Blake Banner

Raised by well-meaning Marxist parents and educated at home, I spent more time memorizing the parts of a gun and studying martial arts than learning the Greek alphabet. By sixteen I was breaking in wild horses, and occasionally breaking a few bones of my own.

The years that followed involved travel, risk, and stories worth telling. Dyslexia made writing a challenge, which only made me more determined to master it. Reading was never the problem, writing was.

Stone, Dehan, Bauer, Walker, Rogue, and Mason were born from my lifelong love of noir. While I was supposed to be reading Marx, I was devouring Chandler, Hammett, and Spillane. Marlowe, Hammer, the Continental Op — they were my real teachers.

Today I live quietly on a mountain with my cat, writing crime and thriller novels about people who rarely get to live quietly themselves.