reports that Tom Clancy's novel Without Remorse is
to be made into a movie and is expected to be released in 2011.

With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy introduced Jack
Ryan's son and two nephews as main characters.

Clancy has written several nonfiction books about various branches of

the U.S. armed forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy has also
branded several lines of books with his name that are written by other
authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with
Clancy's works:

• Tom Clancy's Op-Center

• Tom Clancy's Power Plays
• Tom Clancy's Net Force
• Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers
• Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• Tom Clancy's EndWar
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
• Tom Clancy's HAWX

These are sometimes referred to by fans as "apostrophe" books;

Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being
authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the headnotes
for their "invaluable contribution to the manuscript".

In 1997, Clancy signed a book deal with Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part
of Pearson Education), that paid him US$50 million for the world-
English rights to two new books. He then signed a second agreement
for another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy
followed this up with an agreement with Berkley Books for 24
paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries Tom Clancy's
Net Force aired in the fall/winter of 1998. The OP-Center universe has
laid the ground for the series of books written by Jeff Rovin, which was
in an agreement worth US $22 million bringing the total value of the
package to US$97 million.

All but two of Clancy's novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.

By publication date

The Hunt for Red October (1984)

Clancy's first published novel. CIA analyst Jack Ryan assists in the
defection of a respected Soviet naval captain, along with the
most advanced ballistic missile submarine of the Soviet fleet.
The movie (1990) stars Alec Baldwin as Ryan and Sean Connery
as Captain Ramius.
Red Storm Rising (1986)
War between NATO and USSR. The basis of the combat game of
the same name, this book is not a member of the Ryan story
series (although the protagonist of the story has many
similarities with Jack Ryan). He co-wrote it with Larry Bond.
Patriot Games (1987)
The first book that Clancy wrote, Patriot Games predates The
Hunt for Red October in chronological order. Jack Ryan foils an
 attack in London on the Prince and Princess of Wales by the
"Ulster Liberation Army". The ULA then attacks Ryan's Maryland
home while he is hosting the Prince and Princess for dinner. The
movie stars Harrison Ford as Ryan and Samuel L. Jackson as
Robby Jackson.
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
First appearance of John Clark and Sergey Golovko. Ryan leads a
CIA operation which forces the head of the KGB to defect. Other
elements include anti-satellite lasers and other SDI-type
weapons, and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Major Alan Gregory
is introduced here. (He appears later, updating SAM software in
The Bear and the Dragon).
Clear and Present Danger (1989)
The President authorizes the CIA to use American military forces
in a covert war against cocaine producers in Colombia. The
operation is betrayed. Ryan meets John Clark as they lead a
mission to rescue abandoned soldiers. Domingo "Ding" Chavez
( Clark's protege in later novels) is one of the rescued soldiers.
The movie (1994) stars Harrison Ford as Ryan, Willem Dafoe as
Clark and Raymond Cruz as Chavez.
The Sum of All Fears (1991)
Arab terrorists find a nuclear weapon that had been lost by
Israel, and use it to attack the United States. This nearly triggers
a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, due to the
incompetence of the new President and his advisor. Ryan
intervenes to avert the war. The 2002 movie stars Ben Affleck as
Ryan, Liev Schreiber as Clark, and changes the identity and
motivation of the terrorists to neo-Nazis.
Without Remorse (1993)
This is chronologically the first book, taking place during the
Vietnam War, when Jack Ryan was a teenager. Ex-SEAL John Clark
(then John Kelly) fights a bloody one-man war against drug
dealers in Baltimore, attracting the attention of Jack's father
Emmett, a Baltimore police detective. He also helps plan and
execute a raid on a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam. Clark
joins the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA).
Debt of Honor (1994)
In this prophetic novel, a secret cabal of extreme nationalists
gains control of Japan (having acquired some nuclear weapons),
and start a war with the U.S. Ryan, now National Security
Advisor, and Clark and Chavez, agents in Japan, help win the war.
The Vice President resigns in a scandal, and the President
appoints Ryan to replace him. A vengeful, die-hard Japanese
airline pilot then crashes a jetliner into the U.S. Capital during a
joint session of Congress attended by most senior U.S.
 government leaders, including the President. Ryan thus becomes
the new President through succession.
Executive Orders (1996)
This is the immediate sequel to Debt of Honor. President Ryan
survives press hazing, an assassination attempt, and a biological
warfare attack on the USA. Clark and Chavez trace the virus to a
Middle Eastern madman, and the U.S. military goes to work.
SSN: Strategies for Submarine Warfare (1996)
Follows the missions of USS Cheyenne in a future war with China
precipitated by China's invasion of the disputed Spratly Islands.
Also not a Ryanverse book, SSN is actually a loosely connected
collection of "scenario" chapters in support of the eponymous
computer game.
Rainbow Six (1998)
Released to coincide with the computer game of the same name.
John Clark and Ding, who is now Clark's son-in-law, lead an elite
multi-national anti-terrorist unit that combats a worldwide
genocide attempt by eco-terrorists. (Jack Ryan is the U.S.
President and only mentioned or referred to as either 'The
President' or 'Jack'.)
The Bear and the Dragon (2000)
War between Russia and China. Ryan recognizes the
independence of Taiwan, a Chinese police officer kills a diplomat,
and the American armed forces help Russia defeat a Chinese
invasion of Siberia.
Red Rabbit (2002)
In the early 1980s, CIA analyst Ryan aids in the defection of a
Soviet officer who knows of a plan to assassinate Pope John Paul
II.
The Teeth of the Tiger (2003)
Jack Ryan's son, Jack Ryan Jr., becomes an intelligence analyst,
and then a field consultant, for The Campus, an off-the-books
intelligence agency with the freedom to discreetly assassinate
individuals "who threaten national security", following the end of
the Jack Ryan Sr. presidential administration. This is the latest
book of the Jack Ryan series by Tom Clancy, introducing Ryan's
son and two nephews as heirs to his spook-legacy.

By series plot chronology

Novels not in the series

• Red Storm Rising (1986)

• SSN (1996)

Jack Ryan/John Clark Universe

 • Without Remorse (1993) (John Clark, Jack's father Emmett Ryan)
• Patriot Games (1987)
• Red Rabbit (2002)
• The Hunt for Red October (1984)
• The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
• Clear and Present Danger (1989)
• The Sum of All Fears (1991)
• Debt of Honor (1994)
• Executive Orders (1996)
• Rainbow Six (1998) (John Clark, Jack Ryan by reference)
• The Bear and the Dragon (2000)
• The Teeth of the Tiger (2003) (Jack Ryan Jr.)

Op-Center Universe

• Op-Center (1995) by Jeff Rovin

• Mirror Image (1996) by Jeff Rovin
• Games of State (1996) by Jeff Rovin
• Acts of War (1997) by Jeff Rovin
• Balance of Power
• State of Siege
• Net Force (1998) by Steve Perry
• Hidden Agendas (1999) by Steve Perry
• Night Moves (1999) by Steve Perry
• Breaking Point (1999) by Steve Perry
• Point of Impact (2001) by Steve Perry
• CyberNation (2001) by Steve Perry
• State of War (2003) by Steve Perry and Larry Segriff
• Changing of the Guard (2003) by Steve Perry and Larry Segriff
• Springboard (2004) by Steve Perry and Larry Segriff
• The Archimedes Effect (2006) by Steve Perry and Larry Segriff

NetForce Explorers Universe

• Virtual Vandals
• The Deadliest Game
• One is the Loneliest Number
• The Ultimate Escape
• End Game
• Cyberspy
• The Great Race
• Shadow of Honor
• Private Lives
• Safe House
• The Clone Warsruthless.com (computer game, 1998) by Red
Storm Entertainment
 • Shadow Watch (novel, 1999) by Jerome Preisler
• Shadow Watch (computer game, 1999) by Red Storm
Entertainment
• Bio-Strike (novel, 2000) by Jerome Preisler
• Cold War (novel, 2001) by Jerome Preisler
• Cutting Edge (novel, 2002) by Jerome Preisler
• Zero Hour (novel, 2003) by Jerome Preisler
• Wild Card (novel, 2004) by Jerome Preisler

Ghost Recon Universe

• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon by Grant Blackwood as David Michaels

Non-fiction

Guided Tour

• Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nuclear Warship (1993)

• Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment
(1994)
• Fighter Wing: A Guided Tour of an Air Force Combat Wing (1995)
• Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (1996)
• Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force (1997)
• Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier (1999)
• Special Forces: A Guided Tour of U.S. Army Special Forces (2001)

Study in Command

• Into the Storm - On the Ground in Iraq (with Fred Franks) (1997)
• Every Man a Tiger - the Gulf War Air Campaign (with Chuck
Horner) (1999)
• Shadow Warriors - Inside the Special Forces (with Carl Stiner)
(2002)
• Battle Ready (with Anthony Zinni) (2004)

Other

• The Tom Clancy Companion - Edited by Martin H. Greenberg -

Writings by Clancy along with a concordance of all his fiction
novels, detailing characters and military units or equipment.

Achievements and awards

• Clancy is one of only two authors to have sold two million copies
on a first printing in the 1990s. (John Grisham is the other
 author.) Clancy's 1989 novel Clear and Present Danger sold
1,625,544 hardcover copies, making it the #1 bestselling novel
of the 1980s.[11]

• Clancy received an honorary doctorate in humane letters and

delivered the commencement address at Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute in 1992, and has since worked a reference to the school
into many of his main works.[12]

• Clancy is an honorary Yeoman Warder of The Tower of London

holding the title "Supernumerary Yeoman".[13] On the television
show Ace of Cakes his wife commissioned, for his 60th birthday,
a special cake in the shape of the Tower of London in
acknowledgment of his status. In the episode, Tom Clancy
referred to the Beefeaters as, "Just a terrific bunch of guys".

James Patterson
James B. Patterson (born March 22, 1947) is an American author of
thriller novels.

Biography
James Patterson was formerly the chairman of advertising company J.
W. Thompson in the early 1990s, Patterson came up with the slogan
"Toys R Us Kid."[1] Shortly after his success with Along Came A Spider,
he retired from the firm and devoted his time to being a writer. The
novels featuring his character, Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist
formerly of the Washington, D.C. Police Department and Federal
Bureau of Investigation, now working as a private psychologist and
government consultant, are the most popular books among Patterson
readers and the top selling US Detective series in the past ten years.

In 2007, one of every sixteen hardcover novels sold was a James

Patterson title– totaling an estimated 16 million books sold last year in
North America alone.[2] According to Forbes magazine, Patterson
earned $50 million from June 2007 to June 2008, placing him second on
the list of best paid authors in the world.[3] In total, Patterson’s books
have sold an estimated 150 million copies worldwide.[2] He has won
awards including the Edgar, the BCA Mystery Guild’s Thriller of the
Year, and the International Thriller of the Year award. James Patterson
was called "the man who can’t miss" in Time magazine. He is the first
author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times
adult and children’s bestsellers lists, and to have two books on
NovelTracker’s top-ten list at the same time. He holds the New York
Times bestsellers list record with 39 New York Times bestselling titles
overall.[2] He even made an appearance on the Fox TV show The
Simpsons (in the episode "Yokel Chords") as himself.

Patterson is also well known for sharing the spotlight with different co-
authors such as Maxine Paetro and Andrew Gross and has often said
that collaborating with others brings new and interesting ideas to his
stories. He is currently collaborating with Swedish mystery writer Liza
Marklund on a book that is set to be released in 2010. All that is known
of the story at this point is that it is set in Stockholm, Sweden. [4] [5]

He also founded the James Patterson PageTurner Awards, now in its

third year. Patterson has personally given away over $600,000 to
reward “people, companies, schools, and other institutions who find
original and effective ways to spread the excitement of books and
reading.” His lifelong passion for books and reading led him to launch a
new Web site, ReadKiddoRead.com, which helps parents, grandparents,
teachers, and librarians find the very best children’s books for their
kids.

Patterson’s bestselling Women’s Murder Club series was adapted for a

television series show starring former Law & Order star Angie Harmon.
The show premiered in the fall of 2007 on ABC and ran for one season.
Other movie deals are currently in the works with various Hollywood
studios including a major motion picture based on his Maximum Ride
series, to be produced by Avi Arad, the producer of the X-Men and
Spider-Man film series. Most recently, the forthcoming Dangerous Days
of Daniel X has been optioned by New Regency.[6]

Patterson received his bachelor's degree from Manhattan College, and

his Masters degree at Vanderbilt University.

He lives in Palm Beach, Florida with his wife, Susan, and son, Jack.

Criticism
Horror novelist Stephen King has dismissed Patterson's bibliography as
being made up of "dopey thrillers", and in one interview called him a
"terrible writer"[7]. Patterson responsed dismissively, simply stating that
"I just want to be the thrillingest thriller writer around".

Bibliography
Alex Cross
 1. Along Came A Spider (1992, ISBN 0-446-36419-3)
2. Kiss the Girls (1995, ISBN 0-446-60124-1)
3. Jack & Jill (1996, ISBN 0-446-60480-1)
4. Cat and Mouse (1997, ISBN 0-446-60618-9)
5. Pop Goes the Weasel (1999, ISBN 0-375-40854-1)
6. Roses are Red (2000, ISBN 0-446-60548-4)
7. Violets are Blue (2001, ISBN 0-446-61121-2)
8. Four Blind Mice (2002, ISBN 0-446-61326-6)
9. The Big Bad Wolf (2003, ISBN 0-446-61326-6)
10. London Bridges (2004, ISBN 0-446-61335-5)
11. Mary, Mary (2005, ISBN 0-316-15976-X)
12. Cross (2006, ISBN 0-316-15979-4 )
13. Double Cross (2007, ISBN 0-316-01505-9)
14. Cross Country (November 17, 2008, ISBN 0-316-018724)
15. Alex Cross's Trial (August 24, 2009)
16. I, Alex Cross (November 16, 2009)

Women's Murder Club

Four San Francisco friends - a detective, a district attorney, a medical

examiner, and a crime reporter - join forces to solve mysteries.

1. 1st to Die (2001, ISBN 0-446-61003-8)

2. 2nd Chance (2002, ISBN 0-446-61279-0, with Andrew Gross)
3. 3rd Degree (2004, ISBN 0-316-60357-0, with Andrew Gross)
4. 4th of July (2005, ISBN 0-316-71060-1, with Maxine Paetro)
5. The 5th Horseman (2006, ISBN 0-316-15977-8, with Maxine
Paetro)
6. The 6th Target (2007, ISBN 0-316-01479-6, with Maxine Paetro)
7. 7th Heaven (2008, ISBN 0-316-01770-1, with Maxine Paetro)
8. 8th Confession (April 27, 2009, ISBN 978-1846052583 )

Maximum Ride

1. Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment (USA: April 11 |UK: July 4,

2005 | ISBN 031615556X)
2. Maximum Ride: School's Out Forever (USA: May 23 |UK: August
14, 2006 | ISBN 0316155594)
3. Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (USA
& UK: May 3, 2007 | ISBN 0316155608)
4. Maximum Ride: The Final Warning (USA: March 17, 2008 | ISBN
0316002860)
5. MAX: A Maximum Ride Novel (USA: March 16, 2009 | ISBN
0316002895)
 6. Maximum Ride: The Sky Is Falling [USA: March 15, 2010 | ISBN
0316036196) (Title & Release Date subject to change)

Michael Bennett

1. Step on a Crack (February 6, 2007) (with Michael Ledwidge)

2. Run for Your Life (February 2, 2009) (with Michael Ledwidge)
3. Worst Case (February 1, 2010) (with Michael Ledwidge)

Daniel X

1. The Dangerous Days of Daniel X (July 21, 2008) (with Michael

Ledwidge)
2. Watch the Skies (July 27, 2009) (with Ned Rust) Title & release
date are subject to change

Graphic Novels

• Daniel X: Alien Hunter (with Leopoldo Gout)(December 1, 2008,

ISBN 0-316-004251)
• Maximum Ride, Vol. 1 (with NaRae Lee) (January 6, 2009, ISBN 0-
759-529515)

Standalone Novels

• The Thomas Berryman Number (1976) (Edgar Award, 1977, Best

First Novel)
• Season of the Machete (1977)
• Virgin (1980)
• The Midnight Club (1988)
• Hide & Seek (1996)
• Miracle on the 17th Green (1996) (with Peter De Jonge)
• See How They Run (1997, previously published in 1977 as The
Jericho Commandment)
• When the Wind Blows (1998)
• Black Friday (2000, previously published in 1986 as Black
Market)
• Cradle & All (2000, previously published in 1980 as Virgin)
• Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas (2001)
• The Beach House (2002) (with Peter De Jonge)
• The Jester (2003) (with Andrew Gross)
• The Lake House (2003) (sequel to When The Wind Blows)
• Sam's Letters to Jennifer (2004)
• Honeymoon (2005) (with Howard Roughan)
• Lifeguard (2005) (with Andrew Gross)
 • Beach Road (2006) (with Peter De Jonge)
• Judge and Jury (2006) (with Andrew Gross)
• The Quickie (2007) (with Michael Ledwidge)
• You've Been Warned (2007) (with Howard Roughan)
• Sundays at Tiffany's, (2008) (with Gabrielle Charbonnet)
• Sail (June 9, 2008) (with Howard Roughan)
• Swimsuit (June 29, 2009) (with Maxine Paetro)
• Witch and Wizard (December 14, 2009) (with Gabrielle
Charbonnet)

Non-Fiction

• Against Medical Advice: A True Story (October 20, 2008) (with

Hal Friedman)
• The Murder of King Tut (September, 2009) (with Martin Dugard)

Nelson DeMille
Nelson Richard DeMille (born August 23, 1943) is an American
author. DeMille was born in Jamaica, Queens and resides in Garden
City, New York, a village on Long Island. He attended Elmont Memorial
High School in Elmont, New York, is a graduate of Hofstra University[1]
and served in the Vietnam War. He is also a member of Mensa.[2]

DeMille has also written under the names Jack Cannon, Kurt Ladner,
and Brad Matthews.

He married Virginia (Ginny) on 17 September 1988. She has Bachelor's

and Master's degrees from Ohio State University. They both had
children from previous marriages: she had one and he had two. They
had no children together. Their marriage ended in 2002.

DeMille often uses Long Island as a setting in his novels, for example in
The Gold Coast, Plum Island, Word of Honor, and Night Fall. His most
recent novels have followed two main characters, John Corey and Paul
Brenner. At first, the story lines were completely separate, but there
have been hints in the novels that they are part of a larger "DeMille
Universe" that references events and characters in earlier novels, such
as The Gold Coast and The Charm School.

DeMille has written himself into Up Country and Wild Fire. He takes
about two years to write books because of extensive research, and
because he writes them longhand on legal paper with a number one
pencil.
Most DeMille novels, especially the more recent, avoid "Hollywood
endings" and instead finish either inconclusively or with the hero
successfully exposing the secret/solving the mystery while suffering in
his career or personal life as a result. There are generally loose ends
left for the reader to puzzle over, Night Fall being a perfect example.

The fictional Army post in The General's Daughter was a combination

of Fort Benning and Fort Stewart.

Recurring characters
John Corey, a retired New York City police detective on special
assignment for the F.B.I. He was introduced in Plum Island and
reappears in The Lion's Game, Night Fall, and Wild Fire.

Paul Brenner, an investigator for the United States Army's Criminal

Investigation Division. He was introduced in The General's Daughter
and reappears in Up Country.

Kate Mayfield, an F.B.I. agent. Introduced in The Lion's Game. She

marries Corey and reappears in Night Fall and Wild Fire.

Colonel Petr Burov/Boris Though not explicitly stated, DeMille hints

that Burov, the antagonist in The Charm School, is the same person as
the mysterious "Boris," a character in The Lion's Game.

Ted Nash, a CIA agent and arch-rival of Corey, who is introduced in

Plum Island and reappears in The Lion's Game, Night Fall, and Wild
Fire.

Col. Karl Hellman, Brenner's superior officer at the CID. Appeared in

The General's Daughter and Up Country.

John Sutter, Susan Sutter, Felix Mancuso, and several other

characters of The Gold Coast reappear in the sequel The Gate House.

Bibliography
• The Sniper (1974)
• The Hammer of God (1974)
• The Agent of Death (1975)
• The Smack Man (1975)
• The Cannibal (1975)
• The Night of the Phoenix (1975)
 • Hitler's Children: The True Story of Nazi Human Stud Farms
(1976) (as Kurt Ladner)
• Killer Sharks: The Real Story (1977) (as Brad Mathews)
• By the Rivers of Babylon (1978), ISBN 0-15-115278-0
• Mayday (1979, updated 1998) (with Thomas Block), ISBN 0-446-
60476-3
• Cathedral (1981), ISBN 0-440-01140-X
• The Talbot Odyssey (1984), ISBN 0-385-29322-4
• Word of Honor (1985), ISBN 0-446-51280-X
• The Charm School (1988), ISBN 0-446-51305-9
• The Gold Coast (1990), ISBN 0-446-51504-3
• The General's Daughter (1992), ISBN 0-446-51306-7 (also a
movie)
• Spencerville (1994), ISBN 0-446-51505-1
• Plum Island (1997), ISBN 0-446-51506-X
• "Revenge and Rebellion", in The Plot Thickens, ed. by Mary
Higgins Clark (1997), ISBN 0-671-01557-5
• The Lion's Game (2000), ISBN 0-446-52065-9
• Up Country (2002), ISBN 0-446-51657-0
• Night Fall (2004), ISBN 0-446-57663-8
• Wild Fire (2006), ISBN 0-446-57967-X
• The Gate House (Sequel to The Gold Coast) (October 28, 2008),
ISBN 0-446-53342-4

Daniel Silva
Daniel Silva (born 1960) is the best-selling American author of ten
thriller and espionage novels.

Biography
Silva began his writing career as a journalist with a temporary job from
United Press International in 1984. His assignment was to cover the
Democratic National Convention. The job became permanent and, a
year later, he was transferred to the Washington D.C. headquarters.
After two more years he was appointed as UPI's Middle East
correspondent and moved to Cairo.

Silva returned to Washington DC, for a job with CNN's Washington

Bureau where he worked as a producer and executive producer for
several of the network's television programs. In 1994 he began work
on his first novel, The Unlikely Spy. The novel became a bestseller and
in 1997 he left CNN to pursue writing full-time.
He lives in Georgetown in Washington, DC, with his wife, NBC Today
Show's national correspondent Jamie Gangel, and children. [1]

Bibliography
• The Unlikely Spy (1996)

Michael Osbourne series:

• The Mark of the Assassin (1998)

• The Marching Season (1999)

Gabriel Allon series:

1. The Kill Artist (2000)

2. The English Assassin (2002)
3. The Confessor (2003)
4. A Death in Vienna (2004)
5. Prince of Fire (2005)
6. The Messenger (2006)
7. The Secret Servant (2007)
8. Moscow Rules (2008)
9. The Defector (2009)

Recurring characters
Silva's first book The Unlikely Spy is a World War II thriller featuring
Professor Alfred Vicary.

Silva's second and third books, Mark of the Assassin and The Marching
Season' are known as the Osbourne series and are spy thrillers which
feature an American CIA agent Michael Osbourne.

Books #4 to #11 are known as the Gabriel Allon Series. They feature
Gabriel Allon as an agent/assassin in Mossad, the secret Israeli
intelligence service. He works undercover as restorer of priceless works
of art. Allon is featured in The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The
Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The
Secret Servant and Moscow Rules.

Gabriel Allon was a former assassin for Mossad. He is responsible for

killing 6 of the 12 members of Black September for their actions in
Munich during the 1972 Olympics -- kidnapping and killing the Israeli
athletes. He was recruited by spymaster Ari Shamron, referred to as
the "Old Man", the "Sentinel" and the "Memuneh" (the one in charge).
Allon was a promising young art student when Shamron approached
him at school and persuaded him to help Israel avenge the deaths at
Munich. Leaving the Mossad, Gabriel apprenticed under Umberto Conti
in Venice using the alias "Mario Delvecchio" and was regarded as one
of the world's greatest art restorers, specializing in the Old Masters.
While Allon was in Vienna, along with his wife Leah and son Dani, on an
operation, a car bomb exploded, killing Dani and causing amnesia and
trauma to Leah. Since then, Gabriel refused to work for the office.
However, many times since, legendary spymaster Ari Shamron has
brought Allon back to help the ever-needing Office with his assistance.
Allon is immensely talented, and is becoming a legend himself.
Throughout the books we often see him doubting his actions. He is an
assassin with a conscience. However, Shamron is always there to help
Allon justify his actions - and after a conversation with Shamron one
rarely sees things the same. Allon begins to understand why it is not
only all right for him to do what he does, but also necessary.

Throughout the series Allon, as well as those around him, is seen to go

through major transformations. Gabriel is brought out of retirement
several times, and once he sees himself begin an operation he always
finishes it. He instinctively approaches these cases as though he is
restoring a painting. Allon eventually comes back on the Office payroll,
runs his own operations, and gets offered extremely important and
high ranking jobs inside the Office.

Perhaps the most dramatic aspect of the series is Allon's personal

relationship with his wife --Leah -- and other women. Whenever sent
into the field, the woman accompanying him almost always falls for
him. However, the ever-faithful Allon has difficulty sustaining a
relationship with another woman ever since the car-bombing in Vienna
because he still loves Leah. In the third book, The Confessor, readers
are introduced to a new woman in Gabriel's life, Chiara Zolli. She is
also a member of the Office, and their relationship has been explored,
deepened and complicated over the remaining books of the series.
However, the drama mostly lies when Allon visits his wife in the mental
asylum. The most touching scenes involving these two are found in
The Prince of Fire and The Messenger.

The Confessor takes Gabriel into the Vatican where he meets the
"successor" to Pope John Paul II. The Confessor has its wishful side to it.
This new Pope wants to simplify the Church and make it meaningful to
Catholics who are abandoning it. He also feels a responsibility to
apologize to the Jews for the failure of the Vatican/Pope to speak out
against Nazism in WWII. Of course the opposition in the Curia sets the
stage for this very tense and exciting story.
The Messenger continues Allon's relationship with the new Pope as the
Vatican is targeted by the Saudi Muslim fundamentalists who are of the
Wahabist sect.

The Secret Servant follows Gabriel Allon being called in to action when
the daughter of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Knigdom (The Court
of St James) is kidnapped. It explores the rise of Islamic radicial
fundamentalists in Europe.

Moscow Rules (2008) features Allon and explores the world of Russia
rising. The villain is a rich Russian oligarch who is a weapons dealer.
The title is based on the cold war rules in which CIA agents were
trained when operating against the Soviet Union... known as the
Moscow Rules ... for example, "Don't look back, you are never alone".

The movie rights for the Allon series are under negotiation.

Donald Hamilton
Donald Bengtsson Hamilton (March 24, 1916 – November 20, 2006)
was a U.S. writer of novels, short stories, and non-fiction about the
outdoors. His novels consist mostly of paperback originals, principally
spy fiction but also crime fiction and Westerns. He is best known for his
long-running Matt Helm series (1960-1993), which chronicles the
adventures of an undercover counter-agent/assassin working for a
secret American government agency. The noted critic Anthony Boucher
wrote: "Donald Hamilton has brought to the spy novel the authentic
hard realism of [Dashiell] Hammett; and his stories are as compelling,
and probably as close to the sordid truth of espionage, as any now
being told." [1]

Life
Hamilton was born on March 24, 1916 in Uppsala, Sweden. He later
emigrated to the United States, attended the University of Chicago
(receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in 1938), and served in the
United States Navy Reserve during World War II. He was married to
Kathleen Hamilton (née Stick) from 1941 until her death in 1989. The
couple had four children: Hugo, Elise, Gordon, and Victoria Hamilton.

