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Warren Murphy's first jobs in life were working on a pig farm, then as a movie usher, a sequin polisher, a public relations man for a brothel, a newspaper editor and a Democratic politician in Jersey City, New jersey.
"And then I went bad," he says, "and became a novelist."
That was back in the last century and now some 200 books and several threatened retirements later, he is still at it. And now he is moving full-bore into the world of electronic publishing. Murphy has collaborated with his sons in forming his own publishing company; Ballybunnion Books. The Ballybunnion banner was initially used for the release of special edition books on a limited basis. Now, having acquired the digital rights to the ever popular Destroyer series of adventure books. Murphy's Ballybunnion Books has taken on the arduous task of re-releasing the books digitally. Formatting errors from the previous releases are being corrected to give the readers what they deserve.
Murphy is probably best known for the Destroyer series, which he created with the late Dick Sapir, and which has produced 150 books with worldwide sales of over 50 million copies. The books also spurred a movie, "Remo Williams: The Adventure begins" --(a second movie is threatened to be in the works)-- and a TV pilot and more film and TV ripoffs than anyone could ever imagine.
But Murphy is no one trick pony. As St. james Guide to Mystery Writers said, "The breadth of Murphy's talent staggers the imagination. Comic detectives, caper novels, large suspense novels, sword and sorcery spy novels, and locked room mysteries, together with short stories, comic books, movies, and countless collaborations do not even begin to mark the parameters of his creative genius."
Some of the other work on Murphy's resume would include:
The Trace series of novels
The Digger Series of novels
The Razoni and Jackson series...
and... Leonardo's Law, Ceiling of Hell, Grandmaster and The Forever King (those last two written with Molly Cochran) and dozens of other works.
His books have won ten national awards including a pair of Edgars from the Mystery Writers of America and a handful of nominations, including two Shamus winners from the Private Eye Writers of America.
In Hollywood, he has worked on The Eiger Sanction with Clint Eastwood, on Lethal Weapon II, and his Trace series was the creative spark that led to the ABC TV series, Murphy's Law.
As St James Guide says, "Murphy is the professional's professional with work of consistently high quality" and Encyclopedia Mysteriosa called him "a mentor and teacher to a whole generation of crime and thriller writers."
He has served on the board of the Mystery Writers of America, and also has been a member of the Private Eye Writers of America, the International Association of Crime Writers, the American Crime Writers League, and the Screenwriters Guild.
Murphy is also a member of the Adams Roundtable, a New York writers' social group, among whose members are Mary Higgins Clark, Peter Straub, Susan Isaacs, Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, Judith Kelman, Mickey Friedman, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Justin Scott, Stanley Cohen and Whitley Strieber, and who occasionally produce mystery anthologies.
Murphy, a New Jersey native, now lives in Virginia. He has five children, most of whom, he says "wash up pretty well."
