John Lawrence Reynolds


John Lawrence Reynolds is a Canadian author. He has published more than 20 fiction and non-fiction books. Two of his novels won the Arthur Ellis Award—The Man Who Murdered God and Gypsy Sins. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, he has lived in Burlington for several years.

Biography

Reynolds was born in Hamilton, Ontario to John Henry and Mable Irene Reynolds. His childhood there has been characterised as "less than idyllic, rife with upheaval and poverty." He went on to graduate from Westdale Secondary School in Hamilton where he co-founded "Terry & The Pirates", an early rock-and-roll band.
In 1960, he joined Russell T. Kelley Advertising as a trainee and eventually became the company's Creative Director and a shareholder. He obtained a degree in English and Psychology from McMaster University via its extension studies programme in 1974, and left the advertising agency that same year to pursue other interests. These included travel and feature writing, photography, film and video writing and directing and radio announcing. In the latter capacity he hosted John's Jazz five nights a week on CING-FM from 1976 to 1977 and Saturday Night Jazz on CKDS-FM from 1981 to 1983.
Reynolds published his first novel, The Man Who Murdered God, in 1989. It was to become the first in a series of six crime novels whose central character was Joe McGuire, a Boston policeman. From the mid-1990s he concentrated primarily on non-fiction books. Described in the National Post as one of Canada's most successful ghostwriters, Reynolds also collaborated on several autobiographies by Canadian political and business figures. He returned to crime fiction in 2012 with Beach Strip. Set on Lake Ontario, the novel is narrated in the voice of Josie, the widow of a murdered policeman.
Reynolds has been married to Judith Suzanne Reynolds since 1993. He has two children from his first marriage.

Books

Of his first five mystery novels, four were short-listed for Arthur Ellis Awards as Best Mystery Novel. Two won—The Man Who Murdered God and Gypsy Sins. In 2016 Orca Publishers issued the first of three novellas set in the Ontario region of Muskoka. The third, Murder Among the Pines, won an Arthur Ellis Award for Best Mystery Novella. He also won a National Business Book Award in 2002 for Free Rider: How a Bay Street Whiz Kid Stole and Spent $20 Million. His 2006 book Shadow People: Inside History's Most Notorious Secret Societies was published in the US as Secret Societies: Their Mysteries Revealed and has been translated into several languages including Spanish, French, Polish, and Turkish.
Fiction
Non-fiction