Prolific spy novelist Gerard De Villiers, the creator of the top-selling SAS series with a hero often described as France's answer to James Bond, has died aged 83 in Paris. Friends and family said he had died on Thursday after being diagnosed with cancer earlier this year. Never a darling of the critics, De Villiers was nonetheless a publishing phenomenon, claiming his thrillers sold up to 150 million copies worldwide.
The 200th book in the series - "SAS: The Kremlin's Revenge" - was released last month. Instantly recognisable by their lurid covers inevitably featuring a femme fatale brandishing a handgun or assault rifle, his work was shunned by France's literary establishment. But outside literary circles, De Villiers was often praised for his geopolitical insights and was known for cultivating a vast network of intelligence officials, diplomats and journalists who fed him information.
In a profile early this year headlined "The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much", The New York Times said his books were "ahead of the news" and "regularly contain information about terror plots, espionage and wars that has never appeared elsewhere". His death came as he seemed on the verge of realising a long-cherished dream of breaking into the English-language market, with reports he was working on a deal with a major US publisher.
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