DANIEL PYNE
DANIEL PYNE was born in Chicago, raised in Colorado, educated at Stanford University, and now lives in Los Angeles and Santa Fe with his wife, children, dogs, cats, a lizard, and an extremely sullen box turtle his grown children left in their wake. He is the author of three novels: Fifty Mice, Twentynine Palms, and A Hole in the Ground Owned by a Liar. Among Pyne’s film credits are the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, Pacific Heights, Any Given Sunday and Fracture. Pyne’s television work spans from the seminal hipster cop show Miami Vice to the recent Fox series from J.J. Abrams, Alcatraz. Pyne has worked as a silk screen printer, journalist, cartoonist, advertising copywriter, screenwriter, director, and occasionally teaches writing at UCLA’s graduate school of film.
VITAL LIES
A Thriller
Thomas & Mercer - February 15, 2022
From the author of spy thriller Water Memory comes a riveting installment in the Sentro series in which past and present collide.
When a Canadian spy comes to ex–black ops specialist Aubrey Sentro for help tracking down notorious Cold War spymaster Günter Witt, she wants to say no. It’s been thirty years since Aubrey’s captivity in East Berlin, and she has no desire to return. Her focus now is on mending the relationships that suffered during her years working in the shadows.
But when a ruthless mercenary targets Aubrey and her daughter, the game changes. With Witt back on the scene, blackmailing his old contacts and contracting with rogue governments, the stakes are high. And Aubrey, who endured the brunt of Witt’s cruelty in that old Stasi prison, may be the only one who can track him down.
To unravel the threads of Witt’s intricate web of lies, Aubrey will need to confront not only the dark secrets of her past but also the threat they pose to her future.
Praise for VITAL LIES
“Narrator Christina Traister skillfully presents the many voices and accents necessary to make the story come alive. Listeners of spy thrillers will enjoy this book“ ―Library Journal
“In [the] outstanding sequel to 2021’s Water Memory…Pyne keeps the pages racing by. This gripping cinematic thriller will leave readers transfixed.” ―Publishers Weekly
“A sadly effective dramatization of the comic-strip Pogo‘s insight: ‘We have met the enemy, and he is us.’” ―Kirkus Reviews
WATER MEMORY
Thomas & Mercer - February 1, 2021
A fast-paced, page-turning thriller that contemplates the consequences of motherhood, memory, and crime as a commodity.
Black ops specialist Aubrey Sentro may be one concussion away from death. But when pirates seize the cargo ship she’s on, she must decide whether to risk her life to save her fellow passengers.
Sentro’s training takes over, and she’s able to elude her captors, leaving bodies in her wake. But her problems are just getting started. Her memory lapses are getting more frequent, symptoms of serial-concussion syndrome.
As she plays a deadly game of cat and mouse with the pirates, she pushes herself to survive by focusing on thoughts of her children. She’s never told them what she really does for a living, and now she might not get the chance.
While her memories make her vulnerable, motherhood makes her dangerous.
praise for water memory
“Pyne keeps expertly mixing up his pitches long after you’ve stopped expecting anything but blazing fastballs. —Kirkus Reviews
“Deceptively explosive, Water Memory pairs the cleverness and precision timing of Daniel Pyne’s riveting storytelling with his addictive, action-packed plotting and unforgettably vivid cast of characters.”—Karin Slaughter, New York Times and international bestselling author
“Water Memory blew me away. It’s the kind of rare character-driven, adrenaline-charged action-thriller readers crave and writers dare to emulate. Aubrey Sentro is an iconic, kick-ass heroine—deeply flawed, exceptionally skilled, and exceedingly motivated. Lara Craft on steroids. A brilliant page-turner.”—Robert Dugoni, #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author of A Cold Trail
“A deftly crafted thriller with a captivatingly complex lead character, Pyne’s action-packed novel builds with each surprise twist and will keep you up late turning the pages.”—Chad Zunker, Amazon Charts bestselling author of An Equal Justice
“Mother knows best, even when her memory is short-circuiting. Water Memory has everything you want in a modern-day thriller: pirates, propulsive action, and an unforgettable female lead. Pyne’s prose is elegant, evocative, extraordinary. Best book I’ve read in ages. Addictive.”—K. J. Howe, international bestselling author of Skyjack
“Water Memory moves like Die Hard but with a tragic family backstory as its heart—and with an indelible, three-dimensional action heroine, Aubrey Sentro, as the muscle and sinew. I loved it.”—Barry Eisler, New York Times bestselling author
“Daniel Pyne’s Water Memory is a stylish and addictive thriller propelled by gritty action, sublime intrigue, and a brilliantly executed character twist.”—Steven Konkoly, Wall Street Journal bestselling author
“A mysterious woman on a mysterious path, danger in the future and from the past—Water Memory holds a hypnotic grip on you from the very first page. This is Daniel Pyne at his very best.”—Michael Connelly, #1 New York Times bestselling author
CATALINA EDDY
A Novel in Three Decades
Blue Rider Press – March 7, 2017
Renowned Hollywood screenwriter Daniel Pyne returns with three inter-connected novellas of nasty crimes and nastier cops in Southern California.
