Stephen Leather (born 25 October 1956) is a British
thriller
Thriller may refer to:
* Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television
** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre
Comics
* ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...
author whose works are published by
Hodder & Stoughton
Hodder & Stoughton is a British publishing house, now an imprint (trade name), imprint of Hachette (publisher), Hachette.
History
Early history
The firm has its origins in the 1840s, with Matthew Hodder's employment, aged 14, with Messrs ...
. He has written for television shows such as ''
London's Burning'', ''
The Knock
''The Knock'' is a British television crime drama, created by Anita Bronson and broadcast on ITV, which portrayed the activities of customs officers from the London City & South Collection Investigation Unit of HM Customs and Excise. The serie ...
'', and the
BBC's #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
''Murder in Mind'' series.
He is one of the top selling
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...
authors, the second bestselling UK author worldwide on Kindle in 2011.
Biography
Early life
Leather was born in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
. He grew up in
Sale and
Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and attended
Manchester Grammar School.
He attended
Bath University, where he obtained a BSc in
Biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
in 1978.
Early career
Leather was employed as a biochemist for
ICI, shovelled limestone in a quarry, worked as a baker, a petrol pump attendant, a barman, and worked for the
Inland Revenue.
He began his writing career as a journalist, working for newspapers such the ''
Glasgow Herald
''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...
'', ''
Daily Mirror
The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...
'', ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'', ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'', and the ''
South China Morning Post
The ''South China Morning Post'' (''SCMP''), with its Sunday edition, the ''Sunday Morning Post'', is a Hong Kong-based English-language newspaper owned by Alibaba Group. Founded in 1903 by Tse Tsan-tai and Alfred Cunningham, it has remained ...
'' in Hong Kong.
Writing career
Leather began writing when he was in college; however, he "never managed to get beyond a few pages,"
and did not begin writing full-time until he had worked as a journalist for more than ten years.
[
His first novel, ''Pay Off'', was written while he was still employed at ''The Daily Mirror''.][ It was published from the "]slush pile
In publishing, a slush pile is a set of unsolicited query letters or manuscripts that have either been directly sent to a publisher by an author, or which have been delivered via a literary agent representing the author who may or may not be fa ...
" at HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
. The novel is a thriller about a merchant banker who takes revenge on two gangsters who killed his father. The book is set in Scotland, where Leather worked for five years on ''The Glasgow Herald'' as a business writer.
His second novel, ''The Fireman'', was written while he was working as the business editor of the ''South China Morning Post''. In ''The Fireman'', a British tabloid journalist travels to Hong Kong to discover why his sister committed suicide. Both novels, and his third, ''Hungry Ghost'', were published by HarperCollins.
Leather wrote his fourth novel, '' The Chinaman'', while working as night news editor on the business desk of ''The Times'' in London. At the time, the Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, facilitate Irish reun ...
's bombing campaign was at its height, and in ''The Chinaman'', a Sino-Vietnamese man loses his family in an attack loosely based on the bombing of the Harrods department store in London. Having been turned away by the authorities, the man, a highly decorated Special Forces fighter in the Vietnam War, travels to Ireland and hunts down the people responsible. The book was used as the basis for the 2017 thriller '' The Foreigner''.
Published works
Leather's novels frequently include themes of crime, imprisonment, military service, and terrorism. Settings are typically London and the Far East. Leather writes different series in slightly different genres. The main character of one series, Dan 'Spider' Shepherd, is a former Special Air Service
The Special Air Service (SAS) is a special forces unit of the British Army. It was founded as a regiment in 1941 by David Stirling and in 1950, it was reconstituted as a corps. The unit specialises in a number of roles including counter-terro ...
soldier who becomes an undercover policeman. Another series, ''Jack Nightingale'', is about a former police negotiator who becomes a private investigator; this supernatural detective series is also published by Hodder & Stoughton and includes the books ''Nightfall'', ''Midnight'', ''Nightmare'', ''Nightshade'' and ''Lastnight''.
Leather has written screenplays for '' London's Burning'', ''The Knock
''The Knock'' is a British television crime drama, created by Anita Bronson and broadcast on ITV, which portrayed the activities of customs officers from the London City & South Collection Investigation Unit of HM Customs and Excise. The serie ...
