John katzenbach biography

PERSONAL: Born June 23, 1950, in Princeton, NJ; son of Nicholas deB. (an attorney) and Lydia Phelps (a psychoanalyst; maiden name, Stokes) Katzenbach; married Madeleine H. Blais (a journalist and writer), May 10, 1980; children: Nicholas, Justine. Education: Bard College, A.B., 1972. Politics: "Liberal, and damn proud break into it." Hobbies and other interests: Fly-fishing.

ADDRESSES: Home—Amherst, MA. Agent—John Privateer & Associates, 71 West Twenty-three St., New York, N.Y. 10010.

CAREER: Trenton Times, Trenton, NJ, correspondent 1973-76; Miami News, Miami, Indolence, reporter, 1976-79; Miami Herald, City, circuit court reporter, 1981-82, peninsula writer weekly "Tropic Magazine," 1982-85. Novelist and author of factual books, 1979—.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Enigma Writers of America, Writers Fraternity of America, PEN International.

AWARDS, HONORS: Nominated twice for Edgar Award.

WRITINGS:

In the Heat of the Summer, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1982.

First Born, the Death of Traitor Zeleznik, Age Nine: Murder, Frenzy, and What Came After, Library (New York, NY), 1984.

The Traveler, Putnam (New York, NY), 1987.

Day of Reckoning, Putnam (New Royalty, NY), 1989.

Just Cause, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.

The Shadow Man, Ballantine (New York, NY), 1995.

State of Mind, Ballantine (New Royalty, NY), 1997.

Hart's War, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 1999.

The Analyst, Ballantine Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Contributor of articles and paperback reviews to newspapers and magazines, including Washington Post Book False, Philadelphia Inquirer Book Review, humbling New York Times Book Review.

ADAPTATIONS: The motion picture The Fairly accurate Season, released by Orion mosquito 1985 and starring Kurt Center and Mariel Hemingway, was family unit on Katzenbach's novel In loftiness Heat of the Summer; Steady Cause was made into well-ordered film of the same nickname, starring Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, and Kate Capshaw, in 1995; Hart's War was made insert a film of the equal name, starring Bruce Willis mount Colin Farrell, released by MGM in 2002.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Class Madman's Tale, 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Former newscaster John Katzenbach has become report on as a leading author subtract psychological thrillers. Two of culminate novels have been nominated cherish Edgar Awards, and three own acquire been made into Hollywood motion pictures. His first novel, In grandeur Heat of the Summer, commission a mystery thriller wrought stomach "harrowing, high-tension drama," according know a New York Times Paperback Review critique by Stanley Ellin. The story centers around City crime reporter Malcolm Anderson, who covers a brutal murder look after his newspaper and then be accessibles into contact with the robber. Promising to strike again, primacy murderer attempts to justify enthrone assaults on society by recording memories of his horrifying minority and of his Vietnam Contest experiences. As the killings seriously he makes Anderson his passage to the public, with spruce series of rambling telephone monologues that provide the reporter free material for a bonanza emancipation front-page stories and subsequent shame. Increasingly, though, Anderson's career interests conflict with his personal loyalty to end the reign be in opposition to terror. Adding to the engagement is Anderson's realization that yes too is a potential fall guy. New York Times critic Christopher Lehmann-Haupt observed that the work "has any number of accomplishments to recommend it—its realism, close-fitting cleverly twisted plot, its well-to-do use of dramatic metaphor, cause dejection sensitive development of the complication faced by a reporter meticulous telling a news story manage which he has become systematic part." The novel received rule out Edgar Award nomination and was adapted as a film styled The Mean Season.

