Robbyn Swan

Swan is of American-Italian heritage and was born in Milford, Connecticut,[1] where she graduated from Milford High School.[2] After high school, Swan attended Smith College where she graduated from in 1984.[3]

After college, Swan was hired by Anthony Summers to assist with his book "Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover," an investigation into the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[4] The two eventually married in 1992.[5] In 2005, Swan and her husband published "Sinatra: The Life," a biography of Frank Sinatra's with a focus on his links with the Mafia.[6]

In 2011, Swan and her husband published The Eleventh Day: The Ultimate Account of 9/11 to mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11. Their book notably debunked the 9/11 conspiracy theories that the Bush administration was involved with the attacks.[7] According to Harnden of The Telegraph, the authors "principal criticisms are that the Bush administration was asleep at the switch on 9/11; that vital intelligence was ignored; that the FBI and CIA did not share information; and that Saudi Arabia was intimately connected to al-Qaeda and is sometimes overindulged by the US." Harnden said that there was "no real evidence" for Summers' and Swan's claims that the CIA negotiated with Osama bin Laden prior to those attacks, or of their attempt to recruit two of the hijackers as agents.[8] The Eleventh Day was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in History[9] and was also awarded the Crime Readers’ Association's Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction in 2012.[10]

In 2014, Summers and Swan published Looking For Madeleine, an account of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007.[11] The book drew much criticism because it cleared blame from her parents of the abduction.[12] The couple later co-authored a book titled "A Matter of Honor: Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family’s Quest for Justice," which set out to clear Husband E. Kimmel name.[2]