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A.J. Quinnell
Newest Release
A.J. Quinnell (64)
Born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, The United Kingdom
Born: June 25, 1940 - Died: July 10, 2005
A. J. Quinnell was the pen name of Philip Nicholson, a mystery and thriller writer. He traveled throughout his life and several of the minor characters in his books are actual people he met. He was married three times. His last wife, Elsebeth Egholm, is a Danish mystery novelist. The couple resided on the island of Gozo and Denmark.
When the author was preparing to publish his first book, "Man on Fire", he wanted to keep his real identity a secret. During a conversation in a bar, his agent, Chris Little, told him he could use a pseudonym. The author chose "Quinnell", after the rugby union player Derek Quinnell and "A. J." from the initials of the bartender's son.
Nicholson frequented Gleneagles bar in Mġarr, Gozo, the town where the Malta ferry disembarks. He could often be found drinking vodkas with soda. He wrote late at night and through until the morning, always standing up.
The author's best-known creation was the character of Marcus Creasy, an American-born former member of the French Foreign Legion.
Full Series List in Order
Creasy
1 - Man on Fire (Sep-1980)2 - The Perfect Kill (Jan-1992)
3 - The Blue Ring (Jan-1993)
4 - Black Horn (Jan-1994)
5 - Message from Hell (Apr-1996)
Book List in Order: 10 titles
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Man on Fire
- Sep-1980
- / Thriller
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Creasy thought he had nothing left to lose. He was wrong. An American soldier of fortune far from home -- alcoholic, burnt out, and broken down -- Creasy has accepted a job as a bodyguard just for something to do. An emotionally dead, one-time war...
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Blood Ties
- Nov-1984
- / General Fiction
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The story of a quest -- a quest with a motive so powerful that it spans continents and unites strangers in danger and love. The world of Kirsty Haywood is mundane if undemanding. But during a freezing New York winter her world is suddenly shattered...
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Siege of Silence
- Jan-1986
- / General Fiction
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A vital Central American nation has fallen to Cuban-backed guerillas. The American ambassador is held prisoner. And the US President faces these challenges… get him out ... or kill him. In as rat-infested room ambassador Peabody faces a...
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In the Name of the Father
- Oct-1987
- / Suspense
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Publisher's Weekly This what-if thriller has its silly moments and a fairly preposterous plot, but it works; Quinnell (Siege of Silence keeps readers turning pages. In the Kremlin in 1983, Yuri Andropov is determined to outlive the pope and ...
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The Perfect Kill
- Jan-1992
- / Suspense
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In Man on Fire, A. J. Quinnell introduced Creasy, veteran and mercenary. In The Perfect Kill, Creasy returns.Three days before Christmas in 1988, a bomb blew Pan Am 103 out of the sky over the small Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all passengers ...
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The Blue Ring
- Jan-1993
- / Thriller
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Creasy, a veteran mercenary, had found solitude on a small, Mediterranean island, far from the violent conflicts of his past profession. That solitude is broken when he is confronted by Juliet, a thirteen-year-old heroin addict whose life has been...
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Black Horn
- Jan-1994
- / Thriller
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In Zimbabwe a young American woman is shot dead by a sniper at her camp on the bank of the Zambezi River. In Hong Kong, Lucy Kwok, a Chinese air hostess, returns from Tokyo to find her father, mother and brother have been brutally murdered. The killi...
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Message from Hell
- Apr-1996
- / Thriller
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The latest Creasy adventure takes our hero to Vietnam and Cambodia, ostensibly on a mission to rescue a US serviceman taken prisoner twenty-six years earlier during the Vietnam war. In reality, however, the mission is a decoy organised by a sad...