Louis Bayard (born November 30, 1963) is an American author. His historical mysteries include The Pale Blue Eye, Mr. Timothy, The Black Tower, The School of Night, and Roosevelt's Beast,[4] and they have been translated into 11 languages.[5][non-primary source needed]
Bayard's first two novels, Fool's Errand (1999) and Endangered Species (2001), were romantic comedies with modern settings.[8][9] His third novel, Mr. Timothy, published by HarperCollins, was a Victorian thriller featuring a grown-up
Tiny Tim from
Dickens' A Christmas Carol.[10] Bayard's novel was a New York Times Notable book and was chosen one of the 10 best books of the year by People magazine.[11][12][13] His 2006 novel The Pale Blue Eye is a murder mystery set at
West Point in 1830, where the young
Edgar Allan Poe was a
cadet. The book was nominated for an
Edgar (2007) and a
Dagger. It was optioned for a
film adaptation by writer-director
Scott Cooper.[14][15][16][17][18] Bayard's fifth novel, The Black Tower (Morrow), set in
Paris in 1818, follows the real-life detective
Eugène François Vidocq as he investigates the mystery surrounding
Marie Antoinette's son.[19][20][21] His novel The School of Night (2010) shuttles between modern-day Washington, D.C., and
Elizabethan England, where a group of scholars including
Walter Ralegh,
Christopher Marlowe, and the scientist
Thomas Harriot explore dangerous questions.[22][23]Roosevelt's Beast was published on March 18, 2014.[24] It tells of an action adventure involving
Theodore Roosevelt and his son,
Kermit, through
Brazil's
Da Dúvida River circa 1914.[25]
^"The Black Tower: A Novel by Louis Bayard". HarperCollins. Archived from
the original on January 25, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2014. From Louis Bayard, the acclaimed author of Mr. Timothy and The Pale Blue Eye, comes The Black Tower, a stunning and pitch-perfect novel featuring the real-life criminal who transformed himself into the world's first and greatest detective. In The Black Tower, Bayard deftly interweaves political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family redemption—and brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugène François Vidocq, history's legendary investigator.