S. J. Hamrick was a Foreign Service officer for more than two decades. In 1995-1996 he returned to the State Department as a senior policy adviser. As a young draftee he was assigned to the Army Counter Intelligence Corps. He has written seven novels under the pseudonym W. T. Tyler, including The Man Who Lost the War, The Ants of God, The Lion and the Jackal, Last Train from Berlin, and most recently The Consul's Wife.