Robert Ryan
Sabotaging since 1 Jan 2013
Robert Ryan was born in Liverpool and moved south to attend university. He graduated from Brunel with a M.Sc. in Environmental Pollution Science, intending to go into teaching. Instead, he spent two years as a mechanic for a Hot Rod team, racing highly tuned Fords and becoming addicted to the smell of Castrol R. Weaning himself off that, he became a lecturer in Natural Sciences in Kent, while dabbling in journalism. His articles on comic gurus Alan Moore and Frank Miller found their way into Nick Logan’s The Face magazine, which led to work for the American edition of GQ, The Guardian, Sunday Times, Telegraph, Arena and UK GQ under editors James Brown and Dylan Jones.
Eventually he took a position on staff at The Sunday Times as Deputy Travel Editor. It was while on assignment in Seattle that he came across the setting for his first novel, Underdogs – the ‘lost’ city beneath the sidewalks of downtown – that was called ‘Alice in Wonderland meets Assault on Precinct 13’ by Esquire. His most successful novel to date has been Early One Morning, based on the true story of the first man to win the Monaco GP, who later set up a resistance circuit in France in WW2 composing only top racing drivers. He has also published under the name Tom Neale. Dead Man's Land is his fifteenth novel and the first in a new series featuring Dr Watson in and around WW1. He ives in North London with his wife and three children, plays the trumpet really badly and was surprised recently to find that he supports Liverpool FC again. He is currently involved in helping jazz trumpeter Guy Barker write a 'suite for orchestra and big band' for the Benjamin Britten centenary at Aldeburgh, based on Henry James's ghost story The Jolly Corner, to be called That Obscure Hurt. No Benjamin Britten music will be harmed in this process..