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Theodore A. Bell, popularly known as Ted Bell, is an American New York Times bestselling author of mystery, thriller and historical fiction books.

Originally from Florida, Bell graduated with a B.A. in English from Randolph–Macon College in Ashland, Virginia.

He began his career in the 70’s as a junior copywriter at Doyle Dane Bernbach (DDB), New York, and by the time he was 25, he had sold his first screenplay to Hollywood, on top of becoming the youngest vice-president in the company’s history.

At Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, he worked as a creative director for four years, before ascending to President, Chief Creative Officer where he developed several award-winning advertising campaigns.

Bell also worked at Young & Rubicam, London, where he was named Vice Chairman and Worldwide Creative Director.

During his decorated career in the advertising world, Bell clinched every award, including several Clios and Cannes Gold Lions, and the Grand Prix at the Cannes Festival.

He retired in 2001 to become a full-time writer.

A holder of an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Kendall College in Michigan, and an Adjunct Professor of English Literature at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, Florida, Bell currently lives in a 19th century farmhouse in Connecticut.

More about Ted Bell

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Thriller, Mystery, Thriller

Born: 1947

United States

Website: https://www.tedbell.com/

Alexander Hawke

  1. Hawke (2003)
  2. Assassin (2004)
  3. Pirate (2005)
  4. Spy (2006)
  5. Tsar (2008)
  6. Warlord (2010)
  7. Crash Dive: An Alexander Hawke Novella (2012)
  8. Phantom (2012)
  9. What Comes Around: An Alexander Hawke Novella (2013)
  10. Warriors (2014)
  11. White Death: An Alexander Hawke Novella (2015)
  12. Patriot (2015)
  13. Overkill (2018)
  14. Dragonfire (2020)
  15. Sea Hawke (2021)

Collections

  1. The Powder Monkey: An Alexander Hawke Novella (2017)
  2. Hawke: Three Black Ops (2018)

Nick McIver Adventures Through Time

  1. Nick of Time (2000)
  2. The Time Pirate (2010)
Nick McIver Adventures Through Time

Detailed book overview

Alexander Hawke

Hawke

A man follows in the footsteps of his pirate forebears to solve the mystery of his parents' murders and find the greatest treasure in the world.

On a yacht in the warm blue waters of the Caribbean, a little boy named Alex Hawke, hidden in a secret compartment, witnesses the brutal murder of his parents at the hands of two strange men. The only survivors of the attack, Alex and his father’s black parrot, Sniper, are sent back to the island off the coast of England where his family had lived and where generations of Hawkes have called home ever since their pirate forebear, the legendary Blackhawke, was betrayed and hung by the British.

Decades later, the boy, now a grown man and a naval hero, returns to the Caribbean on a special mission for the United States and Great Britain. His task is to find a secret Stealth submarine that has mysteriously disappeared and the men responsible for the theft. Once there, however, Hawke begins to have flashbacks about the night of his parents’ murder. He has also brought along with him a piece of paper his father had pressed into his hands before locking him into the compartment—an ancient treasure map.

Hawke begins to puzzle through his own tragic history and the meaning of the map, even as the search for the submarine intensifies. As Hawke nears the end of his search for his parents’ killers and the men who stole the submarine, he begins to realize that they are one and the same and that to the victor not only will go unimaginable military power but also one of the greatest treasures in the world.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2003
Ebook: B000FC0PJO
Publisher: Atria Books
Assassin

Fearless intelligence operative Lord Alexander Hawke matches wits with a cunning and bloodthirsty psychopath in a desperate race to avert an American Armageddon.

In an elegant palazzo on the Grand Canal, an American ambassador's tryst turns deadly. In the seamy underbelly of London, a pub-crawling killer is on the loose. And in a storybook chapel nestled in the Cotswolds, a marriage made in heaven turns to hell on earth. Isolated incidents? Or links in a chain of events hurtling towards catastrophe? So begins Assassin, the tour de force thriller that heralds the return of every terrorist's worst nightmare, Alex Hawke.

