Patrick Ian O'Donnell

Patrick Ian O'Donnell, born and raised in Los Angeles, enjoyed a varied career including teacher, university administrator, resort operator, and principal of a registered investment advisory firm. A life-long mystery buff, upon retirement he began writing his Oxnard mystery series.

When Phil Oxnard retired from the publishing business, he was afraid boredom would ensue. Soon after moving into a new home in San Juan Capistrano, circumstance developed that would keep boredom at bay for the next decade or two. He would, with the begrudging but essential assistance of his wife, Paula, become Phil Oxnard, Geezer Detective. His first case, Ortega Night, found him proving the supposed accidental death of a neighbor was, in fact, murder. The case that followed, McCollum's Run, finds Phil-- now employed by the G.P. Golden detective agency--in the Sierra Nevada, along with Paula, faced with a missing teenager and a murdered lodge employee. By the third story, Of Doggerel and the Dean, Phil has established his own detective agency and is immediately called upon to assist the police in solving a murder at Garwood College where Paula, a retired inner city principal, is a guest lecturer. In the most recent Oxnard mystery, A Wrathful Vintage, the Oxnards investigate the background of a murdered vineyard manager and are able to provide the police with information that leads to an arrest for murder.

In addition to the Oxnard series, the crime novels, Illicit Cargo, Death of an Oysterman, Final Words, and Cold Case Closure, written with co-author Chuck Gaylor, round out the O'Donnell novels to date.