Roger Howell was raised in a loosely bound working class and often not-much-working-to-be-had class family in numerous towns in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Stories around campfires and wood stoves told of brawling uncles, lost gold mines, and friends and family who had gone away-to war, to jail, or to start somewhere better. All of it seemed to have happened before Roger happened along, and for that reason he's always been fascinated with those romantic years of the forties and fifties. Now, even after four universities and an international career as a geologist and environmental engineer, Howell's stories always come back to the Northwest, and to that misty time of innocence, prejudice, and paranoia. He started writing fiction about fifteen years ago. His novels are fixed in the mid-century, and his protagonists are all strong women of the west because they are who raised him and sustained him, and who continue to inspire him. Roger lives in Colorado now with his wife and their pure-bred Texas-truckstop dog, Junebug.