John J. Leary is a retired executive editor of the Albany (N. Y) Times-Union. He was a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the New York State Society of Editors, and attended the American Press Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of The Irish: Our History, and five novels: The Claddagh Mission, Royal Targets, In Search of Irish Kings, Correspondent X, and Charles Dickens and the Irish Fairy King Plot. Mr. Leary holds degrees in Art and the History of Western Civilization. When he is not researching and writing, he paints oil landscapes and seascapes of the shore at Myrtle Beach, S. C., where he and his wife, the former Mary Patricia Feehan, now live.