David Hagberg is an American novelist best known for his techno-thrillers featuring super-spy Kirk McGarvey. Hagberg has also written numerous thrillers under the pseudonym Sean Flannery. Hagberg's style has been described as a cross between Tom Clancy and Ian Fleming. His thrillers generally feature a combination of technical detail, timely plots and super-spy heroics that are sometimes almost prophetic in their accuracy . In the novel Joshua's Hammer, for example, written in 2000, Hagberg gives a chilling account of a mega-terrorist plot by Osama bin Laden to kill thousands of Americans on their home soil, published a full year before the World Trade Center Attacks.
Like many "cloak-and-dagger" novelists, Hagberg has a professional background in espionage, having spent his stint of military duty as a cryptographer for U.S. Air Force Intelligence.
Hagberg apprenticed as a spy writer by contributing more than 20 "work-for-hire" entries in the Nick Carter - Killmaster series of espionage novels between 1976 and 1987. He also wrote "work-for-hire" novels based on the Flash Gordon comic strip.
His work has been well-received by his colleagues in the crime writing community. Three of his novels, The Kremlin Conspiracy, False Prophets, and Broken Idols, were nominated for Edgars by the MWA in the "Best Paperback Original Novel" category. Three of his McGarvey novels, Countdown, Crossfire, and Critical Mass, won American Mystery Awards, given by Mystery Scene Magazine, for "Best Spy Novel."