INTRODUCING...

John R. Hanny

Being a master chef and gourmet, John Hanny knows everything there is to know about ingredients.

Try these ingredients for writing a thriller novel: Osama Bin Laden, a newly elected president, Saddam Hussein, terrorists and anthrax. Pretty up to the minute ingredients for a volatile thriller, no?

Actually, those ingredients are more than up to the minute: they're way ahead of the minute. They form the plot and subplots of Hanny's book Asleep at the Wheel (in which the music group is not featured) written--get this--three and a half years ago, and already pretty successful in Europe and now making its way into the consciousness of American readers by way of Rutledge Books Inc. "It's kind of scary when I start to think about it in the wake of September 11," Hanny said. "I knew a terrorist profiler back then, and I did a lot of research. In my story, a brand new president is being threatened by both Bin Laden and Hussein to drop U.S. support for Israel or there will be a widespread anthrax attack on America. That's the situation, in any case."

It turns out to be pretty prophetic fiction, and a lot different from what Hanny usually does. In fact, what Hanny usually does seems almost fictional in itself in terms of the many hats he has worn throughout his life. He's been chef, restaurateur, historian, writer and author, father, campaign manager and political operative, and a dabbler in all things French, especially wine and food, but also history.

Small wonder he turned to fiction. It probably came naturally. "It's something I always wanted to do," he says. "I've written these cookbooks, which are also history books of sorts, and I find that those are books that I do because I have to. Writing fiction and stories like that, well, that's something I'm compelled to do, something I need to do. You get in the grip of the story."

Comparisons have been made to Tom Clancy, but Hanny dismisses that notion. "I don't do what he does," he says. "I like his stuff and that of Robert Ludlum. I'm telling a story, it's full steam ahead. I don't pretend to do flowery writing, it's bare to the bones for me, keep the plot and the character moving."

He's already hard at work on another fictional thriller. Not that he hasn't had a full life. He comes from a long line of Renaissance men with the blood of the Irish in them.

At the very tender age of 23, he became a food and wine consultant in the White House, prepping state luncheon and dinner menus for visiting heads of state, advising the likes of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson on matters of food. It was luck and opportunity. "I had come down to write a story for a restaurant magazine and had to interview the Chef, Rene Verdon, and we instantly took a liking to each other," Hanny said. That was the start of the consulting gig, with Verdon inviting me back to the White House repeatedly. "Sure, it had an influence," Hanny said of his sojourn near the seats of power. "It gave me an idea of the atmosphere there, the high-tension situations, what the White House was actually like on a regular basis, it's the kind of firsthand experience most writers would kill for."

It also helped stir up the ideas for a recently published book called Secrets of the White House Kitchens, which includes not only recipes but also anecdotal White House food stories that go all the way back to the time when Thomas Jefferson imported a French chef to the White House to Hillary Clinton's penchant for light cuisine.

Now 62, Hanny comes from a family that has recently celebrated its 197th year of being in the restaurant business. Every man in the Hanny clan has been a restaurateur or hotelier in Western New York and Canada. Grandfather Hanny owned a famous nightclub and restaurant named--naturally--Hanny's. John's father owned a mansion restaurant called La Marque e then bought a restaurant called "The Little White House". Hanny himself received his masters in the culinary arts under the famed French chef Jean Chitharel. For his contributions to the French wine industry, Hanny was designated a Chevalier, the French near-equivalent of knight.

On the political front, Hanny served as an Erie County Legislator at 32 years of age; he also managed Buffalo Bills legend Jack Kemp's first political campaign for his congressional race for the 39th District in Buffalo, New York, which Kemp won. He ran Jim Buckley's successful 1970 race for the for the US Senate. Today, Hanny owns the Savory Gourmet Cafe in Takoma Park, Maryland and the Eagle House Restaurant in Amherst, NY. But more important, he's working on a project with the Orient Express, that legendary railroad of intrigue, spies, and romance.

Don't be too surprised if a book comes out of that experience. It worked for Agatha Christie. No doubt, there'll be talk about politics, terror, vintage wine and a really genius-level bouillabaisse in there somewhere.

Honorarium Range: $3,000 to $5,000