Callison, Brian 1934- (Brian Richard Callison)

views updated

Callison, Brian 1934- (Brian Richard Callison)

PERSONAL:

Born July 13, 1934, in Manchester, England; son of Thomas T. and Kathleen Alice Callison; married Phyllis Joyce Jobson, May 12, 1958; children: Richard, Mark. Education: Attended Dundee College of Art, 1954-56.

ADDRESSES:

Home—West Bankhead, Kellas, Angus, Scotland. E-mail—brian.callison@steamship.co.uk.

CAREER:

British Merchant Navy, deck officer, 1951-54; managing director of a construction company, 1956-63; general manager of an entertainment center, 1963-67; fulltime writer, 1967—. Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow, University of Dundee, 2005-07. Military service: Royal Naval Auxiliary Service, 1965-94, section officer, volunteer officer, Maritime Volunteer Service, 1994—.

MEMBER:

Society of Authors, Royal Institute of Navigation, The Nautical Institute.

WRITINGS:

A Flock of Ships, Putnam, 1970.

A Plague of Sailors, Putnam, 1971.

The Dawn Attack, Putnam, 1972.

A Web of Salvage, Putnam, 1973.

Trapp's War, Dutton, 1974.

A Ship Is Dying, Dutton, 1975.

A Frenzy of Merchantmen, Collins, 1977.

An Act of War, Dutton, 1977.

The Judas Ship, Dutton, 1978.

Trapp's Peace, Collins, 1979, Dutton, 1980.

The Auriga Madness, Collins, 1980.

The Sextant, Collins, 1981.

Spearfish, Collins, 1983.

The Bone Collectors, Collins, 1984.

A Thunder of Crude, Collins, 1986.

Trapp and World War III, Collins, 1988.

The Trojan Hearse, Collins, 1990.

Crocodile Trapp, HarperCollins, 1993.

The Stollenberg Legacy, HarperCollins, 2000.

Redcap, Severn House (Sutton, England), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Brian Callison has written several bestselling military thrillers, including A Flock of Ships, which was acclaimed as a masterpiece of war fiction. According to the Royal Literary Fund Web site, reviewer Alistair McLean considered it the best war novel he had ever read. Callison drew on extensive personal experience to depict military life at sea in his books. A former officer in Britain's Merchant Navy, he served with the Royal Military Police in the Territorial Army and was a training officer in the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service.

Redcap, set in 1957 Cyprus and mid-1960s Germany, pits Royal Military Police Sergeant Bill Walker against his sadistic superior officer, whom Walker tries to bring to justice. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly considered the novel overly violent and lacking in suspense, but Booklist contributor David Pitt described the book as an "out-of-the-ordinary and very effective thriller." Cal- lison's work has been published in England, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Finland, and Poland, and has been translated into twelve languages.