DAVID E. MANUEL grew up in Houston, Texas and attended the University of Houston, receiving degrees in history and political science. After college, he worked for a few years in the corporate office of an offshore drilling company. In the mid-1980s he moved to the Washington DC area and took a job with the U.S. Government, where he still works. David lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, a free-lance writer, and their English Shepherds, Falco and Puck, who, as far as we know, are not secret government agents. David has been heavily influenced by the books of Graham Greene, John LeCarre, Frederick Forsyth, Alistair Maclean, and, particularly, Donald Hamilton.