John Verdon

John P. Verdon was born January 1, 1942, in the Bronx, New York, and educated at Regis High School and Fordham University. He spent his early career as a creative director in New York advertising agencies before retiring with his wife, Naomi, to a rural property in the western foothills of the Catskill Mountains, where he spent roughly a decade designing and building Shaker-style furniture.

Encouraged by his wife to try writing a mystery novel, Verdon spent two years on his first manuscript, which became Think of a Number, published by Crown in 2010 as the debut of his Dave Gurney series. Gurney, a retired NYPD homicide detective with an unmatched closure record, is drawn back into investigating elaborate, puzzle-box murders from the Catskills farmhouse where he'd hoped to settle into a quiet retirement. The series -- eight novels as of 2023's The Viper, with a ninth, Ghost Barn, set for 2026 -- has been translated into more than two dozen languages and built Verdon a substantial international readership for detective fiction he began writing only after leaving a first career behind entirely. He continues to live with his wife in upstate New York.