Sarah Beth Hopton came by her love of crime writing honestly; her father was a detective and a graduate of Quantico's FBI Academy, and he shared his love of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with her at an early age. She grew up visiting her dad at the county jail and poring over his old, unsolved case files or eating a Snickers bar with Old Smokey, the beloved District Attorney. Hopton is currently an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Appalachian State University. She is working on her second book, which details the Mullins Massacre of 1892 at the Pound Gap between Kentucky and Virginia.