HYND, Noel 1947-

PERSONAL:

Born December 12, 1947, in New York, NY; son of Alan Hynd (writer) and Evelyn Hynd; married Maryann Kunigonis, October 18, 1975; children: Jeremy Noel. Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A., 1969.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Nantucket, MA and Beverly Hills, CA. Office—Nantucket, MA.

CAREER:

Writer.

MEMBER:

Writers Guild of America East.

WRITINGS:

NOVELS

Revenge, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1976.

The Sandler Inquiry, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1977.

False Flags, Dial Press (New York, NY), 1979.

Flowers from Berlin, Dial Press (Garden City, NY), 1985.

(With Christopher Creighton) The Khrushchev Objective, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1987.

The Seven Gates of Marion, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1987.

Truman's Spy, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1990.

Zig Zag, Doubleday (Garden City, NY), 1992.

Ghosts, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1993.

A Room for the Dead, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1994.

Cemetery of Angels, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Rage of Spirits, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1997.

The Prodigy, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1998.

The Lost Boy, Kensington Books (New York, NY), 1999.

The Enemy Within, Forge (New York, NY), 2006.

NONFICTION

(With William Fox) The Cop and the Kid, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1983.

The Giants of the Polo Grounds: The Glorious Times of Baseball's New York Giants, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1988.

Marquard & Seeley, Parnassus Imprints (Hyannis, MA), 1996.

Also author of Agency (screenplay), produced by RSL Films (now Alliance), 1981; Nairobi Affair (screenplay), produced for television by Viacom International, 1984; Illegal in Blue (screenplay), Stu Segall Productions for Orion Home Video, 1994.

Contributor to various periodicals, including Harper's, Sports Illustrated, World Traveler, Reader's Digest, and the Pennsylvania Gazette, the alumni magazine of the University of Pennsylvania.

SIDELIGHTS:

Noel Hynd was born in New York City and grew up in New York and Connecticut. His father, Alan Hynd, was a writer, and the younger Hynd credits his father with being a major influence on his life, both through the books he wrote and through the authors he encouraged his son to read. Hynd got his start in publishing when his father allowed him to ghostwrite some of his own writing assignments, and as a result, he wrote many true-crime articles before moving on to novels and screenplays. Hynd drew on this background when he began to write political thrillers and espionage. In the early 1970s, he was inspired by an article in Time about the experiences of a prisoner of war after leaving Vietnam, and how he wanted to meet the man who had tortured him during the war, a Cuban specialist in inflicting pain. The story led to the idea that eventually became Hynd's first novel, Revenge, in which a soldier returns home and begins to hunt down his enemies.

Hynd went on to write numerous thrillers and horror novels, as well as nonfiction volumes about the history of baseball. Many of his novels have their roots in recent history. In Flowers from Berlin, Hynd looks at the events surrounding World War II and tries to determine what might have happened had an American, determined to see the country maintain its isolationist stance toward the war, attempted to assassinate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The novel tells the story of such a man, and of the people who stop his attempts. Mary V. Welk, in a review for the Curled Up with a Good Book Web site, remarked that the book "takes an interesting look at a scenario that could have changed the course of World War II." Welk noted that readers see "the early British and American intelligence systems and the FBI's role in hunting down saboteurs and spies."

A Room for the Dead follows New Hampshire detective Frank O'Hara as he gets ready for his early retirement. But an old case is not as settled as he thought and he must reinvestigate the circumstances of a serial killing along the coast. Hynd tells an eerie ghost story as O'Hara attempts to discover how a supposedly executed killer seems to be killing once again. In a review for Booklist, Emily Melton remarked of Hynd: "He's good at macabre, mind-bending plots with plenty of grotesque details." A contributor for Publishers Weekly wrote: "The chills come fast and hard in Hynd's latest, a riveting blend of ghost story and police procedural."

Hynd's novel Cemetery of Angels involves a murder attempt on Rebecca Moore, an ordinary wife and mother of two living in the Connecticut suburbs. When the family moves to Los Angeles in the hope of escaping gruesome memories of the attack, they discover their newly purchased home is haunted. When the children both disappear from the house, seemingly into thin air, a local police officer is sure the parents are responsible, refusing to believe Rebecca's insistence that the ghost is behind the event. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly stated: "Turning the implausible into the possible as the case unfolds, Hynd lets the evidence build to a genuinely terrifying climax."

The Prodigy pits an ambitious young musician, concert pianist Rolf Geiger, against the ghost of his former mentor, who finds himself haunted, suffering from nightmares, and even acting against his own will. Hynd followed up with a very different novel, The Enemy Within, in which a female agent assigned to the U.S. president's protection detail must head off an assassination attempt. A contributor for Kirkus Reviews remarked: "Hynd has given us an intriguing heroine, some first-rate action scenes and about 100 pages more than a good suspense novel can sustain." However, David Pitt, writing for Booklist, called Hynd "a solid, dependable writer." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted: "Noel Hynd knows the ins and outs of Washington's agencies both public and secret."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 1994, Emily Melton, review of A Room for the Dead, p. 1776; February 15, 1997, Kevin Grandfield, review of Rage of Spirits, p. 1003; February 1, 2006, David Pitt, review of The Enemy Within, p. 33.

Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2006, review of The Enemy Within, p. 9.

Library Journal, February 1, 1997, Lori Dunn, review of Rage of Spirits, p. 105; November 15, 1997, Sheila M. Riley, review of The Prodigy, p. 76; February 1, 2001, Michael Rogers, review of Flowers from Berlin, p. 129.

Publishers Weekly, May 30, 1994, review of A Room for the Dead, p. 38; July 10, 1995, review of Cemetery of Angels, p. 46; January 20, 1997, review of Rage of Spirits, p. 396; October 27, 1997, review of The Prodigy, p. 52; January 2, 2006, review of The Enemy Within, p. 35.

ONLINE

AllReaders.com, http://www.allreaders.com/ (November 23, 2006), Sherrie L. Jones, review of Cemetery of Angels; Karen G.S. Raftery, review of Ghosts.

Curled Up with a Good Book,http://www.curledup.com/ (November 23, 2006), Mary V. Welk, review of Flowers from Berlin.

Mystery Reader Web site,http://www.themysteryreader.com/ (November 23, 2006), Thea Davis, review of The Lost Boy.

Rose and Thorn Web site,http://members.aol.com/Raven763/Hyndint.html (November 23, 2006), Anita Clare, author interview.*