Hawke: A Novel, by Ted Bell, launched the Lord Alexander Hawke series in 2003. With a refreshing new take and a refined modern adventurer, the book was successful, and eleven more books soon followed—the last, Sea Hawke, in 2021. Then, Mr. Bell passed away in 2023, and to many, that meant the end of the popular series.
Enter Ryan Steck.
Ryan made a name for himself as an influencer and reviewer with his popular site The Real Book Spy. In addition, he was a freelance editor—a very good one—who had the opportunity to work with many of the great thriller authors. One of them was Ted Bell, with whom he worked for over a decade. Bell was also a mentor for Ryan’s writing career, which started with Field of Fire in 2022.
“I’m a huge Alex Hawke fan,” Steck says. “I love all of Ted’s books, but my favorite is Warlord. As a writer, Ted was a mentor to me, so—as you might imagine—it’s been such a thrill to step in and carry forward his legacy. During the summer of 2023, my agent told me there was a chance I could continue Ted’s series. I was still grieving, to be frank. Losing Ted hurt. And in a lot of ways, it was a very healing experience to dive into Hawke’s world and hang out with those characters. I certainly benefited from my close friendship with Ted and had been read in on some of his future book ideas over the years.”
The new book is titled Monarch, and this time, Lord Alexander Hawke has an impossible mission, one that has Great Britain and the world hanging on the edge. Hawke must find and rescue King Charles III, who went missing while vacationing at Balmoral Castle.
“The title is something I took from my relationship with Ted,” Steck confirms. “Years back, he wanted to call a book Monarch, but his publisher at the time didn’t love it and they ended up going with something else. ‘One day, buddy, there will be a Hawke book called Monarch,’ he told me. Now there is.”
Steck admits that writing Monarch is the hardest thing he’s done, and yet it’s been rewarding to continue Hawke’s story and to partner with Ted’s daughter, Byrdie Bell, to give fans another go-around with Alex.
“I decided early on,” Steck says, “that I didn’t want to write this book the same way I would write one of my own. Nobody—not even me—wants my take on Hawke, right? So, my goal was to mimic Ted’s style, structure, word choice, and cadence, and to create a story that felt as though Ted himself wrote the bloody thing.”
The task required a great deal of research, which could be grueling at times, but Steck is proud of the book.
“One of the most joyful moments of my career was the day the lovely Byrdie Bell called me after reading the first draft of Monarch, and said, ‘If I didn’t know my dad didn’t write this book, I would have thought he did.’ That meant so much to me, and I hope Ted’s fans feel the same way.”
