E. C. Ayres

E. C. Ayres (alternate pen name Gene Ayres), is a former documentary film producer, screenwriter, author and creator of the Tony Lowell Mysteries, and originator of the laid-back ultra-hip Private Eye detective character. At the time of first publication in the early 1990s, such a character as Tony Lowell was unheard of in detective fiction. He was a war veteran but also a peacenik, a beer drinker but also known to smoke pot with his pals, a guitar player, follower of Zen, and muscle car driver but also an avid sailor, nature lover and an environmentalist, who, while ready to go where others feared to tread, refused to carry a weapon. As a result, although published by a mainstream publisher, Tony Lowell has remained an underground cult figure not widely known outside of Florida mystery circles. After his first book Hour of the Manatee won the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Detective Novel competition in 1992, Ayres wrote three more books for this series. Then, with an offer on the table for a fifth episode, decided to shelve the entire project because it was clear that Tony Lowell’s time had not yet come. Ayres spent much of the following decade researching a literary thriller about the Shakespeare authorship (The Shakespeare Chronicles) under a family pseudonym John Underwood (currently a bestseller in Italy under the title Il Libro Segreto di Shakespeare), and taking on a teaching assignment in China that led to two new books: Inside the New China (nonfiction: Transaction Publishers/Rutgers University writing as Gene Ayres) and a forthcoming thriller Dawn of the Dragon. He lives in Seattle with his wife and daughter.