Author Theodore August Bell III--better known as Ted Bell--died on January 20 at age 76. He wrote several series: the Alex Hawke spy thrillers and the young adult adventure series Nick McGiver Adventures Through Time. Among his dozen Alex Hawke titles, Tsar dealt with the rise of the "New Russia," the return of the KGB and the new "Evil Empire"; Warlord revolved around a vendetta against the British royal family beginning with the 1979 murder of Lord Mountbatten; and Overkill dealt with Vladimir Putin and the kidnapping of Hawke's son.
Before becoming a writer, Bell had a career in advertising, which began in 1976 when he joined Doyle Dane Bernbach as a junior copywriter. He became the youngest v-p at the company before becoming creative director at Leo Burnett Co., where he was named president and chief creative officer in 1986, at age 40. In 1991, Hall joined Young & Rubicam, London, as vice chairman and worldwide creative director. After 10 years at the creative helm of Y&R, he retired in 2001 to write full time.
In 2011-2012, Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of MI6, sponsored Bell to become a visiting scholar at Cambridge University. He was named writer-in-residence at Sydney-Sussex College, Cambridge. In 2013, Bell gave the inaugural lecture for the exhibit "Spy: The Secret World of Espionage" at the Reagan Library in California. Sea Hawke, the most recent Alex Hawke novel, is available in paperback from Berkley ($9.99).
