Pete Earley

Pete Earley
Earley in May 2016
Born	(1951-09-05) September 5, 1951 (age 73) Douglas, Arizona, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Journalist, writer
Website	peteearley.com

Pete Earley (born September 5, 1951)^[1] is an American journalist and author who has written non-fiction books and novels.

Born in Douglas, Arizona,^[1] Earley became a Washington Post reporter and also wrote books about the Aldrich Ames and John Walker espionage cases. His book Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town (1995), about the wrongful conviction of Walter McMillian in Alabama, won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime Book in 1996.^[2]

His book about the John Walker spy ring, Family of Spies, was a New York Times bestseller. It was adapted as a CBS miniseries starring Powers Boothe and Lesley Ann Warren. In 2007, Earley was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for his book Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, about a man seeking help for his son.^[3]

His 2008 book, Comrade J, is about Russian SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov.^[4]

Pete's older sister, Alice Lee Earley, died at the age of 17 on June 14, 1966, after being hit by a car while riding Pete's scooter.^[5] (Pete was 14 years old and at church camp when his sister was killed.)^[5] Years later, in a 1985 Washington Post article called "To Find a Sister" (1985), Earley wrote about Alice's death and its effect on his life. (As part of it, he interviewed the woman driver who had hit his sister.)^[5]

• Family of Spies: Inside the John Walker Spy Ring, Bantam (October 1, 1988), ISBN 978-0-5530-5283-1
• Prophet of Death: The Mormon Blood Atonement Killings, William Morrow & Co (October 1991), ISBN 978-0-6881-0584-6
• The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison, Bantam (February 1, 1992), ISBN 978-0-5530-7573-1
• Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town, Bantam (August 1, 1995), ISBN 978-0-5530-9501-2
• Confessions of A Spy: The Real Story of Aldrich Ames, Putnam (February 10, 1997), ISBN 978-0-3991-4188-1
• Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas, Bantam (January 4, 2000), ISBN 978-0-5530-9502-9
• WITSEC: Inside The Federal Witness Protection Program, Bantam (January 29, 2002), ISBN 978-0-5538-0145-3
• Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, Berkley (April 3, 2007), ISBN 0-425-21389-7
• Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, Putnam (January 24, 2008), ISBN 978-0-399-15439-3
• The Serial Killer Whisperer: How One Man's Tragedy Helped Unlock the Deadliest Secrets of the World's Most Terrifying Killers, Touchstone (January 10, 2012), ISBN 978-1-4391-9902-2
• Resilience: Two Sisters and a Story of Mental Illness by Jessie Close and Pete Earley, Grand Central Publishing, (January 13, 2015), ISBN 978-1-4555-3022-9^[6]

• The Big Secret, Forge Books (June 1, 2004), ISBN 978-0-7653-0783-5
• Lethal Secrets, Forge Books (June 1, 2005), ISBN 978-0-7653-0784-2
• The Apocalypse Stone, Forge Books (June 13, 2006), ISBN 978-0-7653-1025-5
• Duplicity: A Novel, Center Street Press (October 2015), co-author Newt Gingrich ISBN 978-1-4555-3042-7
• Treason: A Novel, Center Street Press (October 2016), co-author Newt Gingrich ISBN 978-1455530441
• Vengeance: A Novel, Center Street Press (October 10, 2017), co-author Newt Gingrich, ISBN 978-1478923046
• Collusion: A Novel, Broadside Books (April 30, 2019), co-author Newt Gingrich, ISBN 978-0062859983
• Shakedown: A Novel, Broadside Books (March 24, 2020), co-author Newt Gingrich, ISBN 978-0062860194

• Official website
• Appearances on C-SPAN