Griffin Gone

The Real Book Spy’s Twitter page alerts us to the news that William E. Butterworth III—better known as military thriller writer “W.E.B. Griffin”—has died at age 89, following a lengthy battle with cancer. An obituary on his Facebook page recalls:

While his body of work includes more than 250 books published under more than a dozen pseudonyms, he is best known as W.E.B. Griffin, the #1 best-selling author of nearly 60 epic novels in seven series, all of which have made The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, and other best-seller lists. More than fifty million of the books are in print in more than ten languages, including Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Hungarian.

Mr. Butterworth’s first novel, Comfort Me with Love, was published in 1959. The delivery-and-acceptance check from the publisher paid the hospital bill for the birth of his first son, who two decades ago began editing the Griffin best-sellers and then became co-author of them.

More biographical information is available here. A memorial service honoring his life and career is expected to held next month at Saint Francis at the Point Anglican Church in Point Clear, Alabama.”