Alex Abella

Abella was born in Cuba in 1950. His family left the country after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.{{cite news|title=Writes of Passage|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-09-05-vw-2431-story.html|author=Garry Abrams|work=The Los Angeles Times|date=September 1991|access-date=2010-11-27}} The family settled in New York, where Abella attended Columbia University on a Pulitzer scholarship. At school, he wrote for the Columbia Daily Spectator.{{Cite web|title=Columbia Daily Spectator 17 December 1971 — Columbia Spectator|url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19711217-01.2.17&srpos=2&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-Alex+Abella------|access-date=2020-08-11|website=spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu}}{{Cite web|title=Columbia Daily Spectator 11 November 1971 — Columbia Spectator|url=http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/?a=d&d=cs19711111-01.2.19&srpos=1&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-Alex+Abella------|access-date=2020-08-11|website=spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu}}

After college, Abella moved to California to work for the San Francisco Chronicle initially covering local news, then network news as a reporter, writer, and producer.

Abella left the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1980s for Los Angeles, spending seven years there as a Spanish language interpreter for the Los Angeles Superior Court. His first novel, The Killing of the Saints (1991), is a Los Angeles crime thriller about the beliefs of the Santería religion used as a defense for murder.{{cite book|last=Christie|first=John S.|title=Latino Fiction and the Modernist Imagination: Literature of the Borderlands|publisher=Routledge|year=1998|pages=177}} Saints and its sequels, Dead of Night (1998) and Final Acts (2000), feature a Cuban-American lawyer and investigator of Cuban heritage.{{cite book|last=Pepper|first=Andrew|title=The Contemporary American Crime Novel: Race, Ethnicity, and Class|publisher=Routledge|year=2001|pages=161}}

Abella's second novel, The Great American (1997) is set in Cuba in 1957 during the Cuban Revolution and is the fictionalized story of a United States Marine who fought on the side of Fidel Castro.

Abella's non-fiction work includes Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the United States (2003), co-authored with law professor and current Los Angeles Superior Court judge Scott Gordon. The book is set in Germany during World War II and follows a group of German-American agents trained in sabotage and terrorism.{{cite book|last1=Abella|first1=Alex|last2=Gordon|first2=Scott|url=https://archive.org/details/shadowenemieshit00abel_0|url-access=registration|quote=shadow enemies.|title=Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the United States|publisher=Lyons Press|year=2003}}

The author's most recent book, Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire (2008), is the first history of the foreign policy think tank founded by the United States Military and funded in part by the United States Government.{{cite journal|title=Soldier of Reason: Kirkus Review|url=http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/non-fiction/alex-abella/soldiers-of-reason|journal=Kirkus Reviews|date=2008-05-01|accessdate=2010-11-17}}{{cite news|last=Herken|first=Gregg|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/03/AR2008070302741.html|title=Dr. Strangelove's Workplace|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=2008-07-06|accessdate=2010-11-26}} The book was longlisted for the National Book Award.

In addition to his nonfiction books, Abella has been a contributing writer with the Los Angeles Times and now contributes to the Huffington Post.{{cite web|last=Abella|first=Alex|title=Alex Abella at the Huffington Post|website=HuffPost |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-abella|accessdate=2010-11-26}}

At KTVU-TV, Abella was nominated for an Emmy Award for "Best Breaking News Story." His first novel, The Killing of the Saints (1991), was a New York Times Notable Book.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/01/books/notable-books-of-the-year-1991.html?pagewanted=10|title=Notable Books of the Year 1991|work=The New York Times|date=1991-12-01|accessdate=2010-11-26| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20101201175406/http://nytimes.com/1991/12/01/books/notable-books-of-the-year-1991.html?pagewanted=10| archivedate= 1 December 2010 | url-status= live}}

• {{ cite book |title=The Great American |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1997 |isbn=9780743205481 }} {{Cite web |title=Alex Abella |url=https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Alex-Abella/1132010 |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=Simon & Schuster |language=en}}
• {{ cite book |title=Shanghai |year=2009 }} {{Cite web |title=Alex Abella Books In Order - Complete List of Novels |url=https://mysterysequels.com/alex-abella |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=Mystery Sequels |language=en-US}}
• {{ cite book |title=More than a Woman |year=2013 }}

• {{cite book |title=The Killing of the Saints |publisher=Crown Publishing Group |year=1991 |isbn=9780517585092}} {{Cite web |title=Charlie Morell Book Series |url=https://www.thriftbooks.com/series/charlie-morell/64743/ |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=ThriftBooks |language=en}}
• {{ cite book |title=Dead of Night |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=1998 |isbn=9780684814261}}
• {{ cite book |title=Final Acts |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2000 |isbn=9780684859897}}

• {{ cite book |title=The Total Banana |publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich |year=1979 |isbn=9780156904759}} {{Cite web |last=ThriftBooks |title=The total banana (An Original... book by Alex Abella |url=https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-total-banana-an-original-harvesthbj-book_alex-abella/1683946/ |access-date=2023-04-21 |website=ThriftBooks |language=en}}
• {{ cite book |title=Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret Terrorist Plot Against the United States |last1=Abella |first1=Alex |last2=Gordon |first2=Scott |publisher=Lyons Press |year=2003 |isbn=9781585747221}} {{Cite web |last=ThriftBooks |title=Shadow Enemies: Hitler's Secret... book by Alex Abella |url=https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/shadow-enemies-hitlers-secret-terrorist-plot-against-the-united-states_alex-abella_scott-gordon/532142 |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=ThriftBooks |language=en}}
• {{ cite book |title=Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and the Rise of the American Empire |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=2008 |isbn=9780151010813}} {{Cite web |last=ThriftBooks |title=Soldiers Of Reason: The RAND Corporation... book by Alex Abella |url=https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/soldiers-of-reason-the-rand-corporation-and-the-rise-of-the-american-empire_alex-abella/391087/ |access-date=2025-01-23 |website=ThriftBooks |language=en}}

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Category:Living people

Category:1950 births

Category:American writers of Cuban descent

Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers

Category:American male novelists

Category:American crime fiction writers

Category:Hispanic and Latino American novelists

Category:Hispanic and Latino American journalists

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni

Category:Cuban emigrants to the United States

Category:21st-century American male writers

Category:Date of birth missing (living people)