John Maddox Robers was born in Ohio. He was kicked out of college in 1967 and joined the army, serving as a Green Beret in Vietnam. He sold his first book to Doubleday in 1975 (it didn't see print until 1977). In 1989 he published his first mystery, SPQR. It was set in ancient Rome and was nominated for the Edgar Award as best mystery of the year. He also writes a series of contemporary detective novels about a private eye named Gabe Treloar, and is the author of a Dragonlance Fantasy Noir, Murder in Tarsis.