CHIU, Tony

PERSONAL: Born in China; immigrated to United States; married; children: two daughters. Hobbies and other interests: Has twice traveled around the world.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Warner Books, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

CAREER: Journalist and writer.

WRITINGS:

thrillers

Port Arthur Chicken, Morrow (New York, NY), 1979, reprinted as Onyxx, Berkley (New York, NY), 1981.

Realm Seven, Bantam (New York, NY), 1984.

(With Robert Ballard) Bright Shark, Delacorte (New York, NY), 1992.

Positive Match, Bantam (New York, NY), 1997.

other

Making the Best Deal: Your Home, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1986.

Making the Best Deal: Your Health and Wealth, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1986.

(With Ross Perot) Ross Perot in His Own Words, Warner (New York, NY), 1992.

CBS, the First 50 Years, General Publishing (Los Angeles, CA), 1998.

(Editor, with Richard B. Stolley) Life: Our Century in Pictures, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1999.

(Editor, with Richard B. Stolley) Life: Century of Change: America in Pictures, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2000.

Has written for various publications, including Time-Life Books, People, and New York Times.

SIDELIGHTS: Tony Chiu is a versatile writer who has proven his skills as a journalist, nonfiction author, and novelist. His nonfiction has ranged from books about managing money to a history of the CBS television network, while in his fiction, Chiu has produced techno-thrillers including Port Arthur Chicken, Realm Seven, Bright Shark, and Positive Match. In Port Arthur Chicken, Chiu's first effort in the genre, Chinese-American journalist Ray Huang inadvertently witnesses the murder of an American geologist. Once he begins his investigation into the American's death, Huang finds himself the target of murderous conspirators plotting worldwide control. His enemies include a deadly poetry aficionado and an unrelenting militarist. Richard Freedman, writing in the New York Times Book Review, reported that Port Arthur Chicken contains "enough paranoid plotting … to sustain any six espionage novels," but he added that Huang is an "engaging" protagonist and concluded that "the reality of [Chiu's] details and the high spirit of his writing charm away all disbelief."

In Realm Seven, Chiu told the story of Andrea Mattson, a woman who discovers that her daughter is involved in a dangerous computer game with Nazi overtones. Andrea confides her worries to her ex-husband, who is found dead soon afterwards. The next person she takes into her confidence is similarly killed. Andrea races to track down the masterminds behind the game, and finds that they are in a computer complex run by scientists and war-games experts. The author's next book, Bright Shark, concerns a team of Navy scuba divers who discover portions of an Israeli ship said to have sunk twenty years earlier. American and Israeli concerns both seem to have an interest in suppressing information about the vessel, as diver Edna Haddix and federal official Wendell Trent find out when they try to expose the truth. Chicago Tribune reviewer Peter Gorner declared that Bright Shark manages to "convey the excitement of underwater exploration and explain how it's done." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly recommended the book as "a page-turning narrative plausible in its context and convincing in its details," and added, "This breathless novel establishes the abundant potential of the near past as a setting for the techno-thriller."

Chiu took on the subject of organ transplants in his next thriller, Positive Match. The plot concerns the effort by a group of citizens to expose an evil organization that harvests body parts from war victims, refugees, and other unwilling "donors." Laurence Marschall, a reviewer for Sciences, noted that "Tony Chiu's novel about the international organ trade contributes little that is new to the genre. Yet though it borrows its blockbuster ending from Greek myth and its formulaic structure from the modern techno-thriller, it is nearly impossible to put down." A Publishers Weekly writer observed: "Colorful characters and gleefully nasty plotting give this debut medical thriller a lively pulse."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, August, 1997, William Beatty, review of Positive Match, p. 1876.

Chicago Tribune, April 22, 1992, Peter Gorner, section 5, p. 3.

Library Journal, July, 1997, Alice DiBuzim, review of Positive Match, p. 123.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 30, 1984, p. 8.

New York Times Book Review, November 18, 1979, p. 14; August 16, 1981, p. 27.

People, June 22, 1992, review of Ross Perot: In His Own Words, p. 34.

Publishers Weekly, February 3, 1992, review of Bright Shark, p. 64; July 7, 1997, review of Positive Match, p. 52.

Sciences, November-December, 1997, Laurence Marschall, review of Positive Match, p. 46.*