A shadowy figure known as the Dog is believed to be the ruthless terrorist who is systematically and savagely assassinating American diplomats and their families around the globe. As the deadly toll mounts inexorably, Hawke, along with former NYPD cop and Navy SEAL Stokely Jones, is called upon by the U.S. government to launch a search for the assassin behind the murders.

Hawke, who “’makes James Bond look like a "slovenly, dull-witted clockpuncher"’”, is soon following a trail that leads back to London in the go-go nineties, when Arab oil money fueled lavish, and sometimes fiendish, lifestyles. Other murky clues point to the Florida Keys, where a vicious killer hides behind the gates of a fabled museum. And to a remote Indonesian island where a madman tinkers with strains of a deadly virus and slyly bides his time.

Hawke must call upon resources deep within himself. He must enter a race against time to stop a cataclysmic attack on America's most populous cities and avenge the inexplicable and horrific crime that has left him devastated.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2004
ISBN: 978-1416514787
Publisher: Pocket Books
Pirate

Intrepid intelligence operative Alex Hawke must thwart a secret, deadly alliance between China and France before they annihilate everything and everyone in their headlong rush toward world domination.

Aboard the Star of Shanghai in the south of France, an American spy is held captive. He possesses vital, explosive intelligence linking two nations and one horrifying plot. If he is not rescued, he faces certain torture and inevitable death. Nearby, in a seaside hotel, a man still haunted by the loss of his wife two years earlier finds comfort in the arms of a beautiful Chinese actress--but is she to be trusted? So begins Pirate, an electrifying thriller marking the return of international counterterrorist Alex Hawke.

In Paris, a ruthless descendant of Napoleon has risen to power, hell-bent on restoring France's former glory. His fiery ambitions are cynically stoked by a coterie of cold-blooded Mandarins, plotting behind the gates of Beijing's Forbidden City. Cloaked in secrecy, this unholy alliance devises a twisted global plan, backed by China's growing nuclear arsenal, that will send America and the world to the brink of a gut-wrenching showdown.

With the aid of his old friend and former Navy SEAL, Stokely Jones, Hawke sets out to investigate the deadly connections that bind the French-Chinese axis. Together, they discover that a powerful German industrialist may hold the key, somewhere inside the walls of his Bavarian mountain lair. Meanwhile, clues to an old and gruesome murder in Paris lead to New York City, where horrifying evidence could finally bring a madman to his knees.

In the end, as American and British forces prepare to defend a sovereign and oil-rich Gulf nation against unwilling occupation, the terror is all too real. The world is once more balanced on the knife-edge of a full-blown nuclear confrontation.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2005
Ebook: B000FCKBR0
Publisher: Atria Books
Spy

Intrepid MI-6 intelligence officer Alex Hawke confronts an evil like no other.

"A border ain't nothing but a law drawn in the sand." So says a small-town Texas sheriff in Ted Bell's most gripping espionage thriller to date. Things along America's southern border are rapidly reaching the boiling point. American girls are being snatched from their homes, ranches are burning, and the number of deadly confrontations along the Mexican border grows daily. At night, armed Mexican troops cross the border at will in support of narcotics smugglers and illegal immigrants. By day, Americans take up arms and plan reprisals. An all-out border war is no longer inconceivable. It's happening!

On assignment for the British Secret Service, a man leads a mysterious expedition into the heart of darkness. Sailing up the furthest reaches of the Amazon River, he is captured by a brutal tribe of indigenous cannibals. Forced into slave labor, he witnesses the unimaginable. Golden domes and minarets rise beneath the rainforest canopy. Vast terror armies are being recruited and trained in the jungle. Their goal: a vicious jihad that will unite one continent...and destroy another. They possess weapons only dreamed of by the Western allies. Somehow he must escape his captors and live to tell the tale.

With tensions on its southern border threatening to ignite into war, America must look to the one man who might be able to confront the demons in the jungle...and destroy them. Alex Hawke, with the aid of brilliant Scotland Yard Inspector Ambrose Congreve, and an unstoppable force of nature named Stokely Jones, begins a river journey fraught with peril. He must find a river with no name, and a villain like no other. He must confront all the terrors that man and nature can hurl at him.

