Jim Thayer is the author of 13 critically acclaimed novels. To his books he brings writing that "is smooth and clear. Deceptively simple, it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm that only confident stylists achieve." (Newgate Callendar, New York Times Book Review.) His novels have been translated into all major European languages and Japanese and Chinese. He recently completed a manual for novelists, THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO WRITING A NOVEL.

Thayer is the son of an eastern Washington farmer and his wife, and is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Washington State University and of the University of Chicago Law School. He teaches novel writing at the University of Washington extension school, where he received the 2015 Excellence in Teaching Award in the Arts, Writing, and Humanities.

He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters.

Books by James Thayer

House of Eight Orchids

by James Thayer - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

In 1912, John Wade and his brother, William --- children of the American consul --- were kidnapped off the street in Chungking, China, and raised in the house of Eunuch Chang, the city’s master criminal. Twenty-five years later, John is the eunuch’s most valuable ward, a trained assassin and swindler, and William has become a talented forger. On the brink of World War II, China is in chaos. When William betrays Eunuch Chang and escapes to central China --- a place of ferocious warlords and bandits --- John begins a desperate search to save his brother, while Eunuch Chang hunts them both.

The Gold Swan

by James Thayer - Fiction, Thriller