Welcome to the official press room for Gayle Lynds.

Gayle is represented by:
Lisa Erbach Vance and Aaron Priest
Aaron Priest Literary Agency
708 Third Ave, 23rd Floor
New York
NY 10017
levance@aaronpriest.com

Here you will find updates about Gayle’s eagerly anticipated high-action thriller THE LAST SPYMASTER (St. Martin’s Press, June 2006) as well information including quotes, press releases, a short bio, photographs, and images of her recent book jackets. All of this is downloadable for both electronic and print media.

Gayle’s new book THE LAST SPYMASTER is an action-packed international spy novel, hailed by Publishers Weekly (4/3/06) as a "…classic espionage thriller…(that) strikes a perfect balance between the private lives of her characters and the blood and betrayal of their professional adventures."

Future updates will include contests and media for THE LAST SPYMASTER, featuring such prizes as signed copies of THE LAST SPYMASTER and giveaway items including a passport travel holder, a spy travel kit, and much more.

Also included on this page is the complete Publishers Weekly review of THE LAST SPYMASTER as well as a review of the THRILLER anthology, including a feature mention of Gayle’s "The Hunt for Dmitri," a Liz Sansborough (THE COIL) short story.

For Immediate Release:

THE LAST SPYMASTER
By Gayle Lynds
St. Martin’s Press Hardcover Fiction
Publication: June 2006
ISBN: 0-312-30159-6
$24.95 ($33.95 Canadian)
6 ¼ " x 9 ¼" / 464 Pages

Legendary spymaster Jay Tice has vanished from the fortresslike Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex in Pennsylvania. A Cold War icon in world intelligence, Tice was the powerful chief of the CIA’s elite clandestine services at the time of his arrest. Convicted of selling secrets that seriously compromised U.S. security, Tice has been serving a life sentence at the maximum security prison – until one dawn the guards find his locked cell empty.

Elaine Cunningham, a top CIA hunter, is assigned to track him down. But as she probes the spymaster’s disappearance, she’s caught up in a vortex of lies and violence. After narrowly escaping a massacre, Cunningham discovers Tice is now hunting her.

In a stunning reversal, she soon learns much more is at stake than the escape of a traitor – because lurking in the shadows of covert agencies, illegal weapons traders, secret information dealers, and cover-ups are conspiracies far more dangerous than even Tice’s crimes.

THE LAST SPYMASTER is a relentless global espionage thriller featuring cutting-edge "smart" technology and little-known insider details of the clandestine life. Immensely entertaining, it easily reaffirms Lynds as a leading master of the international spy novel.

• Audio from Brilliance Audio in both full and unabridged versions, CDs and cassettes
• Foreign rights sold thus far to Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, and Quebec

Americans Want to Know More – "The Decade of The Spy"

With CIA applications at record highs following the catastrophic events of 9/11, never before has there been such interest in the covert world. This has become the Decade of the Spy.

THE LAST SPYMASTER appeals directly to Americans’ appetite to know more, with a thrilling behind-the-scenes tale showing how a would-be spy is trained in the field under the stern discipline of a great spymaster while at the same time having to face the hard truths of espionage’s inherent moral ambiguity, personal costs, and sacrifices as well as the remarkable courage and triumphs of those who seek to do good and are dedicated to serving the country.

Editorial Reviews

THE LAST SPYMASTER
This classic espionage thriller from bestseller Lynds (THE COIL) strikes a perfect balance between the private lives of her characters and the blood and betrayal of their professional adventures. Jay Tice, the last spymaster of the title, sold out the CIA store to the Russians during the Cold War and is now serving a life sentence in a federal prison from which no one has ever escaped. When Tice does slip away, a gifted CIA hunter, Elaine Cunningham, tries to find out how and why. As Cunningham follows an intricate trail of death and deception, Lynds brings to vivid life parts of the Eastern U.S. (like North Carolina's Great Dismal Swamp) and a huge cast of supporting players. The liaison between Tice and a top female agent from the former East Germany points to the passion sadly missing from many of today's spy thrillers: "Tice and Raina had had a fiery but covert Cold War affair. That was the way people lived then. When sex, lust, love erupted between East and West, it was always forbidden and usually volcanic." Regional author tour. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (4/3/06)

Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night
Edited by James Patterson. Mira, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 0-7783-2299-8

The blurry line between mysteries and thrillers gets even fuzzier in this outstanding anthology of 32 new stories by such top genre names as Lee Child, James Grippando, Denise Hamilton and David Morrell. Patterson, in his introduction, talks about the "intensity of emotions" that thrillers share as well as "the force with which they hurtle the reader along." This description fits such fine efforts as Gayle Lynds's "The Hunt for Dmitri," which takes the heroine of The Coil, Liz Sansborough, into an adventure involving her father, the infamous CIA assassin known as the Carnivore. But other extremely readable stories, like Alex Kava's "Goodnight, Sweet Mother," would qualify as straight mystery. Readers who favor one category or another may at first be a bit baffled, but lovers of crime fiction in general and well-told action tales in particular will be well rewarded. Would-be thriller writers can learn a lot about research and technique from Patterson's introductions to each story. Many of the contributors will be attending the first International Thriller Writers convention in Phoenix in June. (June) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (4/3/06)

A Brief Biography

New York Times bestseller Gayle Lynds is the award-winning author of eight international espionage novels, including THE LAST SPYMASTER, THE COIL, MASQUERADE, and MESMERIZED, which are published in some 20 countries. Her books have won such awards as "Novel of the Year" (THE LAST SPYMASTER) given by the Military Writers Society of America, and have been People magazine "Page-Turner of the Week" and "Beach Read of the Week."

Publishers Weekly lists her work among the top ten spy novels of all time. BookPage concurs: "Gayle Lynds has joined the deified ranks of spy thriller authors like Robert Ludlum and John le Carre." With Ludlum, she created the Covert-One series and wrote three of the novels. One of them, THE HADES FACTOR, was a CBS miniseries in April 2006.

A member of the Association for Intelligence Operatives, she is co-founder and co-president (with David Morrell) of International Thriller Writers, Inc., and is listed in Who’s Who in the World. Born in Nebraska, raised in Iowa, she now lives in Southern California. You can visit her at www.GayleLynds.com.