David R. Horwitz Murder Bay

David R. Horwitz was born in Washington, D.C., in 1964, the first son of a D.C. police officer and a piano teacher. Raised in suburban Maryland, David read voraciously, wrote short stories, and biked to D.C. whenever he could. He played guitar and violin, performed in variety shows, and wrote silly songs inspired by a range of songwriters, from Stevie Ray Vaughn and the Grateful Dead to Billie Holiday and Cole Porter.

In college, David studied journalism and Russian, wrote for the school paper, and earned his degree in information systems management. He landed a job as a clerk typist with the federal government, taught himself computers, and rose through the ranks. Nine months after placing an ad in Washingtonian magazine, David married the author of the best reply. He inherited an orange tabby cat and later named another Monkey Boy (after a character in Mister Boffo). When he was hired as a lead programmer in 2000, he and his wife, Deirdre, bought their first home—a century-old former dairy farm in rural Minnesota.

Motivated by his passion for military history and inspired by Robert Girardi's novel, Madeline's Ghost, he wrote in earnest on nights and weekends. David's dream of writing full-time ended when he died in 2004. He left behind his wife of ten years, parents, sister, brother, five nephews, niece, and manuscripts that would become the Ben Carey mysteries. Murder Bay was his first book.