Biography of Alan Cook

After spending more than a quarter of a century as a pioneer in
the computer industry, Alan Cook is well into his second
career as a writer.

Run into Trouble
Drake and Melody are teamed up to run a race along the California Coast
for a prize of a million dollars—in 1969 when a million is worth something.
Neither knows the other is in the race before it starts. They once did
undercover work together in England, but this information is supposed to be
top secret. The nine other pairs of runners entered in the race are world-class
marathoners, including a winner of the Boston Marathon. If this competition
isn’t enough, somebody tries to knock Drake out of the race before it
begins. But Drake and Melody also receive threats calculated to keep them
from dropping out. What’s going on? The stakes increase when startling events
produce fatalities and impact the race, leading them to ask whether the Cold
War with the USSR is about to heat up.

Honeymoon for Three
Silver Quill Award from American Authors Association
and named Best Mountain West Book by Reader Views.
Suspense takes a thrill ride. It is 1964, 10 years after Gary
Blanchard’s high school adventures in The Hayloft. He and his
love, Penny, are going on the trip of their lives, and, oh yes,
they’re getting married along the way. What they don’t know is
that they’re being stalked by Alfred, a high school classmate
of Penny who has a bellybutton fetish. The suspense crackles
amid some of the most scenic spots in the western United States,
including Lake Tahoe, Reno, Crater Lake, Seattle, and in Glacier,
Yellowstone, and Grand Teton National Parks, as well as the
redwood trees and rocky cliffs of the northern California coast.

The Hayloft: a 1950s mystery, takes us back
to bobby sox, slow dancing, bomb shelters—and murder. Within two
weeks after starting his senior year of high school in the 1950s,
Gary Blanchard finds himself kicked out of one school and attending
another—the school where his cousin, Ralph, mysteriously died six
months before. Ralph’s death was labeled an accident, but when Gary
talks to people about it, he gets suspicious. Did Ralph fall from the
auditorium balcony, or was he pushed? Had he found a diamond necklace,
talked about by cousins newly arrived from England, that was
supposedly stolen from Dutch royalty by a common ancestor and lost for
generations? What about the principal with an abnormal liking for
boys? And are Ralph’s ex-girlfriends telling everything they know?

Hotline to Murder, his California mystery, takes place
at a listening hotline in beautiful Bonita Beach, California.
Tony Schmidt and Shahla Lawton don't know what they're getting
into when they sign up as volunteer listeners. But when Shahla's
best friend is murdered, it's too late for them to back out.

Alan's Lillian Morgan mysteries, Catch a Falling Knife and
Thirteen Diamonds, explore the secrets of retirement
communities. They feature Lillian, a retired mathematics
professor from North Carolina, who is smart, opinionated,
and skeptical of authority. She loves to solve puzzles,
even when they involve murder.

Alan’s short story, “Hot Days, Cold Nights,” appears in the
Mystery Writers of America anthology, A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime,
edited by Jeffery Deaver.

Aces and Knaves, available digitally, is a California
mystery for gamblers and baseball card collectors.

Alan splits his time between writing and walking, another
passion. His inspirational book,
Walking the World: Memories and Adventures,
has information and adventure in equal parts. It has been named
one of the Top 10 Walking Memoirs and Tales of Long Walks
by the walking website, Walking.About.Com . He is also the author of
Walking to Denver, a light-hearted fictional account of a walk he did.

Freedom's Light: Quotations from History's Champions of Freedom,
contains quotations from some of our favorite historical
figures about personal freedom. And The Saga of Bill the Hermit
is a narrative poem about a hermit who decides that the single
life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Alan lives with his wife, Bonny, on a hill in Southern California.

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