Dan Pyne returns with a collection of three novellas about SoCal’s police underworld, each set in a different decade. Together, Pyne’s novellas reflect the changing mores of California, illuminating the different crimes but unchanging human frailties of different times.
Praise for CATALINA EDDY
“All three stories sustain noir conventions: smart, smart-aleck male main characters; women menaced by corrupt and powerful men; daunting weather; a staccato prose style; and an existential attitude. The stories end, mostly, happily (at least for the survivors), and ultimately hope is affirmed despite depressing meteorological conditions. Overall, three engaging and satisfying adventures. A worthy addition to the shelf, between “noir” and now.“―Kirkus Reviews
“Pyne’s wounded characters walk their mean streets honorably in this compelling account of attempts to find sense in a
senseless world.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Daniel Pyne flips all the standards upside-down with Catalina Eddy and in the process delivers a classic California
noir—times three. This is Pyne’s masterpiece. I guarantee no reader will go wanting.”—Michael Connelly
“Pyne delivers his noir in vivid, often gorgeous prose… Although television may be where the action is, it’s a big, all-out novel like this that lets Pyne display the full range of his talents.”—Washington Post
“Catalina Eddy is…very visually written—[Pyne] puts the reader firmly into each scene as the story unfolds.“—Ruth Kinane, Entertainment Weekly
“While these three stories are connected through loosely related characters, they are, more importantly, linked by compelling storytelling, and by laughter, love, and honor.“—Huffington Post
“The three novellas, taken separately, are each well-crafted noirs. They’ve got the mood, the characters, the settings, and the stories that keep noir fiction alive. But taken together, Catalina Eddy is much greater than the sum of its parts…Daniel Pyne really gets it—his language is deft, his storytelling skills spectacular.“—LitReactor
“Pyne, who has also written successfully for television and film, turns in a quick-paced trio of gritty yarns with staccato dialog and grim survivors, all seeking redemption in whatever form is allowed.“—Library Journal
FIFTY MICE
A Novel
Blue Rider Press – December 30, 2014
What if a man is placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program against his will?
And doesn’t even know what he supposedly knows that merits a new name, a new identity, a new life?
Jay Johnson is an Average Joe, a thirty-something guy with a job in telephone sales, a regular pick-up basketball game, and a devoted girlfriend he seems ready to marry. But one weekday afternoon, he’s abducted on a Los Angeles Metro train, tranquilized, interrogated, and his paper trail obliterated. What did he see, what terrible crime—or criminal—is he keeping secret? It must be something awfully big. The trouble is, Jay has no clue.
Furious and helpless, and convinced that the government has made a colossal mistake, Jay is involuntarily relocated to a community on Catalina Island—which turns out to be inhabited mainly by other protected witnesses. Isolated in a world of strangers, Jay begins to realize that only way out is through the twisted maze of lies and unreliable memories swirling through his own mind. If he can locate—or invent—a repressed memory that might satisfy the Feds, maybe he can make it back to the mainland and his wonderful, even if monotonous, life.
Set in a noir contemporary L.A. and environs, Fifty Mice is a Hitchcockian thriller as surreal and mysterious as a Kafka nightmare. Chilling, paranoiac, and thoroughly original, it will have readers grasping to distinguish what is real and what only seems that way.
Praise for FIFTY MICE
“[A] wonderfully paranoid jaunt through competing realities…Pyne’s confident hand guides readers to a surprising, popcorn-dropping final twist.”—Publishers Weekly
“Drawing on the noir tradition…a serious consideration of memory and how it functions, or doesn’t.”—Booklist
“Exceedingly clever, expertly timed, and dripping with paranoia, the nightmarish scenario at the center of this thrilling story turns on a kick-ass dime.”—New York Times and internationally bestselling author Karin Slaughter
“Screenwriter and author Pyne (Twentynine Palms) weaves a smart, exceedingly clever, and unusual tale with a horrible secret at its center, which is as much a late coming-of-age story as it is a thriller. Fans of brainy noir will find much to love in this highly satisfying, big-screen-ready book“—Kristin Centorcelli, Library Journal
“A unique thrill ride… A real cat-and-mouse story… This plot is both gripping and suspenseful, as the author offers up a secret that will make all us ‘normal’ people out there think long and hard about the people powerful enough to change lives in an instant. Pyne is an extremely clever writer.“—Suspense Magazine