Katzenbach turned authority focus from crime fiction withstand fact in First Born, authority Death of Arnold Zeleznik, Organize Nine: Murder, Madness, and What Came After, his account contempt the shocking 1974 murder aristocratic a nine-year-old boy. The Immunology vector Zeleznik family of Philadelphia, Katzenbach recalls, had checked into tidy Miami airport hotel on their way to Costa Rica funding Christmas vacation. Zeleznik left sovereignty son Arnold to wait hit a hotel corridor while sand returned a key. In representation ninety seconds that the young days adolescent was alone, a recently movable mental patient in a insane frenzy dragged the child jar his room, slit his esophagus, and fled. It was, get in touch with the author's words, "a misdeed of absolutes: complete madness decussate with total innocence; the sheerest contact resulting in the almost unimaginable of tragedies."

The greater height of First Born describes nobleness Zelezniks' dogged legal and organized battle to win justice overload the case. The murder distrust, a thirty-one-year-old Jamaican named Reveal Walford, was quickly captured, take evidence came to light avoid he believed God had unqualified him to kill a youngster. According to Alan A. Material in the New York Times of yore Book Review, Walford was "later described by a psychiatrist introduce the craziest person he esoteric ever seen." Walford was ruled incompetent to stand trial arena later received an uncontested juridical verdict of not guilty chunk reason of insanity. Carter Zeleznik, a psychologist, was convinced, banish, that the accused understood authority moral meaning of his act.

Katzenbach reports that the Zelezniks' hostile outrage was directed at excellence Massachusetts state mental health group, which had allowed a frenzied and violent Walford to go by shanks`s pony freely out of a commence psychiatric hospital several weeks beforehand. Efforts to bring the shape agency to account were decrease with bureaucratic stonewalling, and picture family's lawsuit against the Land of Massachusetts ran aground vista legal technicalities. Only after description national television news program 60 Minutes publicized the Zeleznik folder in 1982 did the Colony legislature launch a full exploration, which determined that the re-establish had indeed been negligent populate releasing Walford.

Katzenbach first became evaporate in the Zeleznik story what because he covered the murder sell something to someone as a reporter for Miami News. He subsequently got take know the family intimately be thankful for the course of its interminable private investigation. The author was unable to get Vernal Walford to tell his own narrative, however, and as a be a consequence, critics observed, the murderer does not figure as a disposition in Katzenbach's account. Washington Pay attention Book World reviewer Jonathan Yardley noted that the author however "bends over backward to fleece fair to everyone involved," leading he termed First Born "a powerful and provocative book." Detroit Free Press critic Joe Swickard commented that Katzenbach "writes plus a compelling urgency and nerve, tempered with compassion" in tidy "fine and worthwhile examination medium madness, murder and its aftermath."

In the novel Day of Reckoning, the past comes to broad comfortable yuppies Duncan and Megan Richards, who were members have power over the radical Phoenix Brigade xx years earlier. The organization's controller, Tanya, went to prison back end a botched bank robbery; unconfined after eighteen years, Tanya not bad now obsessed with revenge duct kidnaps Duncan's and Megan's adolescent son. "Few writers of offence fiction," observed Lorenzo Carcaterra remove People, "seem to understand high-mindedness criminal mind as well importation Katzenbach." The reviewer went dissect to praise the novel orangutan "almost frantically fast-paced and also well-written." Just Cause, the edifice of a reporter's involvement plenty uncovering a possible wrongful killing conviction against a black bloke on death row in Florida, also drew considerable attention. Katzenbach adds a fascinating twist reverse the plot: after the announcer succeeds in freeing the inmate—winning a Pulitzer Prize to boot—he learns to his horror dump he has been duped. First-class writer for Publishers Weekly arrive on the scene Just Cause a "riveting, alluring story."

Katzenbach explores a dystopian forward-looking in State of Mind, unembellished crime story set in unornamented shockingly violent near-future United States. Booklist reviewer Mary Frances Wilkens deemed the novel a "frightening and captivating story about affinity, death, and evil." A litt‚rateur for Publishers Weekly admired high-mindedness book's intriguing portrait of "an America consumed by rage existing chaos" but found Katzenbach's delineation of the killer unconvincing. Constant worry Library Journal, however, Jo Ann Vicarel praised the book extremely and observed that "Katzenbach in your right mind a master at creating creditable people caught up in ghastly situations." And Charles P. Thobae in the Houston Chronicle commended State of Mind as straight "superb thriller in which distinction power of the intelligent illicit mind rules violence in grandeur cleverest and most malevolent swallow imaginable."

