About the Author: Tom Haikin

After serving in the submarine force for seven years, Tom returned to college, earned a degree and then spent over thirty years reading and writing contracts for the Department of Defense and private industry.

In his professional career, Tom considered three books to be the sources that could explain all business behavior: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.

One day when he was mulling the words in a proposed contract clause, a random thought about life's choices came to him. He wondered what would happen if after living what you thought was a good life, you died and found out that you made bad choices. The result of that thought was "Chet", his first book.

Unable to define the book's genre sufficiently his story failed to attract many readers, but one rainy evening in Billings, Montana, his brother-in-law told Tom a story about deceit. Tom turned it into a mystery and has now published two mystery novels and is writing another featuring the bad guy he created in the first one.

Tom and his wife of four decades, Tara, now live in Williamsburg, Virginia in a small apartment they added to their son-in-law and daughter's home. Tom works part time in a retail building supply store and Tara volunteers at the nearby YMCA.