ABOUT GERALD W. MILLS Born of poor parents following the Depression, Gerry spent most of his first sixteen years studying the piano, reading everything in print, and winning oratorical contests. His promising career as a concert pianist came to an end when he entered Northeastern University. In return for his promise never to return there, he was handed a degree in electrical engineering. He misread that as encouragement and began a career in avionics engineering. Married, with three children, he switched to sales, but divorce unfortunately followed. He met and married Lori, continued in sales, then opened his own business, selling it ten years later. The high-speed automation and robotics industry kept him occupied until 1990, when he took a brief sabbatical with Lori, his bride of twenty-eight years by then. They set out on a 45 foot ocean sailing yacht, managing to terrorize most of the Canadian Maritimes and the eastern seaboard for over a year before ending up in the Bahamas, where fortunes ran out. Not one to fret, he immediately wrote his first novel, typing furiously to see how the story ended, while Lori plotted a course for Florida. He returned to industry, and has worked since in automation and robotics. Presently he is a Principal Engineer for a neurological equipment company in Florida. Shying away from the purely technical, he enjoys writing character-driven stories dealing with human shortcomings, a topic in which he has a great degree of personal expertise. His hobbies are architectural design, reading and occasionally the piano. He no longer sails, and the world is a safer place for it. There are those who believe he should give up writing for the same reason, but so far no one has come forward with an acceptable bribe.