A long-time resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Hamilton was a skilled

outdoorsman and hunter who wrote non-fiction articles for outdoor
magazines and published a book-length collection of them. For a
number of years after leaving Santa Fe he lived on his own yacht, then
relocated to Sweden where he resided until his death in 2006. A
number of his Matt Helm novels are situated in the Santa Fe area and
American Southwest in general; as Hamilton developed an interest in
boating, many of the books began to have a nautical background as
well.

Hamilton began his writing career in 1946, as American publishers

began to experiment with issuing original paperback fiction. His
earliest work appeared in fiction magazines like Collier's Weekly and
The Saturday Evening Post. His first three books were published in
hardcover by Rinehart. Most of his early novels, published between
1954 and 1960, were typical paperback originals of the era: fast-
moving, formulaic tales with lurid covers and limited characterization.
The most interesting of them is, arguably, Assignment: Murder,
(alternate title: Assassins Have Starry Eyes), in which a mathematician
working on the design for a nuclear bomb has to save his kidnapped
wife from a pair of shadowy villains.

The Matt Helm series, which began with Death of a Citizen in 1960 and
ran for 27 books, ending in 1993 with The Damagers, was more
substantial. Helm, a wartime agent in a secret agency that specialized
in the assassination of Nazis, is drawn back into a post-war world of
espionage and assassination after fifteen years as a civilian. He
narrates his adventures in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone with an
occasional undertone of deadpan humor. He describes gunfights, knife
fights, torture, and (off-stage) sexual conquests with a carefully
maintained professional detachment, like a pathologist dictating an
autopsy report or a police officer describing an investigation. Over the
course of the series, this detachment comes to define Helm's
character. He is a professional doing a job; the job is killing people.
Hamilton completed one more Matt Helm novel, The Dominators in
2002, that hasn't been published.

The noted Golden Age mystery writer John Dickson Carr began
reviewing books for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in 1969, and
often praised thrillers of the day. According to Carr's biographer, "Carr
found Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm to be 'my favorite secret agent,'"
although Hamilton's books had little in common with Carr's. "The
explanation may lie in Carr's comment that in espionage novels he
preferred Matt Helm's 'cloud-cuckooland' land. Carr never valued
realism in fiction." [2]

General audiences may be more familiar with Matt Helm through a

series of popular action-comedy films produced in the late 1960s
starring Dean Martin in the title role. These films are only very loosely
based upon Hamilton's writings. DreamWorks optioned the film rights
to Hamilton's books in 2002 and began planning a more serious
adaptation of the Matt Helm novels, but the project is in limbo.

Hamilton died in his sleep on November 20, 2006.[3]

Robert Ludlum
Robert Ludlum (May 25, 1927 New York City – March 12, 2001
Naples, Florida) was an American author of 25 thriller novels. There are
more than 290 million copies of his books in print, and they have been
translated into 32 languages. Ludlum also published books under the
pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.[1]

Some of Ludlum's novels have been made into films and mini-series,
including The Osterman Weekend, The Holcroft Covenant, The
Apocalypse Watch, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and
The Bourne Ultimatum. A non-Ludlum book supposedly inspired by his
unused notes, Covert One: The Hades Factor, has also been made into
a mini-series. The Bourne movies, starring Matt Damon in the title role,
have been commercially and critically successful (The Bourne
Ultimatum won three Academy Awards in 2008), although the story
lines depart significantly from the source material.

Ludlum died in 2001 of a subdural hematoma.

Education
Ludlum was educated at The Rectory School then Cheshire Academy
and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. While at
Wesleyan, Ludlum joined the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. Prior to
becoming an author, he had been a theatrical actor and producer. His
theatrical experience may have contributed to his understanding of the
energy, escapism and action that the public wanted in a novel. He
once remarked: "I equate suspense and good theater in a very similar
way. I think it's all suspense and what-happens-next. From that point
of view, yes, I guess, I am theatrical."

Writing analysis and criticism

Ludlum's novels typically featured one heroic man, or a small group of
crusading individuals, in a struggle against powerful adversaries whose
intentions and motivations are evil, adversaries capable of using
political and economic mechanisms in frightening ways. His vision of
the world was one where global corporations, shadowy military forces,
and government organizations all conspired to preserve (if it was evil)
or undermine (if it was good) the status quo. With the exception of
occasional gaps in his knowledge of firearms, his novels are
meticulously researched to include accurate technical, geographical,
and biological details, including the research on amnesia for The
Bourne Identity.

Ludlum's novels were often inspired by conspiracy theories, both

historical and contemporary. He wrote that The Matarese Circle was
inspired by rumors about the Trilateral Commission, and it was
published only a few years after the commission was founded. His
depictions of terrorism in books such as The Holcroft Covenant and The
Matarese Circle reflected the theory that terrorists were only pawns of
governments or private organizations that wished to use terror as a
pretext for establishing authoritarian rule, not isolated bands of
ideologically motivated extremists.

Ludlum uses the same fixed titling pattern of The [Proper Noun] [Noun]
for most of his books.

Selected bibliography
By Ludlum, published during the author's lifetime

• The Scarlatti Inheritance (1971)

• The Osterman Weekend (1972)
• The Matlock Paper (1973)
• Trevayne (1973, writing under the pen-name Jonathan Ryder)
• The Cry of the Halidon (1974, writing under the pen-name
Jonathan Ryder)
• The Rhinemann Exchange (1974)
• The Road to Gandolfo (1975, writing under the pen-name Michael
Shephard)
• The Gemini Contenders (1976)
• The Chancellor Manuscript (1977)
• The Holcroft Covenant (1978)
• The Matarese Circle (1979)
• The Bourne Identity (1980)
• The Parsifal Mosaic (1982)
• The Aquitaine Progression (1984)
• The Bourne Supremacy (1986)
• The Icarus Agenda (1988)
• The Bourne Ultimatum (1990)
• The Road to Omaha (1992)
• The Scorpio Illusion (1993)
 • The Apocalypse Watch (1995)
• The Matarese Countdown (1997)
• The Prometheus Deception (2000)

Credited to Ludlum, published posthumously

These have been finished by Eric Van Lustbader, who has been faithful
to Robert Ludlum's style of writing. [2]

• The Sigma Protocol (2001, the last novel written entirely by

Ludlum)
• The Janson Directive (2002, incomplete at his death)
• The Tristan Betrayal (2003)
• The Ambler Warning (2005)
• The Bancroft Strategy (2006)

Covert-One series

Written with other authors.

• The Hades Factor (with Gayle Lynds) (2000)

• The Cassandra Compact (with Phillip Shelby) (2001)
• The Paris Option (with Gayle Lynds) (2002)
• The Altman Code (with Gayle Lynds) (2003)
• The Lazarus Vendetta (with Patrick Larkin) (2004)
• The Moscow Vector (with Patrick Larkin) (2005)
• The Arctic Event (with James H. Cobb) (2007)
• The Infinity Affair (with James H. Cobb) (2009)

Sequels to Ludlum Books

• The Bourne Legacy (by Eric Van Lustbader) (2004)

• The Bourne Betrayal (by Eric Van Lustbader) (2007)
• The Bourne Sanction (by Eric Van Lustbader) (2008)
• The Bourne Deception (by Eric Van Lustbader) (2009)

Andy McNab
Andy McNab DCM MM (born 28 December 1959)[1] is an English
novelist and former soldier. "Andy McNab" is a pseudonym[2], his real
first name being Steven[3].

McNab came into public prominence in 1993, when he published his

account of the failed SAS mission, Bravo Two Zero. He has
subsequently written two other autobiographies and a selection of
fiction books, including a specially commissioned story for the Quick
Reads Initiative to assist in improving adult literacy.[4]

Early life
McNab was born on 28 December 1959, and was abandoned on the
steps of Guy's Hospital in Southwark shortly thereafter.[5] He was
brought up in Peckham, with his adoptive family, involving himself in
petty criminality until being arrested for burglary.[6]

In 1976, shortly after his arrest, he aspired for a career as an army

pilot, but failed the entry test. In the same year, he enlisted with the
Royal Green Jackets at the age of sixteen.[7]

Military career
After McNab enlisted in the Royal Green Jackets in 1976, he was posted
to Kent for his basic training, and boxed for his regimental team. [8] After
his basic training, he was posted to the Rifle Depot, in Winchester. In
1977, McNab spent time in Gibraltar as part of his first operational
posting, while with 2RGJ. From December 1977 to June 1978, he was
posted to South Armagh, Northern Ireland as part of the British Army's
intervention in the Northern Ireland Troubles.[9] In 1978 and 1979, he
returned to Armagh as a newly promoted Lance Corporal, and killed for
the first time at the age of 19, during a firefight with the PIRA. In 1982,
after spending eight years with the Royal Green Jackets, he decided to
attempt SAS selection. Finally passing in 1984, he left RGJ and
transferred to the SAS.[10]

While Serving with B Squadron, 22 SAS for ten years, McNab worked on
both covert and overt operations worldwide.[11], which included counter
terrorism and drug operations in the Middle and Far East, South and
Central America, and Northern Ireland. McNab trained as a specialist in
counter terrorism, prime target elimination, demolitions, weapons,
tactics, covert surveillance roles and information gathering in hostile
environments, and VIP protection.[12] He worked on cooperative
operations with police forces, prison services, anti-drug forces and
Western backed guerilla movements as well as on conventional special
operations. In Northern Ireland he spent two years working as an
undercover operator with 14 Intelligence Company, going on to
become an instructor.[13]

While a serving SAS soldier, McNab worked alongside the Delta Force,
FBI, and the DEA[citation needed]. He also worked as an instructor on the SAS
selection and training teams, and instructed foreign special forces in
counter terrorism, hostage rescue and survival training. When he left
the SAS in 1993, he was the most highly decorated serving soldier in
the British Army[citation needed]. He now lectures on security and military
related topics, in both the USA and the UK.[14]

During the First Gulf War, McNab commanded Bravo Two Zero; an eight
man SAS patrol tasked with destroying underground communication
links between Baghdad and north-west Iraq and with tracking Scud
missile movements in the region. The patrol was dropped into Iraq on
January 22 1991, but was soon compromised, escaping on foot towards
Syria, the closest coalition country. Three of the eight men were killed;
four were captured (including McNab) after three days on the run and
one member, 'Chris Ryan', escaped. The four captured men were held
for six weeks before being released on March 5. By the time he was
released McNab was suffering from nerve damage to both hands, a
dislocated shoulder, kidney and liver damage and Hepatitis B. After six
months of medical treatment he was back on active service. In the
words of the SAS's commanding officer, the story of the patrol 'will
remain in Regimental history forever'. Awarded both the Distinguished
Conduct Medal (DCM) and Military Medal (MM) during his military
career, McNab claims to have been the British Army's most highly
decorated serving soldier when he left the SAS in February 1993.[15]

Post military career

While writing Bravo Two Zero, McNab assumed his pseudonym. When
he appears on television to promote his books or to act as a special
services expert, his face is shadowed to prevent identification. As Larry
King put it when McNab appeared on the Larry King Live show on CNN:
"He's in shadow for his security, as he is wanted dead by some terrorist
groups."[citation needed] According to the book The Big Breach, by Richard
Tomlinson, a renegade MI6 spy, McNab was part of a special training
team after the Iraq war, training MI6 recruits in sabotage and guerrilla
warfare techniques.

Due to the extremely sensitive nature of his work while serving with
the SAS, McNab has a legally binding contract obliging him to submit
his fiction to the British Ministry of Defence for review. He is still
believed to be wanted by a number of the world's terrorist
organisations; he therefore chooses not to reveal either his face or his
current location.[16]

After leaving the Army, McNab developed and maintained a specialist

training course for news crews, journalists and members of non-
governmental organisations working in hostile environments. He spent
time in Hollywood as technical weapons advisor, and trainer on the
Michael Mann film Heat helping to engineer how master-thief De Niro
would go about pulling off robberies on an armoured car and a bank,
and how cop Al Pacino would go about tracking him down and stopping
him. He was also the technical advisor on the 2005 crime film Dirty.[17]

In February 2007, McNab returned to Iraq for seven days as The Sun
newspaper's security advisor with his old regiment the Royal Green
Jackets. Here he researched the background for his new book,
Crossfire.[18]

McNab has written about his experiences in the SAS in two bestselling
books, Bravo Two Zero (1993) and Immediate Action (1995). "Bravo
Two Zero" is the highest selling war book of all time, and sold over 1.7
million copies, with Immediate Action selling 1.4 Million in the UK. To
date it has been published in 17 countries and translated into 16
languages.[19] The CD spoken word version of Bravo Two Zero, narrated
by McNab, sold over 60,000 copies and earned a silver disc. A BBC film
of Bravo Two Zero, starring Sean Bean, was shown on primetime BBC
One television in 1999 and released on DVD in 2000. Immediate
Action, McNab's autobiography, spent 18 weeks at the top of the best-
seller lists following the lifting of an ex-parte injunction granted to the
Ministry of Defence in September 1995.[20]

McNab is the author of ten action thrillers, highly acclaimed for their
authenticity.[citation needed] Remote Control was published in 1997, and was
hailed as the most authentic thriller ever written selling over half a
million copies in the UK.[citation needed] McNab's subsequent thrillers, Crisis
Four, Firewall, Last Light, Liberation Day, Dark Winter, Deep Black,
Aggressor, Recoil and Crossfire have all gone on to sell equally
well[citation needed] . The central character in all the books is Nick Stone, an
ex-SAS soldier working as a 'K' on deniable operations for British
intelligence. McNab's fiction draws extensively on his experiences and
knowledge of Special Forces soldiering. He has been officially
registered by Nielsen BookScan as a bestselling British thriller writer.[21]

After working on the Miramax film, "Heat", Miramax has acquired the
film rights to the first four of McNab's novels, and Crisis Four is
currently in production, co-produced by McNab himself. He is also a
director of a Hereford-based security company.[22] In conjunction with
Spoken Group Ltd, Andy McNab is pioneering spoken drama for
download from the Internet and to Mobile phones.[citation needed] These
stories include real battle field sound effects. 'McNab' took part in E4's
Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack on 13 January 2008.[23]
Books
Non-fiction

• Bravo Two Zero (1993)

• Immediate Action (1995)
• Seven Troop (2008)

Fiction

Nick Stone Missions

• Remote Control (17 February 1998)

• Crisis Four (22 August 2000)
• Firewall (5 October 2000)
• Last Light (1 October 2001)
• Liberation Day (1 October 2002)
• Dark Winter (3 November 2003)
• Deep Black (1 November 2004)
• Aggressor (1 November 2005)
• Recoil (6 November 2006)
• Crossfire (12 November 2007)
• Brute Force (3 November 2008)
• Exit Wound (November 2009)

Boy Soldier Series (written with Robert Rigby)

• Boy Soldier (US title Traitor, 5 May 2005)

• Payback (6 October 2005)
• Avenger (4 May 2006)
• Meltdown (3 May 2007)

Dennis Wheatley
Dennis Yates Wheatley (8 January 1897 – 10 November 1977) was
an English author. His prolific output of stylish thrillers and occult
novels made him one of the world's best-selling authors in the 1950s
and 1960s.

