Pete Earley

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

Career
Born in Douglas, Arizona, 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.

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.

His 2008 book, Comrade J, is about Russian SVR defector Sergei Tretyakov.

Family
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. (Pete was 14 years old and at church camp when his sister was killed.) 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.)

Non-fiction

 * 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

Fiction

 * 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