From black magic, poison-tipped arrows, and blowguns to an awesome arsenal of the most advanced military hardware, Hawke must overcome insurmountable odds on his quest for victory.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2006
ISBN: 978-1847392657
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Tsar

Counter spy Alex Hawke faces a global nightmare of epic proportions.

Somewhere in Russia, there dwells a man so powerful no one even knows his name. His existence is only speculated upon, only whispered about in American corridors and CIA strategy meetings. Though he is practically invisible, he is pulling strings—and pulling them hard. For suddenly, Russia is a far, far more ominous threat than even the most hardened cold warriors ever thought possible.

The Russians have their finger on the switch to the European economy and an eye on the American jugular. And, most importantly, they want to be made whole again. Should America interfere with Russia’s plans, well then, America will pay in blood. As this political crisis plays out, Russia gains a new leader. Not just a president, but a new tsar, a signal to the world that the old, imperial Russia is back. And in America, a mysterious killer brutally murders an innocent family and literally flattens the small Midwestern town they once called home.

Just a taste, according to the new tsar, of what will happen if America does not back down. Onto this stage must step Alex Hawke, espionage agent extraordinaire and the only man who can stop the absolute madness borne and bred inside the "New Russia." Gripping and imaginative, Tsar is Ted Bell’s most explosive tale of international suspense to date.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2008
ISBN: 978-1416550433
Publisher: Pocket Star
Warlord

Alex Hawke has all but given up on life. The British-American MI6 counterterrorism operative lost the woman he loved almost a year ago and has sought refuge at the bottom of a rum bottle ever since. But late one night at his home on Bermuda, he receives a wake-up call...literally.

His Royal Highness Prince Charles, an old friend, desperately needs his help. The prince has discovered a not-so-subtle threat directed toward the British royal family. What’s more, the evidence reveals an ominous connection to Charles’s godfather, Lord Mountbatten - the beloved family patriarch assassinated by an ingeniously designed bomb 30 years before.

A shadowy figure from the past has the British crown in his sights, and has proven once before that his warnings are not to be taken lightly. Several clues point to IRA involvement, but the authorities have little to go on and answers are scarce. This is just the call to duty Hawke needs to get back into action - if the madman doesn’t strike first.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2010
ISBN: 978-0062002242
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Crash Dive: An Alexander Hawke Novella

Ted Bell's first ever e-Book exclusive short story finds Counterspy Alex Hawke in hostile foreign waters, flying at nearly the speed of sound, at an altitude no sane man would dare, piloting an F-16 Viper on a highly covert mission.

His task is simple: enter another nation's airspace undetected, meet a secret contact, and find a way to avert a global war. It will take every skill at his command—but there are few as shrewd and savvy as Alex Hawke. When his plane is discovered by enemy radar, he is forced to improvise—or die trying.

Alex Hawke. Saving the world one bullet at a time.

Includes a 98-page sneak preview from Phantom, the exhilarating, new novel in the Alex Hawke series.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2012
Ebook: B007BCFE5Q
Publisher: William Morrow
Phantom

The first and most bizarre event nearly becomes a monumental catastrophe when something goes awry at an American theme park, wreaking havoc on visitors looking for nothing more than a sun-splashed holiday.

In a different part of the country, a USAF F-15 pilot, escorting another jet in the skies over the Midwest, inexplicably loses control of his plane, endangering the lives of several people and deeply puzzling those following his mission on the ground.

Then, in the misty calm of a coastal California evening, the world’s premier scientist on the subject of artificial intelligence gets a strange phone call. When he hangs up, he quietly grabs his coat and leaves for an after-dinner stroll from which he never returns.

It’s up to Hawke and the brilliant former inspector Ambrose Congreve to find out what could possibly be happening. But how does one identify—and fight—an enemy one can’t see, a real phantom? Even these seasoned operatives are mystified. Is there really such a thing as an ultra-intelligent machine, a cyberweapon that can shift the geopolitical balance of power?