Early life
Dennis Yates (or Yeats) Wheatley was born in South London to
Albert David and Florence Elizabeth Harriet Wheatley (née Baker). He
was the eldest of three children of an upper middle class family, the
owners of Wheatley & Son of Mayfair, a wine business. He was expelled
from Dulwich College. The school had already been attended by two
prominent writers: P.G. Wodehouse (1894-1900), and Raymond
Chandler (1900 onwards). Following his expulsion Wheatley became a
Merchant Navy officer cadet at the training ship HMS Worcester.

Military service
He took part in the First World War but was gassed in a chlorine attack
at Passchendaele and invalided out as a second lieutenant in the Royal
Field Artillery after seeing service in Flanders, on the Ypres Salient, and
in France at Cambrai and St. Quentin. He took over the family wine
merchant business in 1919, but following a decline in business after
the depression in 1931, he set about writing and married his second
wife.

During the Second World War, Wheatley's literary talents led him onto
planning staffs for the War Office. He wrote numerous papers for the
War Office, including drawing up suggestions for dealing with a
German invasion of Britain (recounted in his work "Stranger than
Fiction"). The most famous of his submissions to the Joint Planning
Staff of the war cabinet was on "Total War". He was given a commission
directly into the JPS as Wing Commander, RAFVR and took part in
advanced planning for the Normandy invasions.

Writing
His first book, Three Inquisitive People, was not immediately published;
but his first published novel, The Forbidden Territory, was an
immediate success when published in 1933, being reprinted seven
times in seven weeks.

He wrote adventure stories, with many books in a series of linked

works. His plots covered the French Revolution (Roger Brook Series),
Satanism (Duc de Richleau), World War II (Gregory Sallust) and
espionage (Julian Day).

In the thirties, he conceived a series of whodunit mysteries, presented

as case files, with testimonies, letters, pieces of evidence such as hairs
or pills. The reader had to go through the evidence to solve the
mystery before unsealing the last pages of the file, which gave the
answer. Four of these 'Crime Dossiers' were published: Murder Off
Miami, Who Killed Robert Prentice, The Malinsay Massacre, and
Herewith The Clues.
In the 1960s his publishers were selling a million copies of his books
per year. A small number of his books were made into films by
Hammer, of which the best known is The Devil Rides Out (book 1934,
film 1968). His writing is very descriptive and in many works he
manages to introduce his characters into real events while meeting
real people. For example, in the Roger Brook series the main character
involves himself with Napoleon, and Joséphine whilst being a spy for
the Prime Minister William Pitt. Similarly, in the Gregory Sallust series,
Sallust shares an evening meal with Hermann Göring.

He also wrote non-fiction works, including accounts of the Russian

Revolution and King Charles II, and his autobiography. He was
considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of
exorcism, and black magic, to all of which he was hostile.

From 1974 through 1977 he edited a series of 45 paperback reprints

for the British publisher Sphere under the heading "The Dennis
Wheatley Library of the Occult," selecting the titles and writing short
introductions for each book. This series included both occult-themed
novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Aleister Crowley and non-fiction
works on magic, occultism, and divination by authors such as the
Theosophist H. P. Blavatsky, the historian Maurice Magre, the magician
Isaac Bonewits, and the palm-reader Cheiro.

Two weeks before his death in November 1977, Wheatley received

conditional absolution from his old friend Cyril ‘Bobby’ Eastaugh, the
Bishop of Peterborough.

His estate library was sold in a catalogue sale by Basil Blackwell's in

the 1970s, indicating a thoroughly well-read individual with wide-
ranging interests particularly in historical fiction and Europe. His
influence has declined, partly due to difficulties in reprinting his works
owing to copyright problems.

Fifty-two of Wheatley's novels were published posthumously in a set by

Heron Books UK. More recently, in April 2008 Dennis Wheatley's
literary estate was acquired by media company Chorion.

He was cremated at Tooting and his ashes interred at Brookwood

Cemetery. He is commemorated on the Baker/Yates family monument
at West Norwood Cemetery

Politics
His work is fairly typical of his class and era; it contains a quality of
life/clubland snobbery ethos that gives an insight into the values of the
time, good and bad. His leading characters are all dyed-in-the-wool
supporters of Royalty, Empire and the class system and many of his
villains are villainous because they attack these ideas, although in a
work such as The Golden Spaniard he has various protagonists pitted
against each other set in the Spanish Civil War. His works are enjoyable
thrillers, and his "Roger Brook" series in particular offer the reader
"history without tears" (Wheatley, in the introduction to The Man Who
Killed the King). His historical analysis is coloured by his politics, but is
well informed. For example, Vendetta in Spain (pre-WWI adventure in
that country) has a discussion of anarchism which is well grounded,
though unsympathetic. His strong attachment to personal liberty also
informs much of his work. This, as well as a sympathetic attitude
toward Jews (as shown in the 'Simon Aron' character introduced in
'Three Inquisitive People') led him to mercilessly flay the Nazi system in
those 'Gregory Sallust' thrillers set in World War Two.

In the winter of 1947 Wheatley penned 'A Letter to Posterity' which he

buried in an urn at his country home. The letter was intended to be
discovered some time in the future (but was found in 1969 when that
home was demolished for redevelopment of the property). In it he
predicted that the socialist reforms introduced by the post-war
government would inevitably lead to an unjust state, and called for
both passive and active resistance to it.

"Socialist ‘planning’ forbids any man to kill his own sheep or pig,
cut down his own tree, put up a wooden shelf in his own house,
build a shack in his garden, and either buy or sell the great
majority of commodities – without a permit. In fact, it makes all
individual effort an offence against the state. Therefore, this
Dictatorship of the Proletariat, instead of gradually improving the
conditions in which the lower classes live, as has been the aim of
all past governments, must result in reducing everyone outside
the party machine to the level of the lowest, idlest and most
incompetent worker.
[...]
It will be immensely difficult to break the stranglehold of the
machine, but it can be done, little by little; the first step being
the formation of secret groups of friends for free discussion. Then
numbers of people can begin systematically to break small
regulations, and so to larger ones with passive resistance by
groups of people pledged to stand together – and eventually the
boycotting, or ambushing and killing of unjust tyrannous
officials."
Dennis Wheatley, A Letter to Posterity
List of works
• The Forbidden Territory 1933
• Such Power is Dangerous
1933
• 'Old Rowley' 1933
• Black August 1934
• The Fabulous Valley 1934
• The Devil Rides Out 1934
• The Eunuch of Stamboul
1935
• They Found Atlantis 1936
• Murder Off Miami 1936
• Contraband 1936
• The Secret War 1937
• Who Killed Robert Prentice?
1937
• Red Eagle 1937
• Uncharted Seas 1938
• The Malinsay Massacre 1938
• The Golden Spaniard 1938
• The Quest of Julian Day 1939
• Herewith the Clues 1939
• Sixty Days to Live 1939
• The Scarlet Impostor 1940
• Three Inquisitive People 1940
• Faked Passports 1940
• The Black Baroness 1940
• Strange Conflict 1941
• The Sword of Fate 1941
• Total War 1941
• V for Vengeance 1942
• Mediterranean Nights 1942
• Gunmen, Gallants and Ghosts
1943
• The Man Who Missed the War
1945
• Codeword Golden Fleece
1946
• Come into My Parlour 1946
• The Launching of Roger
Brook 1947
• The Shadow of Tyburn Tree
1948
• The Haunting of Toby Jugg
• The Second Seal 1950
• The Man Who Killed the King
1951
• The Star of Ill Omen 1952
• To the Devil - a Daughter
1953
• Curtain of Fear 1953
• The Island Where Time
Stands Still 1954
• The Dark Secret of Josephine
1955
• The Ka of Gifford Hillary 1956
• The Prisoner in the Mask
1957
• Traitors' Gate 1958
• Stranger than Fiction 1959
• The Rape of Venice 1959
• The Satanist 1960
• Saturdays with Bricks 1961
• Vendetta in Spain 1961
• Mayhem in Greece 1962
• Gunmen,Gallants and Ghosts
(rev.) 1963
• Mediterranean Nights (rev.)
1963
• The Sultan's Daughter 1963
• Bill for the Use of a Body
1964
• They Used Dark Forces 1964
• Dangerous Inheritance 1965
• The Eight Ages of Justerinis
1965
• The Wanton Princess 1966
• Unholy Crusade 1967
• The White Witch of the South
Seas 1968
• Evil in a Mask 1969
• Gateway to Hell 1970
• The Ravishing of Lady Mary
Ware 1971
• The Devil and all His Works
1971
• The Strange Story of Linda
 1948 Lee 1972
• The Rising Storm 1949 • The Irish Witch 1973
• Desperate Measures 1974
• The Seven Ages of Justerinis • The Young Man Said 1977
1949 • Officer and Temporary
Gentleman 1978
• Drink and Ink 1979

• The Deception Planners 1980

Lincoln Child
Lincoln Child (born 1957) is an author of techno-thriller and horror
novels. Often paired with writing partner Douglas Preston, many of
their novels have become bestsellers and one, Relic, was adapted into
a feature film. Child and Preston's books are known for their thorough
research.

Born in Westport, Connecticut, but now a New Jersey resident, Child

graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a major
in English.

Soon afterwards in 1979, he secured a job as an editorial assistant at

St. Martin's Press. By 1984, Child would achieve the position as full
editor. While in this position, Child edited hundreds of books, most
titles being American and English fiction.

In 1987 after founding the company's mass-market horror division,

Child left the St. Martin's Press to become a Systems Analyst at
MetLife. While in this position, Child's first novel, Relic, was published.
He left the company a few years later to write full time.

Child is now a resident of Morristown, New Jersey.[1]

Novels with Douglas Preston

The Pendergast novels

• Relic (1995)
• Reliquary (1997)
• The Cabinet of Curiosities (2002)
• Still Life with Crows (2003)
• Diogenes Trilogy
 o Brimstone (2004)
o Dance of Death (2005)
o The Book of the Dead (2006)
• The Wheel of Darkness (2007)
• Cemetery Dance (2009)

Other novels

• Mount Dragon (1996)

• Riptide (1998)
• Thunderhead (1999)
• The Ice Limit (2000)

Solo works
• Utopia (2002)
• Death Match (2004)
• Deep Storm (2007)
• Terminal Freeze (2009)

Michael Crichton
John Michael Crichton, M.D. pronounced /ˈkraɪtən/ [1], (October 23,
1942 – November 4, 2008[2][3]) was an American author, producer,
director, screenwriter, and physician, best known for his work in the
science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold
over 150 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted into
films. In 1994 he became the only creative artist to ever have works
simultaneously charting at #1 in television, as creator of ER; and in
film, with the adaptation of Jurassic Park; and in book sales, with
Disclosure.[4]

His literary works were usually based on the action genre and heavily
feature technology. His novels epitomised the techno-thriller genre of
literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction
with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of
his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings,
reflecting his medical training and science background. He was the
author of The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Rising Sun,
Sphere, Timeline, State of Fear, Airframe, Prey, Next (the final book
published before his death), Pirate Latitudes (to be published
November 24, 2009), and a final unfinished techno-thriller to be
released sometime in the fall of 2010.[5]
Early life and education
John Michael Crichton was born in Chicago,[6] Illinois, to John Henderson
Crichton, a journalist and Zula Miller Crichton on October 23 1942. He
was raised in Long Island, in Roslyn, New York.[1], and had three
siblings, two sisters, Kimberly and Catherine, and a younger brother,
Douglas. Crichton showed a keen interest in writing from a young age
and at the age of just 14 had a column related to travel published in
the New York Times. [4]Crichton had always planned on becoming a
writer and commenced his studies at Harvard College in 1960.[4] During
his undergraduate study in literature, Crichton conducted an
experiment to catch off guard a professor who he believed was giving
him abnormally low marks and criticising his own literary style.
Informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton plagiarized a
work by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. Unaware, the
paper was received by his professor with a mark of "B−". [7] His issues
with the English Department led Crichton to switch his course to
biological anthropology as an undergraduate, obtaining his bachelor's
degree summa cum laude in 1964.[8] Crichton was also initiated into
the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He went on to become the Henry Russell
Shaw Traveling Fellow from 1964 to 1965 and Visiting Lecturer in
Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in
1965.

Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School when he began

publishing work. By this time Crichton had become unusually tall.
According to his own words, he was approximately 6 feet 9 inches
(2.06 meters) tall in 1997.[9] [10]In reference to his height, while in
medical school, he began writing novels under the pen names John
Lange and Jeffery Hudson. Lange is a surname in Germany, meaning
"long" and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th century dwarf in the
court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England. A Case of Need,
written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award
for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-authored Dealing with his younger
brother Douglas under the shared pen name Michael Douglas. The
back cover of that book contains a picture of Michael and Douglas at a
very young age taken by their mother.

Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and

undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Jonas Salk Institute
for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970. In 1988,
he was a Visiting Writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Writing career
Fiction

Odds On was Michael Crichton's first published novel. It was released in

1966 under the pseudonym of John Lange. It is a short 215-page
paperback novel which describes an attempt of robbery in an isolated
hotel on Costa Brava. The robbery is planned scientifically with the
help of a Critical Path Analysis computer program, but unforeseen
events get in the way. The following year he published Scratch One.
The novel relates the story of Roger Carr, a handsome, charming and
privileged man who practices law, more as a means to support his
playboy lifestyle than a career. Carr is sent to Nice, France where he
has notable political connections, but is mistaken for an assassin and
finds his life in jeopardy, implicated in the world of terrorism. In 1968
he published two novels, Easy Go and A Case of Need, the second of
which was re-published in 1993 under his real name. Easy Go relates
the story of Harold Barnaby, a brilliant Egyptologist who discovers a
concealed message while translating hieroglyphics, informing him of
an unnamed Pharaoh whose tomb is yet to be discovered. A Case of
Need, on the other hand was a medical thriller in which a Boston
pathologist, Dr. John Berry, investigates an apparent illegal abortion
conducted by an obstretrician friend which caused the early demise of
a young woman. The novel would prove a turning point in Crichton's
future novels, in which technology is important in the subject matter,
although this novel was as much about medical practice. The novel
garnered him an Edgar Award in 1969.

In 1969 Crichton published three novels. The first, Zero Cool, dealt with
an American radiologist on vacation in Spain who becomes caught in a
murderous crossfire between rival gangs seeking a precious artifact.
The second, The Andromeda Strain, would prove to be the important
novel in his career which established him as a best selling author. The
novel documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating a
deadly extraterrestrial microorganism that fatally clots human blood,
infecting the sufferer and causing death within two minutes. The
microbe, code named "Andromeda", mutates with each growth cycle,
changing its biologic properties. The novel became an instant success,
and it was only two years before the novel was sought after by film
producers and turned into the eponymous 1971 film under the
directorship of Robert Wise and featuring Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate
Reid as Leavitt, and David Wayne. In September 2004, the Sci Fi
Channel would announced a production of a miniseries, executive-
produced by Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and Frank Darabont, premiering
on May 26 2008. Crichton's third novel of 1969, The Venom Business
relates the story of a smuggler who uses his exceptional skill as a
snake handler to his advantage by smuggling snakes out of Mexico
under the guise of medical research to be used by drug companies and
universities for research. The snakes are simply a ruse to hide the
identity of rare Mexican artifacts. In 1969 Crichton also wrote a review
for the New Republic (as J. Michael Crichton), critiquing Slaughterhouse
Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

In 1970 Crichton again published three novels: Drug of Choice,

Dealing: Or the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues and
Grave Descend. Grave Descend earned him an Edgar Award
nomination the following year.[11]

In 1972 Crichton published two novels. The first, Binary relates the
story of a villainous middle-class businessman who attempts to
assassinate the President of the United States by stealing an army
shipment of the two precursor chemicals that form a deadly nerve
agent. The second, The Terminal Man is about a psychomotor epileptic
sufferer, Harry Benson, who in regularly suffering seizures followed by
blackouts, conducts himself inappropriately during seizures, waking up
hours later with no knowledge of what he has done. Believed to be
psychotic, he is investigated, electrodes are implanted in his brain,
continuing the trend in Crichton's novels with machine-human
interaction and technology. The novel was adapted into a film directed
by Mike Hodges and starring George Segal, Joan Hackett, Richard A.
Dysart and Donald Moffat, released in June 1974. However neither the
novel nor the film were well received by critics.

In 1975, Crichton ventured into the nineteenth century with his

historical novel The Great Train Robbery which would become a
bestseller. The novel related a mild re-representation of the Great Gold
Robbery of 1855, a massive gold heist, which takes place on a train
traveling through Victorian era England. A considerable proportion of
the book was set in London. The novel was later made into a 1979 film
directed by Crichton himself, starring Sean Connery and Donald
Sutherland. The film would go on to be nominated for Best
Cinematography Award by the British Society of Cinematographers,
also garnering a nomination for Best Motion Picture by the Edgar Allan
Poe award by the Mystery Writers Association of America.

In 1976 Crichton published Eaters of the Dead, a novel about a 10th

century Muslim who travels with a group of Vikings to their settlement.
Eaters of the Dead is narrated as a scientific commentary on an old
manuscript and was inspired by two sources. The first three chapters
retelling Ahmad ibn Fadlan's personal account of his actual journey
north and his experiences in encountering the Rus', the early Russian
peoples, whilst the remainder is based upon the story of Beowulf,
culminating in battles with the 'mist-monsters', or 'wendol', a relict
group of Neanderthals. The novel was adapted into film as The 13th
Warrior, initially directed by John McTiernan, who was later fired with
Crichton himself taking over direction.

In 1980 Crichton published the novel Congo, which centers on an

expedition searching for diamonds in the tropical rain forest of Congo.
An expedition, searching for deposits of valuable diamonds, discover
the legendary lost city of Zinj and an unusual race of barbarous
gorillas. The novel was adapted into a film loosely based on the novel
in 1995, starring Laura Linney, Tim Curry, and Ernie Hudson. Seven
years later, Crichton published Sphere, a novel which relates the story
of psychologist Norman Johnson, who is required by the U.S. Navy to
join a team of scientists assembled by the U.S. Government to examine
an enormous alien spacecraft discovered on the bed of the Pacific
Ocean, believed to have been there for over 300 years. The novel
begins as a science fiction story, but rapidly transforms into a
psychological thriller, ultimately exploring the nature of the human
imagination. The novel was adapted into the film Sphere in 1998,
directed by Barry Levinson, with a cast including Dustin Hoffman as
Norman Johnson, (renamed Norman Goodman), Samuel L. Jackson, Liev
Schreiber and Sharon Stone.

Crichton's novel Jurassic Park and its sequel made into films would
become a part of popular culture, with related parks established in
places as far-afield as Kletno, Poland

In 1990, Crichton published the novel Jurassic Park. Crichton utilized

the presentation of "fiction as fact", used in his previous novels, Eaters
of the Dead and The Andromeda Strain, in conjunction the
mathematical concept of chaos theory and its philosophical
implications to explain the collapse of an amusement park showcasing
certain genetically recreated dinosaur species in a "biological preserve"
on Isla Nublar, an island that is 120 miles west of Costa Rica.
Paleontologist Alan Grant along with his paleobotanist graduate
student, Ellie Sattler, are brought by the billionaire John Hammond,
founder and chief executive officer of International Genetic
Technologies, or InGen to investigate. Upon arrival, the park is revealed
to contain cloned dinosaurs, 15 different species, including species
such as Dilophosaurus, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and
Tyrannosaurus rex which have been recreated using damaged dinosaur
DNA, found in mosquitoes that sucked Saurian blood and were then
trapped and preserved in amber).

Crichton had originally conceived a screenplay about a graduate

student who recreates a dinosaur; but decided to explore his
fascination with dinosaurs and cloning until he began writing the
novel.[12] Spielberg learned of the novel in October 1989 while he and
Crichton were discussing a screenplay that would become the
television series ER. Before the book was published, Crichton
demanded a non-negotiable fee of $1.5 million as well as a substantial
percentage of the gross. Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Sony Pictures
Entertainment and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe
Dante bid for the rights,[13] but Universal eventually acquired them in
May 1990 for Spielberg.[14] Universal paid Crichton a further $500,000
to adapt his own novel,[15] which he had completed by the time
Spielberg was filming Hook. Crichton noted that because the book was
"fairly long" his script only had about 10–20 percent of the novel's
content, resulting in scenes from the novel being dropped for
budgetary and practical reasons.[16]The film, directed by Spielberg was
eventually released in 1993, starring Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, Laura
Dern as Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Ian Malcolm (the chaos
theorist) and Richard Attenborough as billionaire CEO of InGen. The
film would become extremely succesful.

In 1992, Crichton published the novel Rising Sun, an international best-

selling crime thriller about a murder in the Los Angeles headquarters of
Nakamoto, a fictional Japanese corporation. The book was instantly
adapted into a film, released the same year of the movie adaption of
Jurassic Park in 1993 and starring Sean Connery, Wesley Snipes, Tia
Carrere and Harvey Keitel. Crichton would continue with the subject
matter of a high tech corporation in his next novel, Disclosure,
published in 1994. The novel again revolves around a fictional high
tech company, but specifically addresses the theme of sexual
harassment which had been explored in previous novels such as 1972's
Binary. Unlike that novel however, Crichton centers on sexual politics
in the workplace, emphasising an array of paradoxes in traditional
gender functions, by featuring a male protagonist who is being
sexually harassed by a female executive. As a result, the book has
been harshly criticized by feminist commentators and accused of anti-
feminism. Crichton, anticipating this response, offered a rebuttal at the
close of the novel which states that a "role-reversal" story uncovers
aspects of the subject that would not be as easily seen with a female
protagonist. The novel was made into a film the same year under the
helm of Barry Levinson, and starring Michael Douglas, Demi Moore and
Donald Sutherland.

Crichton then published The Lost World in 1995 as the sequel to

Jurassic Park. It was made into a film sequel two years later in 1997,
again directed by Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore,
Vince Vaughn and Pete Postlethwaite. Then, in 1996, Crichton
published Airframe, an aero-techno-thriller which relates the story of a
quality assurance vice-president at the fictional aerospace
manufacturer Norton Aircraft, as she investigates an in-flight accident
aboard a Norton-manufactured airliner that leaves three passengers
dead and fifty-six injured. Like many of his other novels, Crichton uses
the false document literary device, presenting numerous technical
documents to create a sense of authenticity. In the novel, Crichton
draws from real life accidents to increase its sensation of realism,
including American Airlines Flight 191 and Aeroflot Flight 593 which
flew from Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO) and
crashed at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport in 1994. Air safety procedures
are a central theme in the novel. Crichton challenges public perception
of air safety and somewhat relates an element of investigative
journalism, and the consequences of exaggerated media reports to sell
the story. The book also continues Crichton's overall theme of the
failure of humans in human-machine interaction, given that plane itself
worked perfectly, and had the pilot known how to react properly, the
accident would not have occurred within it.

Then in 1999, Crichton published Timeline, a science fiction novel

which tells the story of a team of historians and archaeologists
studying at site in the Dordogne region of France where the medieval
towns of Castelgard and La Roque stood who travel back to the 1357 to
uncover some startling truths. The novel which continues Crichton's
long history of combining technical details and action in his books,
addresses quantum physics and time travel directly. The novel quickly
spawned Timeline Computer Entertainment, a computer game
developer that created the Timeline PC game published by Eidos
Interactive in 2000. A film based on the book was released in 2003 by
Paramount Pictures, with a screen adaptation by Jeff Maguire and
George Nolfi, under the directorship of Richard Donner. The film stars
Paul Walker, Gerard Butler and Frances O'Connor.

In 2002, Crichton published Prey, a cautionary tale about

developments in science and technology; specifically nanotechnology.
The novel explores relatively recent phenonomen in the scientific
community, such as artificial life, emergence (and by extension,
complexity), genetic algorithms, and agent-based computing.
Reiterating components in many of his other novels, Crichton once
again brings fictional companies to the readers attention, this time
Xymos, a nanorobotics company which is claimed to be on the verge of
perfecting a revolutionary new medical imaging technology based on
nanotechnology and a rival company, MediaTronics. Elements of the
novel were utilized in the 2008 film The Day the Earth Stood Still,[citation
needed]
in which a swarm of nanobots escape from a secure military
facility. Then in 2004, Crichton published State of Fear, a novel
concerning eco-terrorists who attempt mass murder to support their
views. Global warming and climate change serve as a central theme to
the novel, and in Appendix I of the book, Crichton warns both sides of
the global warming debate against the politicization of science. [17]He
provides two examples of the disastrous combination of pseudo-
science and politics, the early 20th-century idea of eugenics, which he
directly links to be one of the theories that allowed for the Holocaust
and Lysenkoism. The novel had an initial print run of 1.5 million copies
and reached the #1 bestseller position at Amazon.com and #2 on the
New York Times Best Seller list for one week in January 2005.[18][19][20]

His final novel, published while he was still living was Next, printed in
2006. The novel follows many characters, including transgenic animals,
in the quest to survive in a world dominated by genetic research,
corporate greed, and legal interventions where government and
private investors spend billions of dollars every year on genetic
research. In his novel, Crichton introduces a minor character named
"Mick Crowley" who is portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a
small penis.[21] There is a real person named Michael Crowley, who is
also a Yale graduate, and a senior editor of The New Republic, a left-
leaning Washington D.C.-based political magazine who had written an
article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in
his novel, State of Fear, earlier in March 2006.[22]

His last novel was originally scheduled for a release date of December
2, 2008.[23] It was postponed and will now be published on November
24, 2009. It's entitled Pirate Latitudes. Additionally, an unfinished,
untitled novel is tentatively scheduled for publication in the fall of
2010.[24]

Non-fiction

Crichtons first published book of non-fiction, Five Patients recounts his

experiences of practices in the late 1960s at Massachusetts General
Hospital and the issues of costs and politics within the American
Healthcare Service.

Aside from fiction, Crichton wrote several other books based on

medical or scientific themes, often based upon his own observations in
his field of expertise. In 1970 he published Five Patients, a book which
recounts his experiences of hospital practices in the late 1960s at
Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The book
follows each of five patients through their hospital experience and the
context of their treatment, revealing inadequacies in the hospital
institution at the time. The book relates the experiences of Ralph
Orlando, a construction worker seriously injured in a scaffold collapse,
John O'Connor, a middle aged dispatcher suffering from fever that has
reduced him to a delirious wreck, Peter Luchesi, a young man who
severs his hand in an accident, Sylvia Thompson, an airline passenger
who suffers chest pains, and Edith Murphy, a mother of three who is
diagnosed with a life threatening disease. in Five Patients, Crichton
examines a brief history of medicine up to 1969 to help place hospital
culture and practice into context, and addresses the costs and politics
of the national healthcare service. As a personal friend to the artist
Jasper Johns, Crichton compiled many of his works in a coffee table
book, published as Jasper Johns. It was originally published in the 1970
by Harry N. Abrams, Inc. in association with the Whitney Museum of
American Art and again in January 1977, with a second revised edition
published in 1994.

