Robert Ryan (c.1951 -), also known as Tom Neale, is an English author, journalist and screenwriter. Born in Liverpool, he moved to London to study natural sciences at university and began his writing career in the late 1980s for The Face, Arena and the US edition of GQ, and then Sunday Times.
Ryan published his first novel, Underdogs, in 1999 and collaborated with jazz trumpeter Guy Barker on an extended version of a piece called Underdogs, based on the novel. As of 2010, he published eleven more novels and was working on a novel due for release in 2011.[1] His most successful and acclaimed novels as of 2010 are Death on the Ice, which was praised and recommended by the Antarctic Heritage Trust, and Empire of Sand, inspired by David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, to end the book where the film begins. He is also known for his Morning, Noon and Night series of books, Early One Morning (2002), The Blue Noon (2003), Night Crossing (2004), and After Midnight (2005),[2] and for the Vince Piper series he wrote under the pseudonym Tom Neale: Steel Rain (2005) and Copper Kiss (2006).[3] Most of his novels are set in historical wars, such as World War I and World War II.
Using the pseudonym R. J. Bailey, Robert Ryan and his wife Deborah Ryan collaboratively write the Sam Wylde series of mysteries.[4] [5]