In a hunt that takes him from Palo Alto, California, to the Russian frontier, to Cambridge University and the glistening Mediterranean aboard his newly christened and armed super-yacht Blackhawke, Alex Hawke is joined by the unstoppable Stokely Jones and his ex-CIA buddy Harry Brock. As he moves closer to unmasking the scientist behind these extraordinary events, he goes nose-to-nose with an enemy unlike any he’s fought before—and may never again.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2012
ISBN: 978-0062107077
Publisher: HarperLuxe
What Comes Around: An Alexander Hawke Novella

An esteemed former CIA director dies off the coast of Maine.

Another senior CIA officer is found dead of a "heart attack" in a posh Paris hotel. Counterspy Alex Hawke and his friend Ambrose Congreve think this could be more than coincidence. Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer whose dangerous exploits got him barred from the CIA. Now Spider believes he's been wronged and is out for vengeance—and Alex Hawke is his number-one target.

Hawke's only hope is to lure his deadly enemy into a trap he can't escape—and it's a place Hawke knows better than anyone: his seaside home in Bermuda.

Includes a sneak preview of Warriors, the exhilarating new novel in the Alex Hawke series.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2013
Ebook: B00BATNR7I
Publisher: William Morrow Impulse
Warriors

Five years ago a brilliant American scientist, well known in high-tech military circles, suddenly disappeared without a trace off the streets of Washington, DC.

Now a professor at Cambridge University is murdered, a victim of bizarre, ancient Chinese torture methods. Counterspy Alex Hawke teams with former Scotland Yard chief inspector Ambrose Congreve to find the killer, but they soon discover that this death is merely the opening gambit in a tense and lethal game of geopolitical brinkmanship.

In the United States, the president is behaving erratically and some begin to question his fitness for leadership as hostile exchanges and new technologies ramp up tensions between China, North Korea, and the United States—threatening western military superiority.

With the situation edging closer and closer to the abyss, Hawke must face down a superb Chinese assassin and pull off his most daring mission yet: infiltrate enemy territory and neutralize their advantage...or risk the outbreak of World War III.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2014
ISBN: 978-0062298638
Publisher: HarperLuxe
White Death: An Alexander Hawke Novella

Alex Hawke is tracking one of the world's most powerful villains high in the Swiss Alps.

A powerful Swiss banker is found dead, frozen at the base of a soaring Alp. When a second man, the head of a rival banking empire, is found dead deep inside a mountain cave, MI6 suspects a bizarre conspiracy. Vast sums may have been plundered from the Queen of England's accounts. The British royal family's centuries-old Swiss bank holdings are at risk, shaking the foundations of Her Majesty's government and the monarchy itself.

Sir David Trulove, Chief of British Intelligence (MI6), tasks his most formidable weapon, Alex Hawke, with investigating the horrific murders. In Switzerland, Hawke and Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard are pulled into a tangled web of international intrigue, deceit, and murder. China and Russia are the prime suspects, and these powerful forces will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

A mysterious figure known as "the Sorcerer" has long been rumored to reside within an impenetrable fortress inside a mountain complex in the Swiss Alps known as "White Death." Hawke must scale perilous heights and breach the fortifications at the top of the world…and find the Sorcerer—or die trying.

Includes a sneak preview from Patriot, the exhilarating new Alex Hawke adventure.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2015
Ebook: B00KFFWL52
Publisher: Witness Impulse
Patriot

Intelligence officer Alex Hawke takes on power-hungry Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is wielding a terrifying new weapon...

In corrupt Russia, an erratic Vladimir Putin is determined to forge his country into a formidable superpower once again. He intends to redraw the map of Europe, and will go to impossible extremes to realize his fantasies—including shooting down a civilian airliner packed with tourists bound for China. Kremlin scientists have developed a radical new weapon that could forever alter modern warfare.

NATO, locked in a tense standoff over Ukraine, Poland, and Estonia, knows Putin will not hesitate to use it. But there is one man who can bring the world back from the brink: Britain’s foremost intelligence asset, Lord Alexander Hawke.

