Harold King (author)

Harold Raymond King, Jr. (February 27, 1945 – October 15, 2010), also known as Hal King, was an American author and journalist known for his 1975 novel Paradigm Red, which became the 1977 NBC television movie Red Alert. The film version of the novel, made at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, stars William Devane, Michael Brandon, Adrienne Barbeau, and Ralph Waite, then at the peak of his success on CBS's The Waltons. In the story line, a nuclear power plant malfunctions and receives false information of a radiation leak. The crew is trapped inside the compound.

Background
King was born on February 27, 1945. He served in the United States Marine Corps in the Vietnam War. He received a Master of Arts degree in professional writing from the University of Oklahoma at Norman, Oklahoma. In the 1970s, he was an award-winning investigative reporter for Shreveport Times. His former wife, Elaine Tucker King (born 1949), was also on the newspaper staff. King taught an undergraduate writing course at Louisiana State University in Shreveport.

Novels
In addition to Paradigm Red, King authored the novels Four Days (a Cold War thriller), Taskmaster, Code of Arms, and The Hahnemann Sequela. And under the pen name "Brian Harris" he novelized the miniseries World War III

His best-selling Closing Ceremonies, with the streamer "Nazi Evil Lives On . . . And a Hunt to the Death Begins," prompted Publishers Weekly to name King in 1979 "the crown prince of suspense."

Shelkagari is a story about the search in the Himalayas for a lost diamond that purportedly belonged to Alexander the Great. King's writing topics range from Himalayan subculture to disaster from nuclear reactors. In addition to his writing, King had been a taxi driver and a construction worker.

Death
King suffered from cancer and died aged 65. He was survived by his son, three brothers, and two sisters.