Gavin Lyall
Gavin Lyall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Gavin Tudor Lyall 9 May 1932 Birmingham, Warwickshire, England |
| Died | 18 January 2003 (aged 70) London |
| Occupation | journalist and novelist |
| Genre | Thriller |
| Spouse | |
Gavin Tudor Lyall (9 May 1932 – 18 January 2003) was an English author of espionage thrillers.
Biography
Lyall was born in
, graduating in 1956 with honours in English.While at Cambridge he wrote regularly for the undergraduate newspaper Varsity and also created a strip cartoon whose hero, "Olly", reflected student life and became a cult figure. He became editor of Varsity in 1956.
After graduating he worked briefly as a reporter for the
Lyall lived at 14 Provost Rd,
Lyall's first seven novels in the 1960s and early 1970s were
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.
Gavin Lyall was also a wargamer and appeared in "Battleground", a Tyne Tees television series on miniature war gaming in 1978.[1]
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. He 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
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)
Obituaries
References
- Murphy, Bruce F. (1999). Encyclopedia of Murder and Mystery. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-312-29414-X.
- Pederson, Jay P.; Klein, Kathleen Gregory (1996). St. James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers. St James Press. ISBN 1-55862-178-4.
- DeAndrea, William L (1997). Encyclopedia Mysteriosa. Hungry Minds. ISBN 0-02-861678-2.
- Petri Liukkonen. "Gavin Lyall". Books and Writers.
- Whitehorn, Katharine (2007). Selective Memory. Little Brown. ISBN 978-1-84408-240-7.
Notes
- ^ Guardian obituary, infra.
- ^ a b "Gavin Lyall - Telegraph". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 6 January 2004.