The intrepid MI6 officer’s latest challenge begins in the Gulf of Aden and soon has him searching for the link to a series of bizarre assassinations. Spies are dying all over the world—from London, Washington, D.C., and Maine, to Moscow, and even the glittering Cote d’Azur. In the murky world of counterterrorism and high-stakes intrigue, the odds have never been higher. Once again, Alex Hawke must save the world...one bullet at a time.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2015
ISBN: 978-0062416728
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Overkill

Alex Hawke is pitted against Russian president Vladimir Putin in a daring, exhilarating mission to rescue Hawke’s kidnapped son—and prevent a Soviet invasion of Switzerland.

On a ski vacation in the Swiss Alps high above St. Moritz, Alex Hawke and his young son, Alexei, are thrust into danger when the tram carrying them to the top of the mountain bursts into flame, separating the two. Before he can reach Alexei, the boy is snatched from the burning cable car by unknown assailants in a helicopter.

Meanwhile, high above the skies of France, Vladimir Putin is aboard his presidential jet after escaping a bloodless coup in the Kremlin. When two flight attendants collapse and slip into unconsciousness, the Russian leader realizes the danger isn’t over. Killing the pilots, he grabs a parachute, steps out of the plane...and disappears.

Hawke has led his share of dangerous assignments, but none with stakes this high. To save his son, he summons his trusted colleagues, Chief Inspector of Scotland Yard Ambrose Congreve, former U.S. Navy SEAL Stokley Jones, Jr., and recruits a crack Hostage Rescue Team—a group of elite soldiers of fortune known as "Thunder & Lighting."

Before they can devise a rescue plan, Hawke must figure out who took his boy—and why. An operative who has fought antagonists around the globe, Hawke has made many enemies; one in particular may hold the key to finding Alexei before it’s too late.

But an unexpected threat complicates their mission. Making his way to "Falcon’s Lair," the former Nazi complex created for Hitler, Putin is amassing an impressive armory that he intends to use for his triumphant return to Moscow.

Only one man can smash the Russian president’s plan for domination—a master counterspy who will cross every line to save his son...and maybe save the world itself in the bargain.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2018
ISBN: 978-0062845672
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Dragonfire

Alex Hawke, British lord and gentleman spy, is looking for the Queen's missing grandson, whose disappearance may be the culmination of a century-old plot.

December 8, 1941, Washington, D.C.

The new Chinese ambassador to the United States, Tiger Tang, meets with President Roosevelt one day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. For the next four years, China and the U.S. will be wartime allies, but the charming, sophisticated ambassador may be playing his own treacherous game.

Today, the Bahamas

Alex Hawke is recovering from serious injuries incurred during a battle with a malevolent enemy. His recuperation is interrupted by a desperate call from the Queen. Her favorite grandson has disappeared in the Bahamas. Lord Hawke is the only man she trusts with a mission this sensitive. All she knows is that the young prince was last seen at the exclusive resort the Dragonfire Club, owned by the nefarious Tang brothers, grandsons of Ambassador Tiger Tang.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2020
ISBN: 978-0593101216
Publisher: Berkley
Sea Hawke

Alex Hawke is sailing into trouble when an around-the-world journey becomes a fight against terror...

After saving the kidnapped heir to the British throne, gentleman spy and MI6 legend Alex Hawke is due for some downtime. He’s got a new custom built sailing yacht and a goal: to get closer to his son Alexi during an epic cruise across the seven seas.

But fate and the chief of MI6, Lord David Trulove, have other plans.

There’s an unholy alliance of nations who are plotting to attack Western democracies. The wily intelligence leader plans to use Hawke to drive a knife into the heart of this conspiracy. From an island base off Cuba to a secret jungle lair deep in the Amazon, on the land and the seas, the master spy and his crew of incorrigibles are in for the fight of their lives—the fight for freedom.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2021
Ebook: B08NSTBVJB
Publisher: Berkley

Collections

The Powder Monkey: An Alexander Hawke Novella

In this offbeat Thriller Short, New York Times bestselling writer Ted Bell takes his hero Alex Hawke on a different kind of journey. It’s 1880 and a lovelorn newspaperman journeys to the Channel Islands to learn the true story of the pirate captain Billy Blood’s demise. While there, he learns how a small boy held captive aboard Blood’s frigate is saved from certain death. The boy’s name is Alex Hawke. His dramatic rescue sets the stage for later adventures.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2017
Ebook: B076H5P2GD
Publisher: MIRA
Hawke: Three Black Ops

Three Alex Hawke novellas never before on audio.

