About the Author

Bill Brooks is the author of twenty-three novels of historical and frontier fiction. After a lifetime of working a variety of jobs, from shoe salesman to shipyard worker, Brooks entered the health-care profession where he was in management for sixteen years before turning to his first love—writing. Once he decided to turn his attention to becoming a published writer, Brooks worked several more odd jobs to sustain himself, including wildlife tour guide in Sedona, Arizona, where he lived and became even more enamored with the West of his childhood heroes, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Brooks wrote a string of frontier fiction novels, beginning with The Badmen (1992) and Buscadero (1993), before he attempted something more lyrical and literary in the critically acclaimed: The Stone Garden: The Epic Life of Billy the Kid (2002). This was followed in succession by Pretty Boy: The Epic Life of Pretty Boy Floyd (2003) and Bonnie & Clyde: A Love Story (2005). The Stone Garden was named by Booklist as one of the top ten Westerns of the decade. After that trio of novels, Brooks was asked to return to frontier fiction by an editor who had moved to a new publisher and he wrote in succession three series for them, beginning with Law For Hire (2003), then, Dakota Lawman (2005), and finishing up with The Journey of Jim Glass (2007). The Messenger (Five Star, 2009) was Brooks’s twenty-second novel. He now lives in northeast Indiana.