William J. (William James) Flynn

Born in New York City in 1867, William J. Flynn built his reputation as an investigator before becoming chief of the U.S. Secret Service and later director of the Bureau of Investigation, the agency that would become the FBI. Those years gave him firsthand experience with political violence, criminal investigations, and wartime spy cases.

As a writer, he is best known for The Eagle's Eye, a dramatic account of German espionage and intrigue in the United States during World War I, prepared from facts he supplied after leaving the Secret Service. Library of Congress records and authority files also connect him with The Barrel Mystery, showing how his public career and his books were closely linked.

Flynn's work has the pull of true crime and spy nonfiction from the inside: practical, urgent, and shaped by someone who had seen these investigations at close range. He died in 1928.