On December 21, 1940 -- the Winter Solstice -- the author F. Scott Fitzgerald jolted to his feet from a green armchair, grasped hold of a marble mantlepiece, and fell down dead of a massive heart attack. He was forty-four years old. His woman companion of three-and-a half years ran out into the hallway and began knocking frantically on doors of their small Hollywood apartment building on Laurel Avenue, just south of Sunset Boulevard, crying desperately for help. She refused to accept that Scott was dead, even later when the ambulance came, and a fire engine also, and a fireman stood over the body and shook his head.

The name of the woman was Sheilah Graham, Fitzgerald's last heroine -- a young, pretty Hollywood newspaper columnist who was later to be my mother. Though she lived another forty-eight years, she never entirely got over Scott's death. I was born five years later, in 1945, and one of my first memories is sitting with my mother on the same green armchair in our Beverly Hills home with the encyclopedia open in her lap to Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key, and listening to her tell me about this man that she loved. When she knew Scott, he was an enormous failure by the standards of the world. His books were for all purposes out of print, he was deeply in debt, his wife Zelda was in a mental institution, and his health had been destroyed by years of alcoholism. He died a forgotten man; but now he was considered a genius. Millions of copies of his books sold every year.

A summer trip to the Soviet Union after my Sophomore year, and I wrote my first book, "Journey Behind the Iron Curtain," which was published by G.P. Putnam's in 1963 when I was 17. Later I attended Columbia College, joining the memorable class of 1967 that was eventually to shut down the university. From the sex, drugs, and revolution of that time, I put together a first novel, "The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart," published by Crown in 1969 and made into an MGM movie that introduced an eighteen year old actor, Don Johnson. The movie bore little resemblance to my novel and it was at this point that I took a fifteen year break from writing to play music -- guitar and piano -- and "find myself," as the saying went. (Hey, I'm still looking.)

In 1985, while living with my wife, Gail, and our three children in Hawaii, I began writing a series of satirical mysteries set in the Los Angeles of my childhood: "The Left-Handed Policeman," Crown, 1986; "Nostalgia Kills," Crown, 1988; "Lady Left," Crown, 1990; and "Rich Kids," Birchlane, 1992. I was living in Greece, on the island of Crete, when my mother died in 1988 at the age of 84. I returned to America and tackled the story of her life, with her romance with Scott Fitzgerald and the many details she had left out of her own autobiography, the 1958 bestseller, "Beloved Infidel." My book, "Intimate Lies," was brought out by Harper Collins in 1995, and I think it's probably the best piece of writing I've ever done.

After moving to Taos with my wife in 1991, I've written a series of four mysteries set in northern New Mexico: "Ghost Dancer," Signet, 1998; "Warrior Circle," Signet, 1999; "Red Moon," Signet, 2000; and "Ancient Enemy," Signet, 2001. At the moment, I'm trying something very big. HUGE, in fact, not a mystery, stretching my humble talents as far as they will stretch -- a historical novel set in the 1940s and 1950s, a love story and more.

Along with my own work, I've written two novels based on screenplays: "The Mexican," Signet, 2001, from a movie staring Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt, and "Insomnia," to be published by Signet in 2002, a mystery thriller with Al Pacino and Robin Williams. I've also been teaching suspense writing workshops at the Taos Institute of Art, and also at the Taos campus of Southern Methodist University. In the summer of 2002, I will be teaching a general fiction writing course at the Taos Institute of Art, along with two mystery workshops. I emphasize story structure and practical aspects of writing, which I feel are the aspects that can best be taught; the rest is intuitive, personal, and everyone has to come upon their vision alone.

Along with writing and teaching, I enjoy traveling, eating, camping, opera, jazz piano, skiing, and surviving Planet Earth with my sense of irony intact. I'm very happy to be the father of three wonderful boys, Loam, Torello and Gabriel. And the grandfather of Marlon, who lives in New York City and is the perfect toddler of Tompkins Square Park. Occasionally, when I feel I can be useful, I take on private students, coaching writers and helping with their manuscripts.

I've been doing this for thirty-eight years now, and I still believe it's magic; the luckiest thing in the world is to have the great good fortune to be an author of books.