'', and the BBC's '' Murder in Mind'' series. Two of his novels, '' The Stretch'' and ''The Bombmaker'', were screened for made for TV movies and filmed for Sky Television. ''The Stretch'' starred Leslie Grantham
Leslie Michael Grantham (30 April 1947 – 15 June 2018) was an English actor, best known for his role as "Dirty" Den Watts in the BBC soap opera ''EastEnders''. He was a convicted murderer, having served 10 years for the killing of a West Germ ...
and Anita Dobson, two popular soap opera stars from the U.K.
Amazon Kindle releases
Leather became successful in the Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle is a series of e-readers designed and marketed by Amazon. Amazon Kindle devices enable users to browse, buy, download, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines and other digital media via wireless networking to the Kindle Store. ...
market in 2010. Amazon UK opened an eBook
An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...
store that year. As reported in ''The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', Leather anticipated that people buying eBooks would be seeking bargains, and he priced his books at the minimum price for independent writers in order to get his books into the top ten. He then marketed the books on various forums online.
Early in 2011, Leather's books ''The Basement'', ''Hard Landing
A hard landing occurs when an aircraft or spacecraft hits the ground with a greater vertical speed and force than in a normal landing.
Landing is the final phase in flight, in which the aircraft returns to the ground. The average vertical sp ...
'', and the vampire novella ''Once Bitten'' occupied the top three places in the UK Kindle bestseller list, a feat matched only by Stieg Larsson
Karl Stig-Erland "Stieg" Larsson (, ; 15 August 1954 – 9 November 2004) was a Swedish writer, journalist, and activist. He is best known for writing the ''Millennium'' trilogy of crime novels, which were published posthumously, starting in 2 ...
with his '' The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'' trilogy. That same year, Leather was the second bestselling UK author on the Kindle worldwide, beaten only by Lee Child
James Dover Grant (born 29 October 1954), primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his ''Jack Reacher'' novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American ...
.
Awards and recognition
In 2002, Leather's book ''Tango One'' was nominated for the inaugural CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is an annual award given by the British Crime Writers' Association for best thriller of the year. The award is sponsored by the estate of Ian Fleming.
It is given to a title that fits the broadest definition of th ...
, awarded by the Crime Writers' Association
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors’ organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its Dagger awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. T ...
. His book ''Hard Landing'' was nominated for the award in 2004.
His book ''Cold Kill'' was nominated for Best Novel in 2007 by International Thriller Writers Inc. In 2011, Leather sold over 500,000 eBooks and was voted by ''The Bookseller'' magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the UK publishing world.
2012 Harrogate Crime Writing Festival
On 5 August 2012, journalist Nick Cohen wrote in ''The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the w ...
'' that Leather had created phony Twitter accounts in the name of another writer, and used those accounts to praise Leather's own books. Cohen quoted Leather's response to a question, as a panelist, at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, which was recorded for BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
:
"As soon as my book is out I'm on Facebook and Twitter several times a day talking about it. I'll go on to several forums, the well-known forums, and post there under my name and under various other names and various other characters. You build up this whole network of characters who talk about your books and sometimes have conversations with yourself."
Leather's comment was widely reported, and, on 3 September 2012, forty nine other British authors issued a group statement in which they "unreservedly condemn" the use of sockpuppets, or paid reviews.
Jeremy Duns
Jeremy Duns (born 10 December 1973) is a British author of spy fiction and the history of espionage. Born in Manchester, he now resides in Åland.
Life and career
Duns studied at St Catherine's College, Oxford, after which he worked for several ye ...
and Steve Mosby have alleged that Leather has harassed them online.
Bibliography
Novels
Short stories
Screenplays
Adaptations
* '' The Stretch'' (2000), mini-series directed by Frank W. Smith, based on novel '' The Stretch''
* ''The Bombmaker
''The Bombmaker'' is a two-part British television drama serial, written and created by Stephen Leather, and directed by Graham Theakston. It first broadcast on Sky One on 8 April 2001, with the second and final episode following a week later o ...
'' (2001), mini-series directed by Graham Theakston, based on novel ''The Bombmaker''
* '' The Foreigner'' (2017), film directed by Martin Campbell, based on novel '' The Chinaman''
* '' Tango One'' (2018), film directed by Sacha Bennett and Helena Holmes, based on novel ''Tango One''
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leather, Stephen
English thriller writers
English crime fiction writers
People educated at Manchester Grammar School
Living people
Writers from Manchester
1956 births
Alumni of the University of Bath