Gayle Lynds

Last updated
Gayle Lynds
Born1945 (age 7879)
Alma mater University of Iowa
Occupations
  • Journalist
  • editor
  • author
Known forCo-founder of International Thriller Writers, Queen of Espionage Fiction
Spouse(s) Dennis Lynds, John C. Sheldon
Writing career
Genre Thriller, spy fiction
Notable worksMasquerade

Gayle Lynds (born 1945) is an American former journalist, editor and author. Lynds is known as the Queen of Espionage Fiction for her spy fiction or spy thrillers novels. Lynds is the co-founder of International Thriller Writers.

Contents

Early life

In 1945, Lynds was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Lynds' father was an artist who worked on woods. Lynds grew up in Council Bluffs, Iowa. [1] [2] [3]

Education

Lynds earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa. [2] [4]

Career

Lynds began her writing career as a newspaper journalist for the Arizona Republic in Phoenix, Arizona. Lynds was an editor at a government think tank, where she also acquired a Top Secret security clearance. [5] [2] [3]

Lynds' fiction career began with literary short stories published under her own name and several pulp fiction novels under male pseudonyms such as G.H. Stone, Gayle Stone, Nick Carter, and Don Pendleton. [1]

In 1996, Lynds' first novel Masquerade was published. [5] Lynds also wrote three novels in The Three Investigators, a YA mystery novel series. With Robert Ludlum, she created the Covert-One series and wrote three of the books.

In 2004, Lynds and David Morrell co-founded International Thriller Writers, Inc. and they became the first co-Presidents. [5] [6]

Lynds is known as the Queen of Espionage Fiction. [5]

The Hades Factor, which she co-wrote with Robert Ludlum, was a CBS television miniseries in April 2006.

Personal life

Lynds' husband was Dennis Lynds, also a novelist. Lynds and her family lived in Santa Barbara, California. In August 2005, Lynds' husband Dennis Lynds died. [1] [4]

In 2011 she married retired Maine district court judge John C. Sheldon. They lived near Portland. [7] [1]

Lynds lives in Maine where she is a full-time novelist.

Works

This is a partial list of novels by Lynds.

Novels

Covert-One series

This is a list of novels from the Covert-One series. Lynds co-wrote these novel with Robert Ludlum.

Filmography

Awards

Related Research Articles

Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ludlum</span> American novelist (1927–2001)

Robert Ludlum was an American author of 27 thriller novels, best known as the creator of Jason Bourne from the original The Bourne Trilogy series. The number of copies of his books in print is estimated between 300 million and 500 million. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.

A techno-thriller or technothriller is a hybrid genre drawing from science fiction, thrillers, spy fiction, action, and war novels. They include a disproportionate amount of technical details on their subject matter ; only hard science fiction tends towards a comparable level of supporting detail on the technical side. The inner workings of technology and the mechanics of various disciplines are thoroughly explored, and the plot often turns on the particulars of that exploration. This genre began to exist and establish itself in the early 20th century with further developments and focus on the genre in the mid 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen MacInnes</span> Scottish-American author (1907–1985), author of espionage novels

Helen Clark MacInnes was a Scottish-American writer of espionage novels.

The airport novel represents a literary genre that is defined not so much by its plot or cast of stock characters, but by the social function it serves. Designed to meet the demands of a very specific market, airport novels are superficially engaging while not being necessarily profound, usually written to be more entertaining than philosophically challenging. An airport novel is typically a fairly long but fast-paced boilerplate genre-fiction novel commonly offered by airport newsstands, "read for pace and plot, not elegance of phrasing".

Michael Collins is the best-known pseudonym of Dennis Lynds, an American author who primarily wrote mystery fiction.

International Thriller Writers (ITW), was founded October 9, 2004, at Bouchercon XXXV, the "World Mystery and Suspense Conference", in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Six months later, some 150 authors with more than one billion books sold worldwide had joined the organization as founding members. As of October 5, 2014, the organization's website boasts more than 3,100 members in 28 countries.

Kyle Mills is an American writer of thriller novels including Rising Phoenix, Fade, and The Second Horseman. Several of his books include a character Mark Beamon, an FBI special agent. He also wrote The Ares Decision (2011), The Utopia Experiment (2013), and The Patriot Attack (2015), the eighth, tenth, and twelfth installments of the Covert-One series, originally created by Robert Ludlum. He is the former writer of the Mitch Rapp series of novels, having written nine books in the series after original author Vince Flynn died in 2013. In February, 2023, Mills announced he would be leaving the Mitch Rapp series after his contribution to the series, Code Red (2023), was published. Author Don Bentley was announced as the new author for the series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tess Gerritsen</span> Chinese-American novelist (born 1953)

Tess Gerritsen is the pseudonym of Terry Gerritsen, an American novelist and retired general physician.

