Rodney William Whitaker, the enigmatic mystery writer best known as Trevanian, the author of such international bestsellers as The Eiger Sanction, died Wednesday in England of lung disease. He was 74.
His 1972 blockbuster The Eiger Sanction, which was turned into a 1975 movie starring Clint Eastwood, was “Trevanian’s” first and perhaps best-known novel. It told the story of art historian and sometime assassin Jonathan Hemlock (Eastwood) sent to murder an enemy agent during a mountain climbing expedition on Switzerland’s majestic Eiger.
Some derided that novel and the 1973 The Loo Sanction as pale James Bond derivatives. The author considered them intentional Bond spoofs. Whatever they were, they sold millions of copies and established him as a must-read mystery writer.
Among the other Trevanian novels were cult-favorite Shibumi in 1979, the romantic The Summer of Katya in 1983, the western Incident at Twenty-Mile in 1998 and his last, the semi-autobiographical Crazyladies of Pearl Street published in June.
For years, Mr. Whitaker studiously avoided interviews or publishers’ promotions that would reveal his actual identity. Many speculated that “Trevanian” was actually novelist Robert Ludlum — a rumor Mr. Whitaker put to rest.
In a rare interview, he told the New York Times Book Review in 1979 that he wrote “under five different names on several subjects — theology, law, aesthetics, film.”
The eclectic author, using the pseudonym Nicholas Seare, wrote the medieval parody 1339 or So Being an Apology for a Pedlar published in 1975 and Rude Tales and Glorious: The Account of Diverse Feats of Brawn and Bawd Performed by King Arthur and His Knights of the Table Round in 1983.
An communication and dramatic arts educator, Mr. Whitaker wrote nonfiction books under his own name. Among those was The Language of Film in 1970.
He also wrote under the names Benat LeCagot and Edoard Moran. Were there others? Even the staid comprehensive anthology Contemporary Authors noted: “It is difficult to determine how many works he has published with other names.”
His writing has been compared to that of Emile Zola, Bond’s creator Ian Fleming, Edgar Allen Poe and Chaucer. Unlike many popular mystery authors, Mr. Whitaker never turned out formulaic or “cookie-cutter” books.
Each seemed a separate and unique creation, linked only by what the Washington Post in 1983 described as “a consistently high level of craftsmanship, a certain playfulness of style and a pervasive message that things are not what they seem.”
His publisher “outed” Trevanian as Mr. Whitaker in 1984, and as early as 1975, Mr. Whitaker used his own name in a shared screenwriting credit for the Eastwood movie.
The author remained attached to pseudonyms long after his real name was published in reference books. He offered some insight in a 1998 interview with Newsweek, shortly after publication of his Wyoming-based novel Twenty-Mile, which the magazine described as a “spectacularly entertaining Western.”
Mr. Whitaker explained that he would name his imagined author, and using method acting techniques set the author/character to writing the novel.
Mr. Whitaker is survived by his wife, Diane Brandon Whitaker; two sons, Lance and Christian; and two daughters, Alexandra and Tomasin.
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