In 1983, Crichton authored Electronic Life, a book that introduces

BASIC programming to its readers. The book, written like a glossary,
with entries such as "Afraid of Computers (everybody is)," "Buying a
Computer," and "Computer Crime", was intended to introduce the idea
of personal computers to a reader who might be faced with the
hardship of using them at work or at home for the first time. It defined
basic computer jargon and assured readers that they could master the
machine when it inevitably arrived. In his words, being able to program
a computer is liberation; "In my experience, you assert control over a
computer—show it who's the boss—by making it do something unique.
That means programming it....If you devote a couple of hours to
programming a new machine, you'll feel better about it ever
afterwards".[25]In the book, Crichton predicts a number of events in the
history of computer development, that computer networks would
increase in importance as a matter of convenience, including the
sharing of information and pictures that we see online today which the
telephone never could. He also makes predictions for computer games,
dismissing them as "the hula hoops of the '80s", and saying "already
there are indications that the mania for twitch games may be fading."
In a section of the book called "Microprocessors, or how I flunked
biostatistics at Harvard," Crichton again seeks his revenge on the
medical school teacher who had given him abnormally low grades in
college. Within the book, Crichton included many self-written
demonstrative Applesoft (for Apple II) and BASICA (for IBM PC
compatibles) programs. He once considered updating it, but the project
was canceled.

Then in 1988 he published Travels, which also contains

autobiographical episodes covered in a similar fashion to his 1970 book
Five Patients.

Literary techniques
 Crichton's novels, including Jurassic Park have been described by The
Guardian as "harking back to the fantasy adventure fiction of Conan
Doyle, Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Edgar Wallace, but with a
contemporary spin, assisted by cutting-edge technology references
made accessible for the general reader". [26] According to the Guardian,
"Michael Crichton wasn't really interested in characters, but his innate
talent for storytelling enabled him to breathe new life into the science
fiction thriller".[26]Like The Guardian, the New York Times has also noted
the boys adventure quality to his novels interfused with modern
technology and science. According to the New York Times,

“
All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little
frisson of fear and suspense: that’s what kept you turning the
pages. But a deeper source of their appeal was the author’s
extravagant care in working out the clockwork mechanics of
his experiments — the DNA replication in Jurassic Park, the
time travel in Timeline, the submarine technology in Sphere.
The novels have embedded in them little lectures or mini-
seminars on, say, the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition
software or medieval jousting etiquette....

The best of the Crichton novels have about them a boys’

adventure quality. They owe something to the Saturday-
afternoon movie serials that Mr. Crichton watched as a boy
and to the adventure novels of Arthur Conan Doyle (from
whom Mr. Crichton borrowed the title The Lost World and
whose example showed that a novel could never have too
many dinosaurs). These books thrive on yarn spinning, but
they also take immense delight in the inner workings of
things (as opposed to people, women especially), and they
make the world — or the made-up world, anyway — seem
boundlessly interesting. Readers come away entertained and
also with the belief, not entirely illusory, that they have
actually learned something" ”
—The New York Times on the works of Michael Crichton [27]

Crichton's works were frequently cautionary; his plots often portrayed

scientific advancements going awry, commonly resulting in worst-case
scenarios. A notable recurring theme in Crichton's plots is the
pathological failure of complex systems and their safeguards, whether
biological (Jurassic Park), military/organizational (The Andromeda
Strain), technical (Airframe) or cybernetic (Westworld). This theme of
the inevitable breakdown of "perfect" systems and the failure of "fail-
safe measures" can be seen strongly in the poster for Westworld
(slogan: "Where nothing can possibly go worng .." (sic) ) and in the
discussion of chaos theory in Jurassic Park.

The use of author surrogate was a feature of Crichton's writings from

the beginning of his career. In A Case of Need, one of his
pseudonymous whodunit stories, Crichton used first-person narrative
to portray the hero, a Bostonian pathologist, who is running against the
clock to clear a friend's name from medical malpractice in a girl's
death from a hack-job abortion.

Some of Crichton's fiction used a literary technique called false

document. For example, Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation
of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholarly translation of
Ahmad ibn Fadlan's 10th century manuscript. Other novels, such as
The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, incorporated fictionalized
scientific documents in the form of diagrams, computer output, DNA
sequences, footnotes and bibliography. Some of his novels included
authentic published scientific works to illustrate his point, such as in
The Terminal Man and State of Fear.

At the prose level, one of Crichton's trademarks was the single word
paragraph: a dramatic question answered by a single-word sitting on
its own as a paragraph.

Reception
Criticism

Many of Crichton's publicly expressed views, particularly on subjects

like the global warming controversy, have caused heated debate. An
example is meteorologist Jeffrey Masters' review of State of Fear:

Flawed or misleading presentations of Global Warming science exist in the

book, including those on Arctic sea ice thinning, correction of land-based
temperature measurements for the urban heat island effect, and satellite vs.
ground-based measurements of Earth's warming. I will spare the reader
additional details. On the positive side, Crichton does emphasize the little-
appreciated fact that while most of the world has been warming the past few
decades, most of Antarctica has seen a cooling trend. The Antarctic ice sheet
is actually expected to increase in mass over the next 100 years due to
increased precipitation, according to the IPCC."[36]

Peter Doran, author of the paper in the January 2002 issue of Nature
which reported the finding referred to above, that some areas of
Antarctica had cooled between 1986 and 2000, wrote an opinion piece
in the July 27, 2006 New York Times in which he stated "Our results
have been misused as 'evidence' against global warming by Michael
Crichton in his novel State of Fear."[37] Crichton himself states in the
book that though he uses a number of studies to support his stance,
the authors of these studies do not necessarily agree with his
interpretations. Additionally, some of the characters in the novel
caution that they do not necessarily claim that global warming is not
an issue, but only that more research is necessary before we make any
definitive conclusions.

Al Gore said on March 21, 2007 before a US House committee: "The

planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor [...] if
your doctor tells you you need to intervene here, you don't say 'Well, I
read a science fiction novel that tells me it's not a problem'." This has
been recognized by several commentators as a reference to State of
Fear.[38][39][40]

Michael Crowley

In his 2006 novel Next (released November 28 of that year), Crichton

introduced a character named "Mick Crowley" who is a Yale graduate
and a Washington D.C.-based political columnist. "Crowley" was
portrayed by Crichton as a child molester with a small penis. The
character is a minor one who does not appear elsewhere in the book.[41]

A real person named Michael Crowley is also a Yale graduate, and a

senior editor of The New Republic, a liberal Washington D.C.-based
political magazine. In March 2006, the real Crowley had written an
article strongly critical of Crichton for his stance on global warming in
State of Fear. [42]

Awards

• Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best

Novel, 1969 (A Case of Need; written as Jeffery Hudson)
• Association of American Medical Writers Award, 1970 (Five
Patients)
• Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best
Motion Picture Screenplay, 1980 (The Great Train Robbery)
• The American Association of Petroleum Geologists Journalism
Award, 2006 (State of Fear)
• An Emmy
• A Peabody
• A Writers Guild of America
• A dinosaur, Crichtonsaurus bohlini, was named after him in honor
of Jurassic Park.[43]
 • Crichton was named to the list of the "Fifty Most Beautiful
People" by People magazine, 1992

Personal life and death

As an adolescent, Crichton felt isolated with regard to his height (at
6'9") and different to others. As an adult, he was acutely aware of his
intellect which also left him often feeling alienated from people around
him. During the 1970s and 1980s he consulted psychics and
enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to
improve his karma. As a result of these experiences, Crichton practised
meditation throughout much of his life. Crichton was a workaholic.
When drafting a novel which would typically take him six or seven
weeks, Crichton withdrew completely and ritualistically to follow what
he called "a structured approach". As he approached writing the end of
each book, he would rise increasingly earlier each day, to the extent
that on nearing completion he would sleep for less than 4 hours, by
going to bed at 10pm and awaking at 2am. [4]

In 1992 Crichton was ranked among People magazine's 50 most

beautiful people. Crichton was married five times, four of the marriages
ending in divorce. He was married to Suzanna Childs, Joan Radam
(1965 – 1970), Kathy St. Johns (1978 – 1980) and actress Anne-Marie
Martin (1987 - 2003), the mother of his daughter, Taylor Anne (born
1989). At the time of his death, Crichton was married to Sherri
Alexander, who was six months pregnant with their son. John Michael
Todd Crichton was born on February 12, 2009.

Given the private way in which Crichton lived his life, his battle with
throat cancer was not made public until his death. A smoker,[44] he died
unexpectedly of throat cancer on November 4, 2008.[2][45][46]

Michael’s talent outscaled even his own dinosaurs of ‘Jurassic Park.’ He was
the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what
gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth. In the early days,
Michael had just sold ‘The Andromeda Strain’ to Robert Wise at Universal and
I had recently signed on as a contract TV director there. My first assignment
was to show Michael Crichton around the Universal lot. We became friends
and professionally ‘Jurassic Park,’ ‘ER,’ and ‘Twister’ followed. Michael was a
gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one
in the wings that will ever take his place.[47]

—Steven Spielberg on Michael Crichton's death

Works
Fiction

Ye
Title Notes
ar

1
Odds On as John Lange
966

1
Scratch One as John Lange
967

Easy Go as John Lange

1
968 as Jeffery Hudson (re-released as
A Case of Need
Crichton in 1993)

Zero Cool as John Lange

1 The Andromeda Strain

969

The Venom Business as John Lange

Drug of Choice as John Lange

1 as Michael Douglas (with brother

Dealing
970 Douglas Crichton)

Grave Descend as John Lange

 Binary as John Lange
1
972
The Terminal Man

1
The Great Train Robbery
975

1
Eaters of the Dead
976

1
Congo
980

1
Sphere
987

1
Jurassic Park
990

1
Rising Sun
992

1
Disclosure
994

1
The Lost World
995

1
Airframe
996
1
Timeline
999

2
Prey
002

2
State of Fear
004

2
Next
006

2
Pirate Latitudes posthumous publication
009

2 Title not yet revealed

posthumous publication
010 (Techno-Thriller)

John Grisham
John Ray Grisham (born February 8, 1955) is an American author,
best known for his popular legal thrillers. Before becoming a writer, he
was a successful lawyer and politician. As of 2008, his books have sold
over 250 million copies worldwide.[1]

Biography and career

John Grisham, the second oldest of five siblings, was born in Jonesboro,
Arkansas, to Southern Baptist parents of modest means. His father
worked as a construction worker and a cotton farmer; his mother was a
homemaker.[2] After moving frequently, the family settled in 1967 in the
town of Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi, where Grisham
graduated from Southaven High School. He played as a quarterback for
the school football team. Encouraged by his mother, the young
Grisham was an avid reader, and was especially influenced by the work
of John Steinbeck whose clarity he admired. His brother Vaughn is one
of the nation's leading experts on Community Development and is a
professor of Public Administration at the University of Mississippi.

Education
In 1977, Grisham received a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting
from Mississippi State University. Grisham tried out for the baseball
team at Delta State University, but was cut by the coach, who was
former Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave Ferriss. He earned his Juris Doctor
degree from the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1981. During
law school Grisham switched interests from tax law to criminal and
general civil litigation. Upon graduation he entered a small-town
general law practice for nearly a decade in Southaven, where he
focused on criminal law and civil law representing a broad spectrum of
clients. As a young attorney he spent much of his time in court
proceedings.

Political life
In 1983 he was elected as a Democrat to the Mississippi House of
Representatives, where he served until 1990. During his time as a
legislator, he continued his private law practice in Southaven. He has
donated over $100,000 to Democratic Party candidates. In September,
2007 Grisham appeared with Hillary Rodham Clinton, his choice for
U.S. President in 2008, and former Virginia Governor Mark Warner,
whom Grisham supported for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by
Republican John Warner (no relation). Grisham himself had considered
challenging former GOP U.S. Senator George Allen, Jr. in the 2006
election in which Allen was narrowly defeated by the Democrat James
Webb.

Inspiration for first novel

In 1984 at the DeSoto County courthouse in Hernando, Grisham
witnessed the harrowing testimony of a 12-year-old rape victim.[3]
According to Grisham's official website, Grisham used his spare time to
begin work on his first novel, which "explored what would have
happened if the girl's father had murdered her assailants." [3] He "spent
three years on A Time to Kill and finished it in 1987. Initially rejected by
many publishers, the manuscript was eventually bought by Wynwood
Press, who gave it a modest 5,000-copy printing and published it in
June 1988."[3]
The day after Grisham completed A Time to Kill, he began work on
another novel, the story of a young attorney "lured to an apparently
perfect law firm that was not what it appeared."[3] That second book,
The Firm, became the 7th bestselling novel of 1991.[4] Grisham then
went on to produce at least one work a year, most of them wildly
popular bestsellers. He authored seven number-one bestselling novels
of the year (1994, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2005).[5][6]

Beginning with A Painted House in 2001, the author broadened his

focus from law to the more general rural south, while continuing to pen
his legal thrillers.

Publishers Weekly declared Grisham "the bestselling novelist of the

90s," selling a total of 60,742,289 copies. He is also one of only a few
authors to sell two million copies on a first printing; others include Tom
Clancy and J.K. Rowling.[7] Grisham's 1992 novel The Pelican Brief sold
11,232,480 copies in the United States alone.