Eric Van Lustbader is an American author of thriller and fantasy novels. He has published as Eric Lustbader, Eric V. Lustbader, and Eric Van Lustbader.

The Covert-One series is a sequence of thriller novels written by several authors after the death of Robert Ludlum, presumably according to some of his ideas. The books feature a team of political and technical experts, belonging to a top-secret U.S. agency called Covert-One, who fight corruption, conspiracy, and bioweaponry at the highest levels of society.

<i>Covert One: The Hades Factor</i> American TV series or program

Covert One: The Hades Factor is a made-for-TV thriller filmed in Toronto that first aired in 2006. Directed by Mick Jackson, the miniseries is loosely based on The Hades Factor, a 2000 novel written by Gayle Lynds as part of the Covert-One series created by Robert Ludlum.

<i>Restless</i> (novel) 2006 novel written by William Boyd

Restless is an espionage novel written by William Boyd, published in 2006. It won the Costa Prize for fiction.

In espionage terminology, honeypot and honey trap are terms for an operational practice involving the use of a covert agent, to create a sexual or romantic relationship to compromise a target. The operator may be a government spy service or organized crime syndicate and the target, or victim, can unwittingly provide intelligence or perform other services for the operator. These situations are a very common trope in spy fiction and media portrayals of female espionage. Variations include same-sex relationships and complications may involve the covert agent falling in love with the target.

Alan Emlyn Williams was an ex-foreign correspondent, novelist and writer of thrillers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Douglas Corleone</span> American novelist

Douglas Corleone is an American author of contemporary crime novels and international thrillers. His debut novel One Man's Paradise won the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Bourne</span> American novelist

Joanna Watkins Bourne is an American, best-selling author of historical romance novels set in Europe during the Napoleonic wars. Her novels about a group of spies have won numerous awards. Her books have been described as "witty, beautifully descriptive, [and] cleverly plotted". The Spymaster's Lady is frequently cited as a reader favorite, with a spy hero who is both 'alpha' and 'beta' and a spy heroine who is "brave and clever". Rogue Spy, which features a code-breaker and a British service agent, was listed by Library Journal as one of the ten best romances of 2014.

Robert Ludlum (1927–2001) was an American author of twenty-seven novels between 1971 and 2006, the last being issued five years after his death. Of his twenty-seven novels, two were originally published under the pseudonym of Jonathan Ryder and another under the pseudonym of Michael Shepherd. Ludlum also created the Covert-One series, overseeing the first three novels with Gayle Lynds and Philip Shelby before his death. Following Ludlum's death, his estate has continued to publish novels under his name with eleven authors having written a combined thirty-two novels under the Ludlum brand, a trademark inscription of "Robert Ludlum's" on every book. Since 2019, publishing rights in the United States have been held by G. P. Putnam's Sons, taking over from Grand Central Publishing who held the rights from 2007 to 2017.

Jamie Freveletti is an American writer of thriller novels. Her first novel, Running from the Devil, was published in 2009 and won the 2010 Barry Award for best thriller and the 2010 International Thriller Writers Awards best first novel. In 2011 Freveletti was selected by the Robert Ludlum estate to write a novel in the Covert-One series. Freveletti has currently published four novels and a novella in her Emma Caldridge series and two novels in the Covert-One series.

Jason Matthews was an American author of espionage novels and former CIA officer, best known for the Red Sparrow spy novel trilogy.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Interview with Gayle Lynds - Queen of Espionage Fiction". bidinotto.com. August 8, 2016. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 "Gayle Lynds". nebraskaauthors.org. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 Dunn, Matthew (October 20, 2010). "Gayle Lynds: "To Be A Writer, You Have To Want To Connect With The Reader"". thebigthrill.org. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 Kelley, Matt (May 31, 2006). "Iowa spy author tours country for latest book". radioiowa.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Author Interview: Gayle Lynds". mbradleyonline.com. February 18, 2019. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  6. "S1E6: Gayle Lynds - Rising Above a Biased Industry". YouTube .
  7. "About Us - Gayle Lynds". roguewomenwriters.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  8. Vidich, Paul (February 1, 2021). "10 Spy Novels With Women Protagonists". electricliterature.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  9. 1 2 3 4 "Awards - 2006 American Author Medal". americansuthorsassociation.com. 2006. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  10. "The Book of Spies by Gayle Lynds". nwbooklovers.org. September 18, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2021.
  11. "The Assassins by Gayle Lynds". mwsadispatches.com. Retrieved March 28, 2021.