Double Booker prize nominee Julian Rathbone dies, aged 73

Lindesay Irvine writing in The GUardian Monday March 3, 2008

The novelist Julian Rathbone died last Thursday, aged 73, it was confirmed today, after a career distinguished by two Booker prize nominations and a fluency across many different genres, including crime thrillers and historical novels.

Rathbone began his career as a teacher in Turkey, publishing his first novel, Diamonds Bid, a political thriller set in Turkey, in 1967 soon after his return to Britain. Travel was again to fuel his fictional writing, with five books set in Spain, two of which won him Booker nominations. The first, a tense adventure focused on a guru-figure, King Fisher Lives, was said not to have won the 1976 prize only because some judges were offended by its explicit sex scenes.

In 1979,Joseph, a historical novel set during the Peninsular war, secured his second nomination.

Nearly 40 other novels covered everything from contemporary detective fiction to a female incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, stories of espionage and a number of what he described as
"eco-thrillers".
Towards the end of his life,he turned to historical fiction again. The Last English King, in 1997, follows the travels of one of King Harold's guards wandering through Asia Minor after
surviving the Norman Conquests. His most recent novel, The Mutiny, was a retelling of the 1857 Indian uprising.

"Julian was one of the nice people in the world of books," said his friend and sometime publisher Maxim Jakubowski. "He was very jovial, very serene and didn't
feel any sense of competition with other authors - he was always very
encouraging to younger writers."
Jakubowski also paid tribute to his "wonderful craftsmanship" as a writer. "Although
thrillers were his first love, he could write in any genre."

Obituary: Julian Rathbone

Wikipedia website.