Johnston, Mark

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Johnston, Mark

Personal

Born in NY; married.

Addresses

Home—Greenville, SC.

Career

Writer. Greenville Technical College, Greenville, SC, former instructor in English. Military service: U.S. Army, served as private.

Writings

(With Robyn Freedman Spizman) Secret Agent, Atheneum Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Robyn Freedman Spizman) The Secret Agents Strike Back, Atheneum Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Mark Johnston spent many years attempting to get his work published, and he achieved success when he teamed up with fellow writer and journalist Robyn Freedman Spizman. Johnston and Spizman's books for middle-grade readers, Secret Agent and The Secret Agents Strike Back, feature an adventurous hero named Kyle Parker, who becomes a self-styled undercover literary agent when he decides to help get his father's manuscript published. In the "Secret Agent" books, Kyle teams up with friend Lucinda in order to navigate the tricky corridors of high-profile New York City publishing.

Although Kyle and Lucinda are high-school students, Johnston and Spizman's intended audience is slightly younger. In Kliatt, Claire Rosser called Secret Agent "an amusing, offbeat story … light and funny too, with appeal to the middle school group." A Kirkus Reviews contributor wrote that the central characters undertake "their clandestine caper with humor and suspense," while Booklist writer Todd Morning described the book as "a quirky tale about resourceful young people." In School Library Journal, Mary R. Hofmann praised Secret Agent as "a strangely compelling adventure in which readers root for Kyle's success."

Kyle and Lucinda continue their adventures in The Secret Agents Strike Back, and as they embark on a new set of adventures the teens begin to realize that an element of romance has taken root in their friendship.