J. A. Kerley spent years as an advertising agency writer and producer before his wife demanded he quit work and write a novel, which he thought a fine idea. The result was The Hundredth Man, the first in the Carson Ryder series. An avid angler, bicyclist and hiker, Kerley has traveled extensively throughout the South, especially coastal regions such as Mobile, Alabama, the setting for many of his novels. In addition, he enjoys hiking in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, its spare and rugged beauty forming the backdrop for The Death Files. He has a cabin in the Kentucky mountains, which appeared as a setting in Buried Alive. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, where he enjoys sitting on the levee and watching the barges rumble up and down the Ohio River.