Crash Dive: Alex Hawke is in hostile foreign waters, flying an F-16 Viper at nearly the speed of sound, at an altitude no sane man would dare, on a highly covert mission. His task is simple: enter another nation’s airspace undetected, meet a secret contact, and find a way to avert a global war.

What Comes Around: An esteemed former CIA director dies off the coast of Maine. Another senior CIA officer is found dead of a “heart attack” in a posh Paris hotel. Counterspy Alex Hawke and his friend Ambrose Congreve think this could be more than coincidence. Hawke discovers that the victims are connected through one man: Spider Payne, a rogue intelligence officer whose dangerous exploits got him barred from the CIA.

White Death: A powerful Swiss banker is found dead, frozen at the base of a soaring Alp. When a second man, the head of a rival banking empire, is found dead deep inside a mountain cave, MI6 suspects a bizarre conspiracy. Vast sums may have been plundered from the Queen of England’s accounts. The British royal family’s centuries-old Swiss bank holdings are at risk, shaking the foundations of Her Majesty’s government and the monarchy itself.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2018
Ebook: B07GY1JBJN
Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Nick McIver Adventures Through Time

Nick of Time

The setting is England, 1939, on the eve of war. Nick and his younger sister, Kate, live in a lighthouse on the smallest of the Channel Islands. Nick and Kate come to the aid of their father who is engaged in a desperate war of espionage with German U-boat wolf packs that are circling the islands. The information they provide to Winston Churchill is vital as he tries to warn England of the imminent Nazi invasion.

One day Nick discovers an old sea chest, left for him by his ancestor, Captain Nicholas McIver of the Royal Navy. Inside, he finds a time machine and a desperate plea for help from the captain. He uses the machine to return to the year 1805. Captain McIver and, indeed, Admiral Nelson's entire fleet are threatened by the treachery of the French and the mutinous Captain Billy Blood. Nick must reach deep inside, using his wits, courage, and daring to rescue the imperiled British sailors.

His sister, Kate, meanwhile, has enlisted the aid of two of England's most brilliant "scientific detectives," Lord Hawke and Commander Hobbes, to thwart the invading Nazis. She and Nick must face England's underwater enemies, a challenge made all the more difficult when they discover the existence of Germany's supersecret submarine.

In this striking adventure for readers of all ages, Nick must fight ruthless enemies across two different centuries, on land and sea, to help defeat those determined to destroy his home and his family.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2000
ISBN: 978-0312581435
Publisher: Square Fish
The Time Pirate

It's 1940 and the Nazis are invading Nick's beloved home, the British Channel Islands. So Nick takes to the skies: He has discovered an old World War One fighter plane in an abandoned barn. Determined to learn to fly, he is soon risking life and limb to photograph armed German minelayers and patrol boats, and executing incredibly perilous bombing raids over Nazi airfields by night.

Meanwhile, the evil pirate, Captain Billy Blood, still desperate to acquire Nick's time machine, returns to Greybeard Island. He kidnaps Nick's sister, Kate, and transports her back to Port Royal, Jamaica, in the year 1781, leaving Nick a message that if he wants to see her alive again, he must come to Jamaica and make an even swap: Kate's life in exchange for Nick's wondrous time machine--that's Blood's bargain.

Having traveled back in time, Nick discovers a plot that might change the outcome of the American Revolution. Disguised as an eighteenth-century cabin boy, he travels to the Caribbean and confronts his old enemy, who has assembled the world's largest pirate armada.

Author: Ted Bell
First Release: 2010
ISBN: 978-0312665494
Publisher: Square Fish