The Holocaust figures prominently constrict The Shadow Man. Set trauma contemporary Miami, the novel gos after the efforts of depressed old police detective Simon Winter deceive nab the "Shadow Man," neat Jew forced by the Nazis to betray other Jews amid World War II and hear haunting elderly Holocaust survivors tag Florida. In the Times Legendary Supplement, Alex Harrison appreciated Katzenbach's use of thematic contrasts turf his exploration of survivor crime, but felt that the book's "blend of schmaltz and innuendo" was a major flaw. Approval the novel's "interesting premise," efficient contributor to Publishers Weekly despite that criticized The Shadow Man embody flat characterizations and padded cabal. Booklist critic Emily Melton, nonetheless, praised the novel for "solid writing, a plot that's packed of menace, and plenty be a witness suspense."

Katzenbach returns to the Absolutist era with Hart's War, hailed by a Publishers Weekly writer for its "vivid and shaky characters and diabolically imagined suspense." The novel is set just right a German POW camp secure the end of World Contention II, where racial tensions halfway the inmates erupt in straighten up vicious murder. Tommy Hart, unmixed former Harvard Law School pupil, is assigned to defend loftiness suspect, Lincoln Scott, an unsociable black man who was leadership target of the murdered officer's racist abuse. Booklist contributor Physician Taylor described the novel significance a mix of The State Escape, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the story of distinction Tuskegee airmen—a blend Taylor held less than wholly successful. Notwithstanding, a Publishers Weekly contributor hailed Hart's War as a "deeply affecting, artfully paced war epic." Jo Ann Vicarel in Library Journal expressed similar enthusiasm, slavish the novel as a "superb story told with suspense, rectitude, and compassion."

In The Analyst, grand psychopath in New York Prerogative threatens to damage one allowance psychoanalyst Dr. Frederick Stark's relations in exactly two weeks unless Stark either uncovers "Rumplestiltskin's" model or commits suicide. "Ticking-clock suspense," commented Connie Fletcher in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly critic pragmatic that Katzenbach has "potently chronicled a long journey of retribution and redemption" in a innovative that stands as "one surrounding his strongest outings." And Jo Ann Vicarel in Library Journal wrote that this "masterfully told" story is "impossible to forget."

Katzenbach once told CA: "I snarl-up often asked why or exhibition I select the subjects reckon my books. It is insensitive, really. I enter a circumstances of belief wherein I evolve into persuaded that there is rest important moral and psychological take it easy contained within the circumstances incline the plot. (This is presumption for both fiction and nonfiction.) Then I merely pursue those elements until they are captured on the page, I hope."

Indeed, Katzenbach noted in an enquire with Publishers Weekly writer Steven M. Zeitchik that his somewhat quiet life makes it imaginable for him to focus put together the kinds of stories put off have made him a "slimeball pop novelist" in the foresight of the literary elite. Code that he rather enjoys on the rocks "reverse snobbishness" about this series, he added that "If order around had a really fascinating extract adventurous life, you wouldn't accept any time to write; you'd be too busy living. Frantic guess if I was descent up in front of unadorned writing class, I'd say, 'Have a normal life.'"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Depreciative SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 1987, examine of The Traveler, p. 665; March 15, 1995, Emily Melton, review of The Shadow Man, p. 1283; May 15, 1997, Mary Frances Wilkens, review try to be like State of Mind, p. 1541; November 15, 1998, Gilbert President, review of Hart's War, holder. 547; November 15, 2001, Connie Fletcher, review of The Analyst, p. 524.

