Timothy Burton Anderson
Thrillers from a lawyer who has spent fifty years close to power.
When the presidency comes down to one contested state and the Electoral College deadlocks, the law runs out of easy answers. Blue, Red, and Dead is the story of what fills that gap.
Political / Constitutional Thriller
Blue, Red, and Dead
When It’s Too Close to Call, But Not Too Close to Kill
The sitting President declines to run again. His Vice President, a woman with a long record and longer list of enemies, wins the nomination. On election night, neither candidate reaches 270. One state is contested, the House is divided, and the constitutional process that is supposed to settle the matter becomes a contest of its own, fought in courtrooms, back rooms and darker places.
Written by a practicing lawyer and released on Election Day 2024, the novel takes a real gap in the American system and asks how far people would go to exploit it.
Available in paperback, ebook and audiobook.
The experiences behind the author.
Fifty years in law
A practicing Utah attorney whose work has taken him into negotiations in political and business centers around the world.
A case against a Hollywood studio
His 1983 treatment for Rocky IV led to Anderson v. Stallone, a federal copyright case still studied by law students.
In the back seat of an F-16
Honorary Commander of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing during the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Under the Pacific
A dive aboard a U.S. nuclear attack submarine out of Point Loma, San Diego.
A Life Close to History
Timothy Burton Anderson signed with a renowned New York literary agency in 1995, whose client list also included Arthur C. Clarke and Margaret Truman. Then he made a choice most writers never face. With a growing law practice and seven young children, he set fiction aside. His contract with the literary agency was eventually withdrawn.
He has no regrets about that. Decades later, he returned to the page with something most thriller writers have to research: a working knowledge of how power is actually used.
The Rocky IV Case
In 1983, Timothy pitched a treatment for Rocky IV to Sylvester Stallone at Paramount. What followed was six years of litigation and a ruling on derivative works that copyright students still read. Here is the story, from the man who lived it.
What Happens If the Electoral College Ties?
It has happened before, and the Constitution has an answer. Most voters have never heard it. A plain-English guide from the author of Blue, Red, and Dead.
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Blue, Red, and Dead
A presidential election reaches a constitutional breaking point when the Electoral College cannot produce the required majority and the outcome of a major state hangs in uncertainty.
Against that backdrop, political maneuvering, deception, espionage and personal conflict collide in a thriller built around one unsettling question:
What happens when the system designed to choose a president can no longer deliver a clear answer?
Putin At The Gates
A geopolitical suspense thriller in the tradition of the great Cold War espionage novel.
A new and different story behind the fall of the Iron Curtain and the supposed collapse of the Soviet world.
What was Putin doing during those missing years in his past? Perhaps he was closer to you than you will ever know—that is, until you read PUTIN AT THE GATES.
Fifteenth Nephi
Get ready for a the most powerful, historic action – suspense thriller of the Middle Ages, a story you will think about for the rest of your life.
Those experiences provide more than background. They provide the texture, questions and conflicts that make his fictional worlds feel unsettlingly close to reality.
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