Christopher Hovelle Wood (5 November 1935 – 9 May 2015) was an English screenwriter and novelist, best known for the Confessions series of novels and films which he wrote as Timothy Lea.
Under his own name, he adapted two James Bond novels for the screen: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, with Richard Maibaum)[1] and Moonraker (1979).
Wood continued his education at King's College Junior School in London where he found himself at risk from "drunken, mentally disturbed, sexual predators" among the staff.
Novelist and fellow future Bond writer William Boyd praised the book, citing it as one of the few convincing examples of accounts of war alongside Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
After considerable research, Wood discovered records of a Dove that was sent to south-west Africa and a wireless station in Togoland that the Germans built and the British destroyed, all of which he wove together to create the novel.
[12] Like his Masius colleague Desmond Skirrow,[13] Wood used the daily train commutes between his Royston home and London to write his first several books.
With the success of the Confessions books, Wood quit his job at Masius – despite his father's stringent objections – to write full-time.
[14] Critic Richard Newman in Books and Bookmen considered this dichotomy in his review of Wood's historical novel John Adam – Samurai.
"I just can't make up my mind about John Adam – Samurai – or, for that matter, its author, Christopher Wood.
My problem is — did he write it as a piece of cerebral fantasy to escape from the frustration of weekdays spent in a London advertising agency (in which case, bully for him); or does he want to be taken as a 'serious' author.
"[19] Wood was also responsible for the Confessions series of novels and their film adaptations, written under the pseudonym Timothy Lea.
As Frank Clegg, Wood also wrote Soccer Thug[21] featuring Harold "Striker" Rickards, football hooligan.
He also wrote the action film Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) starring Fred Ward, which was directed by former Bond director Guy Hamilton.