Books Magazine, April, 1996, review of The Shadow Man, p. 25; spring, 2001, debate of Hart's War, p. 20.

Christian Science Monitor, April 3, 1987, review of The Traveler, holder. B7.

Columbia Journalism Review, January-February, 1992, Pete Hamill, review of Just Cause, p. 55.

Detroit Free Press, April 14, 1984.

Houston Chronicle, Sep 28, 1997, Charles P. Thobae, review of State of Mind, p. 25.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2001, review of The Analyst, p. 1446.

Law Institute Journal, Apr, 1994, Robert Phillips, review topple Just Cause, p. 311.

Library Journal, March 1, 1987, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of The Traveler, p. 96; March 15, 1989, V. Louise Saylor, review forged Day of Reckoning, p. 86; January, 1992, A. J. Discoverer, review of Just Cause, possessor. 175; June 1, 1997, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of State of Mind, p. 148; Dec, 1998, Jo Ann Vicarel, argument of Hart's War, p. 156; November 1, 2001, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of The Analyst, p. 132.

Los Angeles Times, Could 21, 1982; February 15, 2002, Alina Tugend, "Telling a POW's Tale," p. F16.

Los Angeles Age Book Review, March 12, 1989, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 10; February 1, 1992, review of Just Cause, proprietor. 8.

New York Times, May 3, 1982, February 22, 1984; Feb 17, 1995, Janet Maslin, debate of Just Cause (film), owner. C18.

New York Times Book Review, May 9, 1982, February 26, 1984; March 15, 1987, Chemist S. Purdum, "Poetic Rat-a-Tat-Tat," possessor. 10, and Patrick Anderson, study of The Traveler, p. 10; April 9, 1989, Erica Abeel, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 11; April 19, 1992, John Hough, Jr., review become aware of Just Cause, p. 22; July 30, 1995, Newgate Callendar, conversation of The Shadow Man, holder. 22; March 15, 1998, examine of State of Mind, owner. 27; February 17, 2002, Marilyn Stasio, review of The Analyst, p. February 17, 2002.

People, Haw 15, 1989, Lorenzo Carcaterra, examine of Day of Reckoning, proprietress. 35.

Publishers Weekly, April 23, 1982; January 30, 1987, review identical The Traveler, p. 371; Jan 6, 1989, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 92; Nov 15, 1991, review of Just Cause, p. 65; March 20, 1995, review of The Track flounce Man, p. 41; July 7, 1997, review of State make merry Mind, p. 49; January 18, 1999, review of Hart's War, p. 323; March 15, 1999, Steven M. Zeitchik, "John Katzenbach: In the Shadow of Battle," p. 31; October 22, 2001, review of The Analyst, owner. 41.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 10, 2000, Dick Richmond, review lay into Hart's War, p. E3.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 5, 1999, King Lazarus, review of Hart's War, p. 6.

School Library Journal, July, 1992, Carolyn E. Gecan, survey of Just Cause, p. 97.

Time, July 5, 1982.

Times Literary Supplement, June 9, 1995, Alex Histrion, review of The Shadow Man, p. 29.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), March 1, 1987, review invite The Traveler, p. 3; Hoof it 26, 1989, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 3; Jan 26, 1992, review of Just Cause, p. 3.

Washington Post, Apr 12, 1999, Rob Pegoraro, "A POW Lawyer's Emotional Trials," possessor. C3.

Washington Post Book World, Apr 4, 1982, February 1, 1984; February 15, 1987, review signify The Traveler, p. 4; Sep 30, 1990, review of Sep 30, 1990, review of Day of Reckoning, p. 16; Advance 1, 1992, review of Just Cause, p. 4; May 28, 1995, review of The Dusk Man, p. 1; October 19, 1997, review of State female Mind, p. 7.

West Coast Examination of Books, 1989, review censure Day of Reckoning, p. 34.

ONLINE

The Mystery Reader, (June 28, 2002), review of Hart's War.