Mark Petry grew up in the humidity of Houston, Texas. He survived the intense Texas summers thanks to his parents, who emigrated from Germany and sent Petry and his brother home to stay with their grandparents each summer. It was a little cooler there. This is where they would go each summer until Petry went off to college at the University of Texas in Austin. Sure, it was neat to spend the summers seeing Europe but when you’re a kid, it’s just going to Grandma’s and you get a little homesick missing your friends. It was on one of these trips that he realized the therapeutic value of writing. He only wishes he had stuck with it. Now twenty years after graduating college and a long career in banking, he has come home to what he really loves to do. Petry likes to tell stories, especially ones that have readers surprised at the end. Petry and his wife Becky live in a suburb of Dallas, Texas and have one daughter, Kayla, who begs him to let her read his books. But since she’s nine, she’ll have to wait quite a few more years. Hopefully, he can keep the series running long enough until she’s old enough to read them all. Secret Service—featuring Jack Shields—is the first of what Petry hopes will be a long and exciting series.