Courtroom re-appearance
Grisham returned briefly to the courtroom in 1996 after a five-year
hiatus. According to his official website, he "was honoring a
commitment he made before he had retired from the law...representing
the family of a railroad brakeman killed when he was pinned between
two cars...Grisham successfully argued his clients' case, earning them
a jury award of $683,500."[3] Another tie to the legal community that
he continues to hold is his seat on the Board of Directors for the
Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to exonerating the
innocent through DNA testing after they have been convicted.[8]

Named in libel suit

On September 28, 2007, Grisham was named in a civil suit in a US
District Court, claiming Grisham libeled Pontotoc County, Oklahoma,
District Attorney Bill Peterson and Gary Rogers, a former Oklahoma
State Bureau of Investigation agent. Peterson and Rogers claim that
Grisham, along with two other authors, conspired to defame their
character through their books. The suit is based on Grisham's sole non-
fiction book, The Innocent Man, a book about the investigation of the
murder of a cocktail waitress in Ada, Oklahoma, and the exoneration by
DNA evidence of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz more than 12 years
later.[9] The case was dismissed on September 18, 2008, by the judge
who said "The wrongful convictions of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz
must be discussed openly and with great vigor."[10]
John Grisham Room
The Mississippi State University Libraries, Manuscript Division,
maintains the John Grisham Room, an archive containing materials
generated during the author's tenure as Mississippi State
Representative and relating to his writings.[11]

Grisham's lifelong passion for baseball is evident in his novel A Painted

House and in his support of Little League activities in both Oxford,
Mississippi and Charlottesville, Virginia. He wrote the original
screenplay for and produced the baseball movie Mickey, starring Harry
Connick, Jr.. The movie was released on DVD in April 2004.[12] He
remains a fan of Mississippi State University's baseball team and wrote
about his ties to the university and the Left Field Lounge in the
introduction for the book Dudy Noble Field: A Celebration of MSU
Baseball.

Grisham is also well known within the literary community for his efforts
to support the continuing literary tradition of his native South. Grisham
has endowed scholarships and writer's residencies in the University of
Mississippi's English Department and Graduate Creative Writing
Program, and was the founding publisher of the Oxford American, a
magazine devoted to literary writing and famous for its annual music
issue and copies of which include a compilation CD featuring
contemporary and classic Southern musicians in genres ranging from
blues and gospel to country-western and alternative rock.

In an October 2006 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Grisham

stated that he usually takes only six months to write a book and that
his favorite author was John le Carré.

Family life
Grisham describes himself as a "moderate Baptist," and has performed
mission service for his church in Brazil; that country provides the
setting for two of his novels: The Testament, which has a strong
religious theme; and The Partner. He lives with his wife Renée Jones
and their two children, Ty and Shea. Grisham's website states that the
"family splits their time between their Victorian home on a farm"
outside Oxford, Mississippi, "and a home near Charlottesville,
Virginia."[3]

Books
Legal fiction

A complete collection of John Grisham books

• A Time to Kill (1989), ISBN 0-922-06603-5

• The Firm (1991), ISBN 0-385-41634-2
• The Pelican Brief (1992), ISBN 0-385-42198-2
• The Client (1993), ISBN 0-385-42471-X
• The Chamber (1994), ISBN 0-385-42472-8
• The Rainmaker (1995), ISBN 0-385-42473-6
• The Runaway Jury (1996), ISBN 0-385-47294-3
• The Partner (1997), ISBN 0-385-47295-1
• The Street Lawyer (1998), ISBN 0-385-49099-2
• The Testament (1999), ISBN 0-385-49380-0
• The Brethren (2000), ISBN 0-385-49748-2
• The Summons (2002), ISBN 0-385-50382-2
• The King of Torts (2003), ISBN 0-385-50804-2
• The Last Juror (2004), ISBN 0-385-51043-8
• The Broker (2005), ISBN 0-385-51045-4
• The Appeal (2008), ISBN 0-385-51504-7
• The Associate (2009), ISBN 0-7393-2823-9
• Ford County (2009), ISBN 0-385-53245-8

Non-legal fiction

• A Painted House (2001), ISBN 0-385-33793-0

• Skipping Christmas (2001), ISBN 0-385-50624-4
• Bleachers (2003), ISBN 0-385-51161-2
• Playing for Pizza (2007), ISBN 0-385-52500-1

Non-fiction

• The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (2006),

ISBN 0-385-51723-8

Quotes
• "My success was not planned, but it could only happen in
America."
• "Everything I'm thinking about writing now is about politics or
social issues wrapped around a novel."
• "I'm a famous writer in a country where nobody reads."
• "You guys have forgotten about my favorite story, Marc Dreier. I
haven’t seen a Dreier story in weeks. But it’s incredible.
 Pretending to be someone else? Taking over a conference room?
I knew something was wrong when I read about his 120-foot
yacht. When you’ve got a yacht that big you’re living like a
billionaire. And you can’t do that as a New York lawyer. I don’t
care how big your firm is......And I couldn’t make it any better. I
couldn’t improve on it. The sushi restaurant (Dreier) owned? All
the cars? The secretaries making $200,000 a year? It’s too
much. When I see stuff like that my imagination just goes into
overdrive"[13]

Ken Follett
Ken Follett (born June 5, 1949) is a British author of thrillers and
historical novels. He has sold a total of 100 million copies. Four of his
works have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-
seller list : The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple and World
Without End.[1]

Biography
Early life

Follett was born on July 5, 1949, in Cardiff, Wales. He was the first child
of Martin Follett, a tax inspector, and Lavinia(Veenie) Follett, who went
on to have three further children.[2][3] Barred from watching movies and
television by his devoutly Christian parents, he developed an early
interest in reading but remained an indifferent student until he entered
his teens.[2][3] His family moved to London when he was ten years old
and he began applying himself to his studies at Harrow Weald
Grammar School and Poole Technical College, and won admission in
1967 to University College London, where he studied philosophy and
became involved in leftist politics.

Marriage and early success

He married his first wife, Mary, in 1968, with his eldest son Emanuele
being born in the same year.[2] After graduation in the autumn of 1970
Follett took a three-month post-graduate course in journalism and went
to work as a trainee reporter in Cardiff on the South Wales Echo.[2] After
three years in Cardiff he returned to London as a general-assignment
reporter for the Evening News.[2] Finding the work unchallenging he
eventually left journalism for publishing and became, by the late
1970s, deputy managing director of the small London publisher Everest
Books.[2] He also began writing fiction during evenings and weekends
as a hobby. Success came gradually at first but the publication of "Eye
of the Needle" in 1978 made him both wealthy and internationally
famous. Each of Follett's subsequent novels has also become a best-
seller, ranking high on the "New York Times" best-seller and
NovelTracker.com lists; a number have been adapted for the screen.

Follett became involved, during the late 1970s, in the activities of

Britain's Labour Party. In the course of his political activities he met the
former Barbara Broer, a Labour official, who became his second wife in
1984. She was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1997,
representing Stevenage. She was re-elected in both 2001 and in 2005.
Follett himself remains a prominent Labour supporter and fundraiser.

Background of Follett's work

Follett is widely perceived as a talented author of historical/thriller

fiction, with a long series of international best-sellers to his name.
Leaving aside a series of competent but undistinguished paperback
originals written under various pseudonyms, of which The Modigliani
Scandal and Paper Money are perhaps the best known, Follett's literary
career has gone through four distinct phases.

The first, and most distinguished, phase comprises Eye of the Needle
and the five books (four fiction and one non-fiction) that followed it. All
are variations of the classic espionage thriller, pitting one or two
daring, resourceful agents against a numerous and well-equipped
enemy. The settings are both geographically and chronologically
diverse, ranging from World War I Europe in The Man from St.
Petersburg to (then) present-day Israel, Iran and Afghanistan in Triple,
On Wings of Eagles and Lie Down with Lions. Like the early works of
Frederick Forsyth, another journalist-turned-novelist, Follett's early
thrillers devote much attention to how things are done. The Key To
Rebecca, for example, hinges on the workings of a particular type of
secret code, the hero of Triple is a master of disguise, and clandestine
radio transmitters play a major role in Eye of the Needle. All six books
—including On Wings of Eagles, the non-fictional story of the successful
attempt to rescue two American employees of Ross Perot's company
EDS from Iran after the 1979 Revolution—follow the basic conventions
of the thriller genre. All six, however, use those conventions in
unconventional ways: making the protagonist of Eye of the Needle a
German agent, for example.

The second phase of Follett's career was a conscious departure from

the first: a series of four historical novels written in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. The Pillars of the Earth, the first of the four, set the
pattern for the three that followed. Unlike Follett's earlier thrillers, it
featured a large cast, multiple plotlines, occasional outbursts of
violence, and extensive use of historical background. Pillars, set mostly
in medieval England, followed the building of a cathedral. Night Over
Water was a Grand Hotel-style tale that took place aboard a
transatlantic seaplane flying from Southampton to New York on the eve
of World War II. A Dangerous Fortune revolved around family and
business intrigue in a large family of financiers in Victorian-era London,
and A Place Called Freedom took place in Britain's North American
colonies around the time of the American Revolution.

Follett changed literary gears a second time in the late 1990s, with a
pair of books set firmly in the present and using high technology as a
plot device. The Hammer of Eden focused on the potential use of
earthquakes as a terrorist weapon, and The Third Twin on the darker
aspects of biotechnology. The two novels—seemingly an attempt to
mine the same fictional vein as Michael Crichton—were comparatively
unsuccessful. Reviewers, as well as many readers, found the
characters shallow and the effort required to suspend disbelief too
great.

Follett returned to conventional low-tech thrillers in Code to Zero, an

espionage story pitting Soviet and American agents on the eve of
America's first satellite launch. The World War II adventures Jackdaws
and Hornet Flight put Follett firmly back where he began: writing about
daring agents operating undercover behind enemy lines, charged with
a mission that could change the course of the war. Some critics and
readers hailed them as a welcome and long-overdue return by Follett
to the kind of story he writes best. Others regarded them as old wine in
new bottles: rehashings of themes and situations he had treated more
interestingly in his earlier work.

Barring another radical shift in his literary output, Follett's reputation is

likely to rest on his early thrillers (especially Eye of the Needle and The
Key to Rebecca) and on The Pillars of the Earth, which he himself is
said to regard as his finest work.

His most recent novel is World Without End, a sequel to The Pillars of
the Earth, released in October 2007. He was inspired to write this novel
in the cathedral of the Spanish town of Vitoria-Gasteiz, which is why
Vitoria has honored him with a sculpture in his likeness.

He received an Honorary LLD (Doctor of Laws) from Exeter University

on 11 July 2008.
Bibliography
• The Big Needle (1974) (as Simon Myles) (apa The Big Apple -
U.S.)[4]
• The Big Black (1974) (as Simon Myles)[4]
• The Big Hit (1975) (as Simon Myles)[4]
• The Shakeout (1975)[5]
• The Bear Raid (1976)[5]
• Amok: King of Legend (1976) (as Bernard L. Ross)
• The Modigliani Scandal (1976) (as Zachary Stone)
• The Mystery Hideout (1976) (as Martin Martinsen) (apa The
Secret of Kellerman's Studio)
• The Power Twins (1976) (as Martin Martinsen)
• Paper Money (1977) (as Zachary Stone)
• Capricorn One (1978) (as Bernard L. Ross) (based on screenplay
by Peter Hyams)
• Eye of the Needle (1978) (apa Storm Island) (Edgar Award, 1979,
Best Novel)
• Heist of the Century (1978) (with Rene Louis Maurice, others)
(apa The Gentleman of 16 July - U.S.) (apa Under the Streets of
Nice) (apa Robbery Under the Streets of Nice)[6][7]
• Triple (1979)
• The Key to Rebecca (1980)
• The Man from St. Petersburg (1982)
• On Wings of Eagles (1983) ISBN 0-451-16353-2
• Lie Down with Lions (1986)
• The Pillars of the Earth (1989)
• Night Over Water (1991)
• A Dangerous Fortune (1993)
• A Place Called Freedom (1995)
• The Third Twin (1996)
• The Hammer of Eden (1998)
• Code to Zero (2000)
• Jackdaws (2001)
• Hornet Flight (2002)
• Whiteout (2004)
• World Without End (2007)

Further reading
• Ken Follett: The Transformation of a Writer (ISBN 978-
0879727987), written by Carlos Ramet. Popular Press, November
1990.
Eric Ambler
Eric Clifford Ambler OBE (28 June 1909 - 22 October 1998) was an
influential English author of spy novels ,who introduced a new realism
to the genre. Ambler also used the pseudonym Eliot Reed for books
co-written with Charles Rodda.

Life
Ambler was born in London into a family of entertainers who ran a
puppet show, with which he helped in his early years. Both parents
also worked as music hall artists.[1] Later he studied engineering at
Northampton Polytechnic in Islington (now City University, London),
and served an apprenticeship with an engineering company. However,
his upbringing as an entertainer proved dominant and he soon moved
to writing plays and other works. By 1937 he was a copywriter at an
advertising agency in London. After resigning he moved to Paris, where
he met and married Louise Crombie, an American fashion
correspondent.

At that time, Ambler was politically a staunch anti-Fascist and like

many others tended to regard the Soviet Union as the only real
counterweight - which was reflected in the fact that some of his early
books include Soviet agents depicted as positive and sympathetic
characters, the undoubted allies of the main protagonist. And like
numerous like-minded people in different countries, Ambler was
shocked and disillusioned by the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. His post-war
anti-Communist novel Judgment on Deltchev (1951), based on the
Stalinist purge-trials in Eastern Europe, caused him to be reviled by
many former Communist Party and other progressive associates.

When World War II broke out, Ambler entered the army as a common
soldier. He was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1941. He was
soon re-assigned to photographic units, where his talents were better
employed. He ended the war as a Lieutenant-Colonel and assistant
director of the army film unit. After the war, he worked in the civilian
film industry as a screen-writer, receiving an Academy Award
nomination in 1953 for his work on the film "The Cruel Sea", adapted
from the novel by Nicholas Montserrat. He did not resume writing
under his own name until 1951, entering the second of the two distinct
periods in his writing. Five of his six early works are regarded as classic
thrillers.
Ambler divorced Louise in 1958, marrying Joan Harrison the same year.
The couple moved to Switzerland in 1969 and back to England 16
years later. Joan died in 1994 in London. Ambler died in Switzerland.

In 2008, his estate transferred all of Ambler's copyrights and other

legal and commercial rights to a subsidiary company of London-based
Owatonna Media.

