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Jeremy Duns

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Jeremy Duns (born 10 December 1973)[1] is a British author of spy fiction and the history of espionage.

Early life

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Duns was born in Manchester and lived in New Zealand, India, Indonesia and Nigeria before the age of 10.[2] He studied at St Catherine's College, Oxford.

Career

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Between 1999 and 2006, Duns worked for the Belgian English-language media platform The Bulletin as a sub-editor, lifestyle editor and then assistant editor.[3] [4] In Britain he has written for The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent newspapers.

An admirer of Ian Fleming and James Bond, Duns unearthed pages of a lost Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, early screenplays for Casino Royale[5][6] and The Diamond Smugglers,[7] and researched a wartime MI6 operation that inspired the opening of the film Goldfinger.[8]

Duns writes spy fiction featuring an MI6 agent called Paul Dark, set during the Cold War.[9] Duns's novels are influenced by Fleming,[10] Len Deighton[11][12] and John le Carré;[13] his debut novel, Free Agent (2009), was one of the Telegraph's "thrillers of the year" in 2009.[14] The BBC optioned the television rights to the Paul Dark series in 2009,[15] although Duns' own website notes that the option has since lapsed.[16]

Duns is a member of International Thriller Writers[17] and the Crime Writers' Association.[18]

Stance on plagiarism and sockpuppetry

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Duns has criticised other authors for plagiarism.[19][20] In 2011 he praised the debut spy novel Assassin of Secrets by Q. R. Markham, but after reading allegations that a scene in the novel was plagiarised, Duns investigated and discovered that large sections of the novel had been copied. He informed the British publisher Hodder, and the book was pulled by Hodder and U.S. publisher Little, Brown and Company.[21] Markham later publicly apologised.[22][23]

In 2012, he discovered that the novelist R. J. Ellory had written positive reviews of his own books[24] while responding negatively to rivals, on the Amazon website through the use of sockpuppets.[25] Ellory admitted he had done this, and apologised for it.[26] Duns has also examined methods used by British author Stephen Leather since his admission in 2012 that he uses a network of sockpuppets to promote his own work online.[27] Duns has also alleged that Leather has harassed him online in retaliation.[28][29]

In 2012, Duns helped organise an open letter signed by over 50 authors condemning the use by certain authors of sockpuppets, fake reviews and other deceptive marketing techniques.[30]

Personal life

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Duns lived in Stockholm, Sweden from 2004,[31] and subsequently moved to the Swedish-speaking Åland islands, in Finland.[32][33]

Bibliography

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  • Free Agent (2009) ISBN 0670021016
  • Song of Treason (2010) ISBN 978-1847394521
  • The Moscow Option (2012) ISBN 978-1847394538
  • The Dark Chronicles: A Spy Trilogy (2012) ISBN 978-0143120698
  • Dead Drop: The True Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold War's Most Dangerous Operation (2013) ISBN 978-1849839273
  • News of Devils: The Media and Edward Snowden (2014) ISBN 978-1503322400

References

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  1. ^ "Author Revealed". Simon & Schuster. Retrieved 11 May 2009.
  2. ^ "From cold war to cool culture | Financial Times". www.ft.com. Retrieved 15 August 2023.
  3. ^ Foster, Nick (22 October 2010). "From cold war to cool culture". Financial Times. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  4. ^ Crew, Sarah (6 October 2022). "The Bulletin at 60: Thriller writer Jeremy Duns enjoyed "digging deep" into Belgian life during his Bulletin years". The Bulletin. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  5. ^ Duns, Jeremy (2 March 2011). "Casino Royale: discovering the lost script". The Sunday Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 14 March 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
  6. ^ Duns, Jeremy (20 April 2020). "Catch 007: how Joseph Heller almost wrote Casino Royale". The Times. London. Retrieved 20 April 2020. (subscription required)
  7. ^ Duns, Jeremy (7 March 2010). "Ian Fleming's book about gem smuggling in South Africa is as thrilling as Bond, and should have been a blockbuster film starring Steve McQueen. So what went wrong?". The Sunday Times. London. pp. 4–5.
  8. ^ Harrison, David (17 April 2010). "The secret war mission that inspired Goldfinger scene". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  9. ^ "A Conversation with Jeremy Duns". Penguin Group. Archived from the original on 30 June 2009. Retrieved 10 May 2009.
  10. ^ Hockensmith, Steve (10 November 2012). "James Bond: Four writers carry forward Ian Fleming's spy legacy". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  11. ^ O'Connell, John (21 August 2010). "John O'Connell's thriller roundup". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  12. ^ Duns, Jeremy (19 February 2009). "Jeremy Duns pays tribute to novelist Len Deighton". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 May 2013.
  13. ^ Jehu, Jeremy (2 September 2010). "Genre: Thrillers". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  14. ^ Book Reviews. "Thrillers of the year". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  15. ^ "Projects". Toby Moorcroft Rights. 7 March 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  16. ^ "Jeremy Duns: About". Jeremy Duns. Archived from the original on 12 July 2013. Retrieved 19 May 2013.
  17. ^ Members, International Thriller Writers website
  18. ^ "Crime Writers Association: links to members' web pages". Thecwa.co.uk. Archived from the original on 27 March 2013. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
  19. ^ Italie, Hillel (7 December 2011). "Publisher Says Eastern Shore Author Didn't Copy From Book on Poe's Wife". The Washington Times. Retrieved 7 January 2013.
  20. ^ Coscarelli, Joe (7 March 2013). "Did Nate Thayer Plagiarize in the Article The Atlantic Wanted For Free?". The New Yorker. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
  21. ^ Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. (9 November 2011). "Spy Thriller An Instant Classic Vanishes Amid Plagiarism Charges". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  22. ^ Flood, Alison (15 November 2011). "QR Markham apologises for 'awful pantomime' of plagiarism". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  23. ^ Halford, Macy (9 November 2011). "Q. R. Markham's Plagiarism Puzzle". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  24. ^ Andrew Hough "RJ Ellory: detected, crime writer who faked his own glowing reviews", The Daily Telegraph, 2 September 2012
  25. ^ Miller, Phil (4 September 2012). "Scottish Crime Writer Is Victim of Bad Plot". The Herald. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  26. ^ Alison Flood "RJ Ellory's secret Amazon reviews anger rivals", The Guardian, 3 September 2012
  27. ^ Cohen, Nick (5 August 2012). "Welcome to Britain, a home fit for shysters". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 August 2012.
  28. ^ "A thriller writer has been accused of running an online smear campaign". The Independent. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  29. ^ Flood, Alison. "Stephen Leather accused of cyberbullying by fellow thriller writers". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2016.
  30. ^ Andrew Hough "RJ Ellory: fake book reviews are rife on internet, authors warn", The Daily Telegraph, 4 September 2012
  31. ^ Foster, Nick (22 October 2010). "From Cold War to Cool Culture". Financial Times. London.
  32. ^ "My Kind of Town Mariehamn". The Sunday Telegraph. London. 29 August 2010. p. 8.
  33. ^ vanessa. "Author interview – Jeremy Duns | Vanessa Robertson". Retrieved 12 July 2023.
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