Sal Casamassima is an attorney whose only prior writing experience were legal briefs and contracts. He took early retirement from his corporate job and wandered through various pursuits such as coaching his daughter’s softball teams and amateur winemaking. During this time, Sal often annoyed his daughter by expressing his latent desire to write a mystery novel. To stop his endless banter, she told hm to take on the NaNoWriMo challenge to complete a 50,000-word novel in a month. Of course, Sal failed to complete the required word count, but alas was infected by the writing bug and trudged forward to complete his first novel. In his writing journey, Sal decided to set the stories and characters in his books in contemporary society and actual cities where the crime to be solved is grounded in reality and influenced by the societal challenges we confront in today’s world. His main characters may have their own quirks and personality flaws but they are portrayed as real people that most of can relate to. Sal begins writing without an outline or ending in mind. He has no clue how the mystery will be solved and leaves it to his protagonists to solve the case for him. He simply writes what they are speaking or thinking. Hence, his use of the present tense. He asks his readers to take the same approach. His story and character arcs force the readers to ask how they would confront the roadblocks standing in the way of solving the mystery. He invites them to join the cast and become one of the protagonists – or, possibly, one of the antagonists, if tempted to do so. Sal lives in beautiful San Diego, the primary locale for his first novel. He takes advantage of the city’s balmy weather and goes for aimless walks with his Minpin dog, who is portrayed as one of the non-verbal characters in his books.