Occupation Novelist Role Author Name Anthony Hyde | Period 1985–Present Nationality Canadian | |
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Genre Spy novel, general fiction Books The red fox, China Lake, Formosa Straits, A Private House: A Novel, Picture This | ||
Anthony Hyde (born 1946) is a Canadian author of spy novels, most notably the The Red Fox and Formosa Straits.
Background
Hyde was born in Ottawa, in 1946, and is the son of the artist and film-maker, Laurence Hyde.
During the 1960s, Hyde played a leadership role in the Canadian New Left, especially The Student Union for Peace Action, and his writing has always had a strong political element.
His first novel, The Red Fox (1985), was a spy novel published in more than twenty countries, with a historical background that ranged from the Comintern in the 1930s to the development of an ultra-nationalist right in contemporary Russia. China Lake (1992) was set at the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake (now the Naval Air Weapons Station). Its theme is the interface between science and the military, and its background is the development of rocketry from the Nazi era into the Cold War. Formosa Straits (1995) is set in China and Taiwan during the closing days of the Mao era, while Double Helix(1995) involves the development of a sex-selective contraceptive vaccine.
Anthony Hyde’s brother, Christoper Hyde (1949-2014) was also a novelist, author of The Wave (1979), A Gathering of Saints (1996) and other books. Writing as Nicholas Chase, the Hyde brothers together wrote Locksley (1983), a historical novel about Robin Hood.
Hyde has written one non-fiction book, Promises, Promises (1997), that examined the role of political promises in Canadian political life.
Hyde has written one novel outside of the thriller genre, A Private House (2007), about the psychological, sexual and religious adventures of two women, set in contemporary Havana.
Hyde’s Picture This(2007), written for ABC Literacy Canada, is part of the Good Reads Series of books, a program that provides exciting reading material for adult literacy classes.