Preston Holtry

Preston Holtry is an avid traveler, former alpine ski instructor, VA hospital volunteer and novelist. He has a BA degree in English from the Virginia Military Institute and a graduate degree from Boston University. A career army officer, he served twice in Vietnam in addition to a variety of other infantry and intelligence-related assignments in Germany, England and the United States. Introducing Morgan Westphal, Death in Emily 3 is the first in a series of Westphal mysteries he's written. The second novel, A Troublesome Affair published in September 2014, takes place in 1916 and has Morgan traveling to Mexico with Pershing's Punitive Expedition as he tries to establish the innocence of a Negro stable sergeant accused of the rape and attempted murder of a white officer's wife. In Seal of Confession, Volume 3, Morgan is persuaded by a Catholic priest to find who killed a wealthy widow in Santa Fe, New Mexico for which an innocent man has already been hanged for the murder. Seal was published in August 2015. A fourth novel, The Good Thief, is a completed first draft and in the queue for publication in 2016. In Thief, Morgan investigates the brutal murder of a postulant at a mission near Santa Fe. He is also the author of four other unpublished novels: Arrius is an historical trilogy about a battle-hardened Roman centurion serving in Judea and Britannia in the second century Roman Empire. Looking for Steiner is a contemporary mystery with an international setting.

Now retired, he lives with his wife, Judith, in Oro Valley, Arizona. Read more about his interests and writing approach at his website (presholtry.webs.com).