Writing career
Ambler's best known works are probably The Mask of Dimitrios (1939),
which was made into a film in 1944, and The Light of Day (1962),
filmed in 1964 as Topkapi and also lampooned in The Pink Panther
(1963). He was also a successful screenwriter and lived in Los Angeles
in his later years. Amongst other classic movies based on his work are
Journey Into Fear (1943), starring Joseph Cotten, and The October Man
(1947). He published his autobiography in 1985, Here Lies Eric Ambler.

A recurring theme in Ambler's books is the amateur who finds himself

unwillingly in the company of hardened criminals or spies. Typically,
the protagonist is out of his depth and often seems for much of the
book a bumbling anti-hero, yet eventually manages to surprise himself
as well as the professionals by a decisive action that outwits his far
more experienced opponents. This plot is used, for example, in Journey
into Fear, The Light of Day and Dirty Story. In Ambler's books, unlike
most other spy novels[2], the protagonist is rarely a professional spy, or
a policeman or counterintelligence operative.

Works
Novels

• The Dark Frontier (1936)

• Uncommon Danger (1937), US title: Background to Danger
• Epitaph for a Spy (1938)
• Cause for Alarm (1938)
• The Mask of Dimitrios (1939), US title: A Coffin for Dimitrios
• Journey into Fear (1940)
• Judgment on Deltchev (1951)
• The Schirmer Inheritance (1953)
• The Night-Comers (1956), also published as State of Siege
• Passage of Arms (1959); Gold Dagger Award
• The Light of Day (1962), also published as Topkapi; Edgar Award
for Best Novel, 1964
• A Kind of Anger (1964)
 • Dirty Story (1967), also published as This Gun for Hire
• The Intercom Conspiracy (1969), also published as The Quiet
Conspiracy
• The Levanter (1972); Gold Dagger Award
• Doctor Frigo (1974)
• Send No More Roses (1977), US title: The Siege of the Villa Lipp
• The Care of Time (1981)

Collections

• The Ability to Kill: and Other Pieces (1963), Published with a

chapter on John Bodkin Adams removed because of libel
concerns [3]
• Here Lies: An Autobiography (1985); Edgar Award for Best
Critical/Biographical Work, 1987
• Waiting for Orders (1991), also published as The Story so Far
1. The Intrusions of Dr. Czissar
2. The Army of Shadows
3. The Blood Bargain

Short stories

• The Army of the Shadows (1939) in The Queen's Book of the Red
Cross

As Eliot Reed (with Charles Rhodda)

• Skytip (1950)
• Tender to Danger (1951), also pulished as Tender to Moonlight
• The Maras Affair (1953)
• Charter to Danger (1954)
• Passport to Panic (1958)

Jan Guillou
Jan Oscar Sverre Lucien Henri Guillou (pronounced [jɑːn gɪjuː];
born 17 January 1944) is a Swedish author and journalist. Among his
many books, the most well-known are the spy fiction novels about
Swedish spy Carl Hamilton and the historical fiction trilogy about
Knight Templar Arn Magnusson.

Guillou rose to fame following his role in the exposure of a secret

intelligence organization in 1973 (see Informationsbyrån). In
connection to this he was convicted of espionage and sentenced to ten
months prison. Today he is an influential independent commentator of
current events, particularly the conflicts in the Middle East and
miscellaneous domestic issues. In his columns in Sweden's leading
tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet he tends to criticize the way the United
States pursues its War on Terrorism, the Israeli policy towards the
Palestinians, the Swedish Security Service and the powers vested in
"experts" in for instance court trials.

Early life and career

Jan Guillou was born in Södertälje, Stockholm County, Sweden.[1] His
French father, Charles Guillou, came to Sweden as the son of the
janitor at the French embassy in Stockholm. His mother, Marianne (née
Botolfsen) Guillou, is of Norwegian descent. Jan Guillou received both
French and Swedish citizenship at his birth. When Guillou's grandfather
was appointed as French Ambassador in Helsinki, Finland, his father
decided to move with him and settled there.[2] Jan Guillou grew up with
his mother and her new husband in Saltsjöbaden and Näsby Park
outside Stockholm.[1] He studied at Vasa Real in Stockholm but was
expelled from the school for physical abuse, theft and blackmail.[1] He
then studied for two years at the boarding school Solbacka in
Södermanland from where he was also expelled.[1] He finished his
studentexamen (upper-secondary final examination) from the boarding
school Viggbyholmsskolan, located in Viggbyholm, in 1964.[1] Guillou
has described his upbringing, with the physical abuse from his sadistic
stepfather and the harsh treatment at the Solbacka school, in the semi-
autobiographical novel Ondskan (1981).

Guillou started his career as a journalist for the adult magazine FIB
aktuellt from 1966 to 1967. He later co-founded the Folket i
Bild/Kulturfront magazine, for which he wrote between 1970 and 1977.

The IB affair
In 1973, Folket i Bild/Kulturfront published a series of articles written
by Guillou and Peter Bratt that revealed a Swedish secret intelligence
agency called Informationsbyrån ("The Information Bureau" or IB for
short). The organization had gathered information on Swedish
communists and other people deemed to be "security risks", engaged
in break-ins against foreign embassies in Sweden as well as spying
abroad. The revelations led to a major domestic political scandal,
known as the "IB affair" (IB-affären). Guillou and Bratt were convicted
of espionage and got a ten month prison sentence. In practice, he
served five months in solitude. Guillou was first imprisoned at the
Långholmen Prison in central Stockholm and later at the Österåker
Prison in Österåker Municipality north of Stockholm.

Books
Guillou first book, Om kriget kommer, was published in 1971.

Hamilton

In 1986 Guillou published a novel about the fictional Swedish military

spy Carl Hamilton. He was originally drafted and trained to become an
attack diver, then he was taken out for training in California to become
a U.S. Navy SEAL. Notably, he has a leftist background and was dubbed
Coq Rouge by one of his superiors, while he was temporarily in the
security police (Säkerhetspolisen). The first Coq Rouge novel was
followed by eleven more books.

Several characters in the books are based on actual persons. Jan

Guillou himself is the basis of a character named Erik Ponti, which is
also the name Guillou uses in the autobiographical novel Ondskan
(literally: The Evil).

The Coq Rouge novels

• Coq Rouge - berättelsen om en svensk spion (1986) (literally:

Coq Rouge - the story of a Swedish spy)
• Den demokratiske terroristen (1987) (English translation: The
Democratic Terrorist)
• I nationens intresse (1988) (English translation: In the interest of
the nation)
• Fiendens fiende (1989; English translation Enemy's Enemy by
Thomas Keeland published 1992)
• Den hedervärde mördaren (1990) (English translation: The
honourable murderer)
• Vendetta (1991)
• Ingen mans land (1992) (English translation: No man's land)
• Den enda segern (1993) (English translation: The only victory)
• I hennes majestäts tjänst (1994) (English translation: In service
of her majesty) Note that the feminine "hennes majestät" in this
case refers to the queen of Britain.
• En medborgare höjd över varje misstanke (1995) (English
translation: A citizen raised above every suspicion)
• Madame Terror (2006)
• Men inte om det gäller din dotter (2008) (English translation: But
not if it concerns your daughter)
A partial draft of an eleventh novel, along with Guillou's account on
why it could not be completed, was published as Hamlon in 1995.
Guillou assured from then on that En medborgare höjd över varje
misstanke was the last book and to make sure that Hamilton never
returned, he "bannished" him from Sweden through a life sentence,
and since he only intended to write about Sweden, no other book
would be possible. However, when he was working on Madame Terror,
he realised that he needed Hamilton to fill in a specific role. After the
border of no more Hamilton books was crossed, Hamilton made
another major appearance in Men inte om det gäller din dotter, where
he, among other things, manages to get cleared from his life sentence
and thereby, Guillou could do more Hamilton books if he wants to.

Crusades trilogy

After finishing the Coq Rouge series, Guillou wrote a trilogy about Arn
Magnusson, a fictional Swedish character from the Middle Ages who
was forced to become a Knight Templar. The series is an account of the
life of Arn Magnusson, a person who becomes witness as well as
catalyst to many important historical events, both in his homeland of
Sweden and in the crusader states of the middle-east. The trilogy,
dubbed the Crusades trilogy, consists of the following books:

• The Road to Jerusalem, originally Vägen till Jerusalem (1998),

forthcoming in 2009
• The Knight Templar, originally Tempelriddaren (1999), ISBN 0-
7528-4650-7
• The Kingdom at the End of the Road, originally Riket vid vägens
slut (2000)

Guillou also wrote a follow-up novel about Birger Jarl, founder of

Stockholm, entitled the Heritage of Arn (Arvet efter Arn, 2001). In
Guillou's universe, Birger Jarl is the grandson of Arn Magnusson.

Ondskan

Guillou has also written an autobiographical book about his school

years, Ondskan (1981), which also became a film, Evil (2003). The
movie was nominated for an Academy Award in 2003. Guillou still
listed as a terrorist by the USA was unable to attend. He managed to
get a visa, but it was linked to attend the Academy Award ceremony
and he was unable to get a ticket. The director Mikael Håfström handed
away his ticket to his spouse instead.[3]

Political views
During the 1960s and early 1970s, Guillou was associated with the
Maoist Clarté association.[4] He was also a member of the Communist
Party of Sweden (formerly known as the Communist League Marxists-
Leninists), a minor Maoist party active mainly during the 1970s, for six
months until he was expelled from the party for refusing to pay the
monthly member fee while he was living abroad. Today he describes
himself as "socialist" only.[1]

Guillou is known for his strong support for the Palestinians and he has
consistently criticized Israel in harsh terms. In 1976 he wrote: "Zionism
is in its foundation racist because the state of Israel is built upon an
apartheid system, exactly like South Africa".[5] He has repeated the
stance that Israel is an "apartheid state" many times since.[6] In an
interview published in Svenska Dagbladet on 13 March 1977, Guillou
said: "I'm an optimist, I believe that Israel will cease to exist prior to
Armageddon".

Ever since the IB affair and the resulting prison sentence for espionage
in 1973, Guillou has been a strong critic of the Swedish Security
Service. According to Guillou, the Security Service has listed him as a
terrorist, something which has led to some problems with security
officials when visiting other countries.[7]

In 1977 the book Irak–det nya Arabian ("Iraq–The New Arabia"), written
by Guillou and his then wife Marina Stagh, was published. In the book,
which deals with Iraq under the Baath Party, it's argued that "the
European idea of Iraq as a particularly violent country is neither more
or less a blend of political propaganda and racist fantasies" (pp. 91).
According to the authors, "the Baath regime is clearly popular and
among the most stable in the Arab World" (pp. 168–169). They state
that "it will surprise us if the development doesn't go the way that,
prior to the year 2000, Iraq will have surpassed European countries in
living standards" (pp. 174). It's further claimed that "Iraq has fewer
restrictions in the freedom of the press than a majority of world
countries, and is on the way towards larger and not less press
freedom" and Western demands for more generous press freedom in
Iraq are dismissed as too "luxury-emphasized" (pp. 239). The
conditions at the Abu Ghraib prison, which Guillou claims to have
visited as the first Western journalist, are described as excellent and
even "better than Swedish prisons" (pp. 249–250).[8]

Immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Guillou caused

controversy when walked out from the Göteborg Book Fair in the midst
of the three minutes of silence that had been announced throughout
Europe to honour the victims of the attacks. In an article in
Aftonbladet, Guillou argued that the event was an act of hypocrisy,
stating that "the U.S. is the great mass murderer of our time. The wars
against Vietnam and its nearby countries alone claimed four million
lives. Without any minute of silence in Sweden". He also criticised
those who said that the attacks were "an attack on us all" by stating
that the attacks were only "an attack on U.S. imperialism".[9]

He harshly labeled the media's reaction to the 2006 transatlantic

aircraft plot, and the necessity of creating the airport havoc,
considering that the suspects had been caught. He argued that the
media was driven by sensationalist profit and the British government
by a will to give an impression of success in the War on Terrorism. He
also pointed out that no explosives had been found and implied that
the Muslim community was being victimized.[10]

In recent years, Guillou has repeatedly criticised some people and

groups within the Swedish radical feminist movement.[11] He rejects
being called an "antifeminist".[11]

Guillou has also attracted controversy over his views on

homosexuality. He has said that "homosexuality is more of a vogue
phenomenon than something you're born into. It's something that has
come and gone through history"[12] and that "homosexuality didn't exist
in the 17th century".[13]

Personal life
Guillou was married first to the author and translator Marina Stagh,
with whom he has the children Dan (born 1970) and Ann-Linn (born
1972) Guillou. His daughter Ann-Linn, a journalist and feminist
commentator, lives in a civil union with Sandra Andersson, daughter of
film director Roy Andersson.[11]

Today he is married to the book publisher Ann-Marie Skarp. He has an

apartment in the Östermalm district of Stockholm, where he has lived
for most of his adult life.[14] He also has a country residence in Flybo,
Östhammar Municipality, northern Roslagen, where he lives when he
writes his books.[1]

Guillou is an avid hunter and has several trophies in his apartment and
country residence.[1] He was introduced to hunting by his friend, the
professor in criminology Leif G. W. Persson.[15] He also has a passion for
alcoholic beverages, especially wine and whisky.[11]
He is a self-described atheist[16] and many of his non-fiction works
contains critique of prominently Christianity[citation needed]. It should be
noted though that atheism is fairly common in Sweden.[17]

Awards and honours

• 1984 – Stora Journalistpriset ("Great Journalist Award"), for his
writings in the Keith Cederholm-case
• 1984 – Aftonbladets TV-pris ("Aftonbladet TV Award"), in the
category "Male Television Person of the Year"
• 1988 – Bästa svenska kriminalroman ("Best Swedish Crime
Novel") from the Swedish Academy of Crime Writers, for I
nationens intresse
• 1990 – Prix France Culture ("France Culture Award") from France
Culture, for Ondskan (awarded as best novel translated into
French)
• 1998 – Årets författare ("Author of the Year") from the Swedish
Union of Local Government Officers
• 2000 – Årets bok ("Book of the Year") from Månadens Bok, for
Riket vid vägens slut

Guillou was also chairman of the Swedish Publicists' Association

(Publicistklubben) from 2000 to 2004.