His death late on Thursday came less than three months after he told fans he had stomach cancer. He was 79.

"We'd like to thank all of Bryce's family and friends and all of his fans around the world for their love and support for me and his family as he wrote the final chapter of his extraordinary life," his wife Christine Courtenay said in a joint statement with publisher Penguin Books.

Known for his dedication to work and prolific output, often writing for 12 hours a day, Courtenay sold more than 20 million books. He turned to writing in the late 1980s after a 30-year career in advertising.

His first novel, "The Power of One", the story of a child growing up under apartheid in South Africa, was an instant hit, selling more than 8 million copies and later made into a movie.

Born into poverty in South Africa, Courtenay studied journalism in London and then settled in Australia with his first wife, Benita, in 1958.

In 1993, he turned to non-fiction with "April Fool's Day", a personal account of his son Damon's death after he contracted the AIDS virus from a routine blood transfusion.

He usually wrote a book each year. His final novel, "Jack of Diamonds", was published in early November, and featured a farewell from Courtenay to his readers.

"It's been a privilege to write for you and to have you accept me as a storyteller in your lives. Now, as my story draws to an end, may I say only, 'Thank you. You have been simply wonderful'."

Courtenay is survived by his wife Christine, and two sons from his first marriage.

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Chris Gallagher)

The threat by Boehner, R-Ohio, represents an unusual escalation across the Capitol building of a bitter partisan fight that has been brewing in the Senate for weeks. It also underscores a Republican effort to retain as much power as they can next year, when Democrats will control the White House and Senate and Republicans will lead only the House.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said that on the first day of the new Congress in January, he may take the unusual step of using a simple majority vote to limit filibusters.

Usually it takes a two-thirds vote to change Senate rules. A simple majority would mean Democrats could change the filibuster rules without GOP support, and the threat has infuriated Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other Republicans. Democrats will control the new Senate 55-45, including one Democratic-leaning independent.

Boehner said that Reid's threat "is clearly designed to marginalize Senate Republicans and their constituents while greasing the skids for controversial, partisan measures."

He added, "Any bill that reaches a Republican-led House based on Senate Democrats' heavy-handed power play would be dead on arrival."

Though the rules change would not occur until next year, Boehner suggested that it might poison the atmosphere even sooner, "at a time when cooperation on Capitol Hill is critical."

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders of both parties are currently bargaining over deficit-cutting measures that would avoid the so-called fiscal cliff of big tax increases and deep spending cuts scheduled to begin in January unless lawmakers find a way to avert them.

Minority parties in the Senate use filibusters parliamentary delays to slow or kill legislation. They can only be ended by 60 votes a margin neither party can achieve without some cooperation from the other side.

Democrats say Republicans are abusing filibusters by resorting to them too frequently, and statistics show minority Republicans have increasingly used the tactic in recent years. Reid's plan would forbid the use of filibusters when a bill is initially being brought to the Senate floor for debate and require filibustering senators to actually be on the Senate floor, a long-abandoned practice.

"It is a shame to see Speaker Boehner join Sen. McConnell's desperate attempt to double down in the status quo of Republican-led gridlock in Washington," said Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson.

Republicans say they have used filibusters more because Reid blocks them from presenting amendments. Reid, in turn, says Republicans use too much time pushing amendments that make political statements or that are designed to derail bills.

The battle has prompted numerous sharp exchanges on the Senate floor in recent days between Reid and McConnell.

Neither side has ruled out negotiating a solution to the dispute.

Secret documents in the archives of the Privy Council Office are mould-infested more than a decade after the pesky scourge was thought to have been killed off for good.

The mould first appeared in 2001 after a flood from a broken pipe drenched key files in a storage area used by the Privy Council Office, the department that supports Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the cabinet.

An expensive, painstaking cleanup at the time, however, did not wipe out the creeping menace.

In May this year, employees stumbled across files that had been dried and treated after the flood, yet showed renewed mould growth years later.

The return of the seemingly undead mould not only threatens the paper documents through staining and deterioration, but also the health of anyone who comes in contact with them or the storage environment.

People with respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, are particularly vulnerable to airborne moulds.

"Mould-affected documents are more susceptible to develop mould because they have a higher concentration of mould spores visible or invisible that may be dormant, but still viable," says a government notice outlining the problem.

"Considerable effort has been afforded to try and prevent mould growth, yet mould has been recently discovered in some records previously damaged by the flood."

The Privy Council Office is now looking for outside experts to help identify all the fouled folios and kill the contagion, and is expecting to pay up to $100,000 for the work.

And because the documents contain highly sensitive government information, the technicians must have security clearances and surrender their cell phones, laptops and other mobile devices before entering the storage areas.

They're also required to wear protection against hazardous materials, such as latex gloves, mask respirators, lab coats and goggles.

They'll vacuum shelves, carpets and concrete floors using dense, high-quality filters to catch the spores. All work must be completed by next September.

"The records are operational and administrative in nature," spokesman Raymond Rivet said in an email.

"They date from 1968-98, with most of the affected records dating to 1988-94. No documents have been destroyed as a result of being affected by mould."

The documents are currently held in a Gatineau, Que., storage warehouse operated by Library and Archives Canada, though under the control of Privy Council Office.

The federal government's biggest repository of historical documents is at Library and Archives, where mould occasionally creeps onto the pages of books, photographs, old newspapers and paper documents, despite strict controls to hold down humidity and temperature levels.

The institution freezes any contaminated documents for at least 48 hours to kill live mould, then treats the damaged material inside a biological containment hood.

Tiny spores are particularly tough to eliminate. Their tough outer shells can protect and keep them dormant for years.

Library and Archives Canada warns members of the public who discover mould in documents to immediately stop handling the material and report it to staff.