Twitter, as well as the New York Daily News, have issued reports that Tom Clancy died last night in a Baltimore hospital near his home at age 66.

Tom Clancy's publisher confirms to the NYT that he died last night in a hospital in Baltimore.

— Julie Bosman (@juliebosman) October 2, 2013

Bestselling author Tom Clancy has died.

— Publishers Weekly (@PublishersWkly) October 2, 2013

Rest in peace the great writer Tom Clancy. A real gentleman of the old school.

— ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) October 2, 2013

A native of Baltimore, Clancy started out as an insurance salesman before going on to write bestselling political thrillers involving governments, militaries, and CIA agents. In 1996, Clancy co-founded Red Storm Entertainment, which ended up being sold along with his name to Ubisoft Entertainment.

Clancy’s stories, going back to his first novel,The Hunt for Red October, resonate with so many readers because of his attention to detail. Military generals who were stationed on submarines during the Cold War would go on to marvel at the accuracy of Clancy’s fiction.

In an interview with retired Air Force General Chuck Horner, Clancy said regarding his ability to write about confidential material that “It’s all out in the open… I call it ‘connect the dots.’ If this is true, and this is true, there has to be something between the two that connects them. I probably would have been a pretty good intelligence officer had I gotten into that instead of doing insurance.”

Business Insider noted Clancy’s advice to aspiring writers in an AMC blog: “You learn to write the same way you learn to play golf… You do it, and keep doing it until you get it right. A lot of people think something mystical happens to you, that maybe the muse kisses you on the ear. But writing isn’t divinely inspired – it’s hard work.”

[Image via the YouTube interview of Tom Clancy discussing his writing and characters with Chuck Horner]