NEW GLOUCESTER — John Renwick Linnell, 72, of New Gloucester and Tucson, Ariz., died suddenly at his home on Wednesday, Aug. 4.

Son of Frank and Margaret Linnell, Jack was born in Lewiston and reared and educated in Auburn. After earning a B.A. at University of Maine and a J.D. at Boston University School of Law, he was admitted to practice before the Maine Bar in 1964.

Jack spent his professional career at Linnell, Choate and Webber, the firm his father founded in 1931, until commencing an active retirement in 2003.

He was a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers and held memberships in the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American College of Legal Medicine, the Maine Trial Lawyers Association and the Maine Bar Foundation.

He served as Councilman and Mayor of the City of Auburn from 1967 to 1974. He chaired the state Republican Party for four years and was a Maine delegate to the 1976 national nominating convention.

He was a Board Member and Treasurer of the West Auburn School Historical Society, which fully restored the one-room school he attended as a child in West Auburn.

In retirement, he was a hardworking volunteer, rediscovering a love of aviation through his work with Pima Air & Space Museum in Arizona and with Owls Head Transportation Museum in Maine. He was also an active boater and golfer.

Jack, an avid reader of current fiction and political history, spent a decade as one of the “top 1000” reviewers at Amazon.com; his last review was published the day of his death.

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Cotheal Linnell, of New Gloucester; son, John E. Linnell and wife, Dennifer, of Auburn; brother, James and wife, Jennifer, of Albuquerque, N.M.; grandchildren, Kelsey and Colby, of Auburn; stepchildren, Ian Murphy and wife, Amy, of Warwick, N.Y. and Michaela Murphy and husband, Marc Elzweig, of San Francisco, Calif.; and stepgrandchildren, Tyler and Tori Jenness of Auburn, Declan and Cameron Murphy of Warwick, and Calvin Elzweig of San Francisco.