Robert Kresge

Rob Kresge grew up in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, but got to travel to the West as a boy. He graduated from the University of Missouri with a bachelor of journalism degree in 1968, served four years on active duty in the Army (including 1969-70 in Vietnam), got married in 1973 and joined the CIA that same year. He worked as an analyst on Vietnam, North Korea, international terrorism (two tours, including as a founding member of the Counterterrorist Center), gray market arms dealers (like terrorists, but with suits, yachts, and private jets), and sanctions on the former Yugoslavia that contributed to the Dayton Peace Accords in the Balkans.

Rob retired from the Army Reserve in 1998 and from the CIA in 2002. Since then, he has lived and written in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife and first reader, Julie.

FAQs?

How could an Eastern city boy hope to write a convincing novel of the West?

--A teacher once told me, "Jack Schaefer, the author of Shane, hadn't traveled beyond New Jersey until after he wrote his novel. It was said of him that he found the West within himself before he found himself in the West." I hope I've followed in those footsteps.

Here are some events that gave me a leg up:

--As a boy, I camped with my family across the West, soaking up the grandeur of our most scenic national parks, learned to ride in the Grand Tetons, and saw first-hand the plight of modern Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

--As an avid reader, I decided early on I wanted to be a writer, so I got a Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Missouri. One course that stuck with me was "The Twilight of the Sioux," taught by Dr. John Neihardt, transcriber of the famed memoir Black Elk Speaks.

--In 2000, I founded a still active writers group at CIA that grew to 180 members.

--I took two courses in 2001 and 2002 -- "The American West in Fiction and Film" and "The Worlds of Mysteries" under Judy Riggin at Northern Virginia Community College -- that got me started writing Murder for Greenhorns.

--I studied writing under mystery author Noreen Wald (aka "Nora Charles") in 2002 at the Bethesda Writers Center.

--I helped found the Albuquerque chapter of Sisters in Crime in 2004 and was 2008 president.

--While writing and revising Greenhorns,Painted Women and further novels, I spoke on panels on spy novels at MWA's Edgars symposium in 2002, on settings at Left Coast Crime Seattle in 2007, on research and realism at LCC Denver in 2008, and two more panels at LCC Santa Fe in 2011, as well as a panel at Malice Domestic 2012 in Bethesda on mysteries that take place in the West.