John has spent much of his life overseas, beginning in 1966 with two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nepal.  His time in the Himalayan kingdom immersed him in a culture of Hindu gods and Buddhist monks, gave him breathtaking opportunities to trek into the high mountains, reduced him to a scrawny 150 pounds, and ignited his passion for foreign lands.  On the last day of his service there, in a palace converted to a hotel, he married Dorothy Zeller, the lady who is still his wife.

After Nepal, John and Dorothy went to graduate school at UCLA, received PhDs in geology, and spent their next three years working in Australia.  They traveled extensively by Land Cruiser through the harsh beauty of the Outback and, on occasion, spent hours winching or digging out their vehicles from “sticky” situations.  Several Australian colleagues provided inspiration for characters in John’s books.

Upon returning to the United States, John and Dorothy went to work for a major oil company, first in research, then in international exploration.  The latter took John to about fifty countries and fueled his writing with quirky characters, exotic settings, and cultural contrasts.

While working in Egypt, he spotted a potential way to break into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.  The break-in is now portrayed in a chapter of Papyrus.  His experiences in the remote highlands of Venezuela led to Tepui.  While living in London, he became interested in the business and culture of perfumes, an interest he has been able to nourish by accompanying Dorothy (now a NASA scientist) on her annual working sojourns in Paris.  A result of this good fortune is Aphrodesia.

John has an abiding love of animals, strong interests in art, history, and science, and a hunger for challenging experiences.  Writing gives him a chance to combine all of these into page-turners that keep readers thinking long after they finish the final chapter.