[1] His first published novel was the dystopian The Traveler and its sequels, The Dark River and The Golden City, collectively comprising the Fourth Realm Trilogy.
In the USA Today article, his response to a question about religion began with, "When I was in my twenties..." and when an editor asked him whether the "realm of hell" could be compared to current conditions in Iraq, Hawks replied "it's more like Beirut in the '70s".
[4] According to Twelve Hawks' agent, "He lives in New York, Los Angeles and London", and The Traveler sets its story in all three of these locations.
[7] During an online conversation he had with his fans on the We Speak for Freedom website, he explained the origin of his name:[8] The real story is this …I was walking through a forest and encountered a hawk nesting area.
[9] The book is narrated by Jacob Underwood, a man who suffers from Cotard delusion, a real-life neurological condition in which the afflicted person thinks that he or she is dead.
"[10] But, when the bank asks him to track down Emily Buchanan, a low-level employee who has absconded with financial secrets, Underwood gradually becomes more human and feels moments of empathy.
The Publishers Weekly review mentioned JTH's writing style: "Twelve Hawks’s prose, cold and clinical at times, yet punctuated with moments of great sensitivity, matches the tone and mood of his setting perfectly."
As good as the Fourth Realm books were, this one may be even more appealing: less fantastic, more grounded in a contemporary real world, with a narrator who is deeply scarred and endlessly fascinating.
[12] On August 20, 2014, John Twelve Hawks released a free non-fiction book called Against Authority: Freedom and the Rise of the Surveillance States.
[14] Against Authority begins with a personal description of the neurological experiments performed on Hawks when he was a child and states that all of us have the ability to reject the “right” of those in power to control our lives.
Hawks describes how the reaction of governments to the September 11 attacks led to the Patriot Act in the United States and the proliferation of Closed-circuit television cameras in London.
In the conclusion, he advocates a strategy of “parallel lives” that allows people to exist in the digital world while protecting their private actions and thoughts.