Tim O'Mara has been teaching math and special education in the New York City public schools since 1987. He is also an author of several short stories, a novella, and the Raymond Donne mystery series published by Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin's Press, whose parent company is Macmillan Publishers.O'Mara was inspired to create the character of Raymond Donne after visiting the homes of at-risk students from the public middle school where he was a teacher and, later, dean in a disadvantaged neighborhood (Williamsburg) of Brooklyn. Further provoked by his many interactions with the Youth Officers of the NYPD and his brother's cop stories over the years, O'Mara believed that a character with experience in both worlds would make a great protagonist.O'Mara's top-selling debut mystery Sacrifice Fly (2012) was nominated for the 2013 "Best First Novel" Barry Award. The novel introduced the series hero, Raymond Donne, a Brooklyn public schoolteacher who was once an up-and-coming police officer until a tragic accident destroyed his knees and the future he envisioned on the force. Crooked Numbers (2013) and Dead Red (2015) were received with similar critical acclaim.For the past 13 years, O'Mara has hosted and co-produced a bi-weekly reading series of poetry and prose in New York's East Village with We Three Productions. He lives with his family in Manhattan, where he currently teaches in a public middle school, and is a proud member of Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Irish American Writers & Artists, and several teacher unions.