{{Short description|American novelist (1932–2003)}} {{for|the Australian cricketer|Bruce Cook (cricketer)}} {{Use American English|date=April 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2026}} '''Bruce Alexander Cook''' (1932 – November 9, 2003) was an American journalist and author who also wrote under the pseudonym '''Bruce Alexander''', creating historical novels about a blind 18th-century Englishman and also a 20th-century Mexican-American detective.
==Biography== Cook was born in 1932 in Chicago. His family moved often as a child, his father being a train dispatcher with frequent new assignments. He earned a degree in literature from Loyola University (Chicago).<ref name="LAT">Myrna Oliver, "Bruce Cook, 71; Wrote Mysteries Set in L.A., 18th Century England," ''Los Angeles Times.'' November 18, 2003.[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-nov-18-me-cook18-story.html]</ref>
His first wife was Catherine Coghlan, with whom he had three children, Catherine (Katy), Bob, and Ceci. He married concert violinist Judith Aller in 1994.<ref name="LAT"/><ref name="NYT">"Bruce Alexander Cook, 71, Crime Writer", ''New York Times'', November 16, 2003.[https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/16/nyregion/bruce-alexander-cook-71-crime-writer.html]</ref>
He served as a translator in the U.S. Army in Frankfurt, Germany, in the late 1950s, and also did public relations work. He joined the editorial staff of the ''National Observer'' in Washington D.C. in 1967, and covered movies, books, and music. When that newspaper folded, he became book editor of ''USA Today'', the ''Detroit News'', and then the ''Los Angeles Daily News'' (from 1984 to 1990).[http://www.thefreelibrary.com/AUTHOR,+EX-DAILY+NEWS+BOOK+EDITOR+BRUCE+COOK+DIES.-a0110087463] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081118234823/http://www.thefreelibrary.com/AUTHOR%2c+EX-DAILY+NEWS+BOOK+EDITOR+BRUCE+COOK+DIES.-a0110087463 |date=2008-11-18 }} He was a senior editor at ''Newsweek''. In the meantime, he was writing as a free-lance, selling to such publications as the ''National Catholic Reporter''.<ref name="LAT"/><ref name="NYT"/>
He died of a stroke November 9, 2003, in Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Hollywood, California.<ref name="LAT"/>
==Books== Cook's first book was a nonfiction work, ''The Beat Generation'', published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1971. A biography of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo followed in 1977, and in 2015 it was made into a film by the same name. His first novel was Chicago-based ''Sex Life'', in 1978.
He wrote four novels featuring Los Angeles detective Antonio "Chico" Cervantes — ''Mexican Standoff'', 1988, ''Rough Cut'', 1990, ''Death as a Career Move'', 1992, and ''Sidewalk Hilton'', 1994. He also wrote a series of novels about the blind magistrate Sir John Fielding, the real-life founder of London's first police force.
His later nonfiction works were ''Listen to the Blues'', a musical history, in 1973; ''Brecht in Exile'', about the German writer Bertold Brecht, in 1983; and ''The Town That Country Built: Welcome to Branson, Missouri'', in 1993.<ref name="LAT"/> His final books, published posthumously, were ''Young Will: The Confessions of William Shakespeare''<ref>[http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/description/hol053/2004046755.html Publisher's description of ''Young Will'' via the Library of Congress.]</ref> and a Fielding book, ''Rules of Engagement'', for which his widow and writer John Shannon put on the finishing touches.[http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2004/12/bruce_cook_trib.php]
<books in order, according to Rehoboth Beach Public Library and Amazon.com editions available to me: [Note: page counts vary with hard or soft back editions.]>
1. "Blind Justice" (1994) 323 pp.
2. "Murder in Grub Street" (1995) 276 pp.
3. "Watery Grave" (1996) 265 pp.
4. "Person or Persons Unknown" (1997) 279 pp.
5. "Jack, Knave and Fool" (1998) 279 pp.
6. "Death of a Colonial" (1999) 275 pp.
7. "The Color of Death" (2000) 279 pp.
8. "Smuggler's Moon" (2001) 247 pp.
9. "An Experiment in Treason" (2002) 324 pp.
10. "The Price of Murder" (2003) 257 pp.
11. "Rules of Engagement" (2005) 288 pp. Posthumously published.
== References == <references/>
==External links== * [http://brucealexandercook.com/ Author Website] * [http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/bruce.html Interview with Tom Nolan in ''January'' magazine, fall 1999.] * [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/bruce-alexander/ Fantastic Fiction Author Page] {{John Fielding}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cook, Bruce Alexander}} Category:American mystery writers Category:American historical novelists Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the modern age Category:2003 deaths Category:1932 births Category:Novelists from Chicago Category:Loyola University Chicago alumni Category:USA Today people Category:The Detroit News people Category:Newsweek people Category:American male novelists Category:Writers of historical mysteries Category:20th-century American novelists Category:20th-century American male writers Category:Novelists from Michigan Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers Category:American male non-fiction writers Category:20th-century pseudonymous writers