Griffiths, William G.

views updated

GRIFFITHS, William G.

(Bill Griffiths)

PERSONAL:

Born in NY; married; wife's name Cindy (a homemaker and home school educator); children: four. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, hunting, and horse riding.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Long Island, NY, and NH. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Building contractor and writer.

WRITINGS:

AS BILL GRIFFITHS

The Witness (novel), CrossAmerica Books (Garden City, NY), 2000.

(With wife, Cindy Griffiths) The Road to Forgiveness (memoir), Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 2001.

Malchus, River Oak Publishing (Tulsa, OK), 2002.

Driven: A Novel (supernatural thriller), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Takedown: A Gavin Pierce Novel (supernatural thriller; sequel to Driven), Warner Faith (New York, NY), 2003.

Stingers (novel), Warner Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Also author of Guilty Conscience.

WORK IN PROGRESS:

Talons, a mystery novel.

SIDELIGHTS:

William G. Griffiths had written one novel when a tragedy claimed the life of his eleven-year-old daughter when she and his mother-in-law were killed by a drunk driver in an automobile accident. Through prayer and their strong faith, William (Bill) and Cindy Griffiths eventually forgave the woman responsible. They document this tragedy and their healing process in The Road to Forgiveness, and Cindy has consequently shared their experience on Christian television programs and with women's groups.

Griffiths has written a number of novels, including Driven, a Christian-themed thriller that features detective Gavin Pierce. In this story, people possessed by demons—including lobster fisherman Karl Dengler, whose demon is serial killer Krogan—are committing acts of violence. When Krogan, through Karl, destroys a tank containing whales and dolphins at the New York Aquarium, Gavin's grandfather, a spectator, is killed. Gavin teams up with computer hacker Amy Kirsch, whose sister was a Krogan victim, and they look for help from an exorcist-turned-dairy farmer who also was once a victim of Krogan. Eventually Reverend Buchanan banishes Krogan into the body of a tortoise. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the plot "fast-paced and drenched in evil."

In the sequel, Takedown: A Gavin Pierce Novel, Krogan is back, but this time he is terrorizing the world of professional wrestling. Buchanan is dying, and Krogan overcomes his imprisonment to inhabit the being of pro wrestler Jackhammer Hoban. Gavin deals with him and other purveyors of evil as his now-wife Amy copes with pregnancy and setting up housekeeping. A Publishers Weekly writer felt that because of scenes like the one in which a body is found with Scripture references sliced into it, "the gore occasionally goes over the top for faith-based fiction." Booklist's Wes Lukowsky noted that although the story is a traditional good-versus-evil one, Griffiths "avoids preachiness by tapping into the same subconscious dread of the devil that made The Exorcist such a disturbing film."

Griffiths offers a family-oriented comedy-adventure in Stingers, about the twelve-year-old daughter of a scientist and the boy who is her best friend. The book was optioned by New York-based film company Real Life Pictures.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Griffiths, Bill, and Cindy Griffiths, The Road to Forgiveness, Thomas Nelson (Nashville, TN), 2001.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2002, Gary Niebuhr, review of Driven: A Novel, p. 1578; June 1, 2003, Wes Lukowsky, review of Takedown: A Gavin Pierce Novel, p. 1749.

Publishers Weekly, April 1, 2002, review of Driven, p. 57; May 12, 2003, review of Takedown, p. 44.