Brian Lee Knopp

Brian Lee Knopp is a full-time licensed private investigator in North Carolina. He is a member of the John E. Reid Institute and graduate of the Reid Technique, which is widely recognized as the premier interview and interrogation method in the country. Knopp has provided legal support investigations, both criminal and civil, for over twenty-five years. His clients have ranged from the indigent facing the death penalty to Fortune 500 companies involved in multistate litigation.

Knopp's memoir Mayhem in Mayberry was featured on C-SPAN Book TV and UNC-TV, nominated as a 2009 Finalist for the SIBA (Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance) Nonfiction Award, and excerpted in Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine. In addition to his 2009 regional best-selling memoir, Knopp also created the 2012 collaborative novel Naked Came the Leaf Peeper. A former professional sheep shearer with an M.A. degree in English Literature from the University of Texas at Austin, his book reviews, essays, and poems have been published in several regional magazines and local media. He teaches nonfiction writing for the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville.