Name Bruce Henderson | Role Journalist | |
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Occupation Journalist, author, investigative reporter Books Hero Found: The Greatest, Trace Evidence, Fatal north, True North, Leap of Faith | ||
Bruce Henderson is an American journalist and author of more than 20 nonfiction books, including a #1 New York Times bestseller, And the Sea Will Tell. His most recent book is Rescue at Los Baños: The Most Daring Prison Camp Raid of World War II. A member of the Authors Guild, Henderson has taught writing courses at USC School of Journalism and Stanford University.
Contents
After service in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War and following college on the G.I. Bill, he worked as an investigative reporter for several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and as an associate editor at New West and California Magazine. His writing has appeared in many other periodicals, such as Smithsonian Magazine ("Cook vs. Peary", April 2009), Esquire, and Playboy.
Notable books
Henderson's most recent book, Rescue at Los Baños: The Most Daring Prison Camp Raid of World War II, is a narrative nonfiction account of the February 23, 1945 Raid at Los Baños that freed more than 2,000 civilian prisoners of war -- most of them American men, women and children, as well as other Allied nationalities -- from an Imperial Japanese Army internment camp located 40 miles south of Manila. Rescue at Los Baños has received positive reviews from the trade and the media. Kirkus Reviews called it "riveting" and The Costco Connection called the book "history as exciting as any work of fiction."
Henderson's national bestseller, Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War, is the story of U.S. Navy pilot Dieter Dengler, who was shot down over Laos in January 1966 and escaped from a Pathet Lao POW camp six months later. Henderson and Dengler served together on the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CVA-61) in 1965–66.
His true crime book, And the Sea Will Tell, written with Charles Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, was a #1 New York Times hardcover bestseller and highly rated CBS miniseries. "The book succeeds on all counts," reported the Los Angeles Times. "The final pages are some of the most suspenseful in trial literature." Henderson followed with another true crime title, Trace Evidence: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer
Henderson's book, True North: Peary, Cook, and The Race to the Pole, examined the ongoing controversy as to which explorer reached the North Pole first: Robert Peary in 1909 or Frederick Cook in 1908. Publishers Weekly commented: "This adventure yarn delivers as both a cautionary tale and a fitting memorial to polar exploration." Henderson's other Arctic title, Fatal North: Murder and Survival on the First North Pole Expedition, tells the story of the ill-fated Charles Francis Hall expedition to the North Pole.
An experienced collaborative writer, Henderson co-authored Time Traveler: A Scientist's Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, the autobiography of African-American theoretical physicist Ronald Mallett, as well as Ring of Deceit: Inside the Biggest Sports and Bank Scandal in History, which chronicles the meteoric rise and fall of boxing promoter and convicted swindler, Harold Smith.
Film adaptations
A highly rated television miniseries adaptation of And the Sea Will Tell aired on CBS in 1991. Filmed in Vancouver, B.C., and Tahiti, it starred Rachel Ward, Richard Crenna, James Brolin and Hart Bochner. Ring of Deceit: Inside the Biggest Sports and Bank Scandal in History, has been optioned for film by two-time, Academy Award-winning director, Rob Minkoff.