In 1980 MacEoin made a formal break with the Baha'i religion he had converted to at the age of seventeen. Denis was a lecturer at the University of Fez, Morocco, 1979-80, and lecturer in Islamic Studies at the University of Newcastle, 1981-86, after which he became a freelance writer, though he has more recently been involved professionally with editing the Middle East Quarterly, beginning in 2009, and afterwards becoming (around 2013) a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. He married in 1975 his wife, Beth MacEoin, has three degrees, in English, Art History, and homeopathic medicine she has written many books on homeopathy and natural health. He studied at the Belfast Royal Academical Institution, then at Trinity College, Dublin, where he specialized in medieval literature (MA in English Literature, 1971), the University of Edinburgh (MA in Persian and Arabic, 1975), and at King's College Cambridge (PhD in Persian studies, 1979). The best Aycliffe one is (arguably) Whispers in the Dark.ĭenis MacEoin was born as Denis Martin McKeown on 26 January 1949, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the son of David McKeown (1922-1995) he apparently altered the spelling of his surname as a young adult. The Aycliffe novels are basically commercial supernatural fiction, but they are very well-done and engaging, though some are better than others. Some first appeared in England some in Canada some in the U.S. This inspired me to sort out his publications, some of which originally appeared in hardcover, others in paperback (listed below as tp = trade paperback or mm = mass market sized). Recently I discovered that there was a (new to me) Jonathan Aycliffe novel published a few years ago after a long gap.

'Jonathan Aycliffe' is the pseudonym, for ghostly novels and short stories, of Denis MacEoin, who writes academic works under his own name, but who is best known for his international thrillers, many set in the Middle East, written under his 'Daniel Easterman' pseudonym.

Seventeen Stories by Mark Valentine