Austin S. Camacho is the author of the Hannibal Jones Mystery Series (Collateral Damage, The Troubleshooter, Damaged Goods, Blood & Bone and Russian Roulette) and the Stark and O’Brien adventure series (The Payback Assignment, The Orion Assignment and The Pirahna Assignment.) He is also a public affairs specialist for the Defense Department. America's military people know him from more than a decade of his radio and television news reports that were transmitted to them daily on the American Forces Network.
He was born in New York City but grew up in Saratoga Springs, New York. He majored in psychology at Union College in Schenectady, New York. After three years, he enlisted in the Army as a weapons repairman but soon moved into a more appropriate field. The Army trained him to be a broadcast journalist. Disc jockey duties alternated with news writing, video camera and editing work, public affairs assignments and news anchor duties.
During his years as a soldier, Camacho lived in Missouri, California, Maryland, Georgia and Belgium. He also spent a couple of intense weeks in Israel during Desert Storm, covering the action with the Patriot missile crews and capturing scud showers on video tape. While enlisted, he finished his Bachelor's Degree at night and started his Master's, and rose to the rank of Sergeant First Class. In his spare time, he began writing adventure and mystery stories set in some of the exotic places he'd visited. After leaving the Army he continued to write military news for the Defense Department as a civilian.
Today he handles media relations and writes articles for military newspapers and magazines. He is Chief of Public Affairs for Tricare Management. He is Chief Operating Officer of Intrigue Publishing (www.intriguepublishing.com) and one of the organizers of the Creatures, Crimes and Creativity literary conference (www.creaturescrimesandcreativity.com).
He also teaches writing classes at Anne Arundel Community College and is deeply involved with the writing culture. He is a past president of the Maryland Writers Association and is an active member of the Washington Independent Writers, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, and the Virginia Writers Club.
Camacho has settled in Upper Marlboro, Maryland with his wife Denise and Princess the wonder cat.