John Moss is the author of more than twenty books on Canadian culture, Arctic exploration, and experimental literature, as well as the Quin and Morgan mysteries, the Lindstrom Trilogy, and several YA thrillers. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a master scuba diver trainer, ran the Boston Marathon eleven times, and swam the Hellespont once.

As a boy, John declared he wanted to live a life of adventure. So far, so good. He swam the Hellespont, was Peter O’Toole’s stand-in in Lawrence of Arabia, a lighting technician on the West End, ran ultramarathons, and has dived in wondrous places, ranging from the Red Sea and the Great Barrier Reef to Tahiti, Easter Island, and numerous sites in the Caribbean. He has trekked through the Barren Lands on his own for twenty-eight days, and with his brother, Steve, and then with his wife, Beverley Haun, across major portions of Baffin Island. At different times he has raised horses, bred dogs, kept swans, and cultivated bees. He remains astonished at being alive, a sentient self-conscious part of the universe. Writing mysteries is the best way he has found, yet, of exploring the breadth of a full life and its inevitably ominous end. John was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2006, in recognition of his career as a professor of Canadian literature with over a score of books on Canadian culture, Artic exploration, and experimental literature. He and Beverley, whose book Inventing Easter Island grew out of her work as a cultural theorist, share a stone farmhouse with an Airedale and a Kerry Blue terrier and numerous ghosts in Peterborough, Ontario. He was a scuba instructor (PADI and SDI) and an endurance athlete (Boston Marathon, eleven times; the original Ironman, once; Canadian Ski Marathon, gold bar; numerous treks in the barrenlands and many long-distance loppets closer to home). John is an amateur house builder, Bev is an inspired potter. They enjoy canoeing, cross-country skiing, and long hikes in interesting places around the world. In 2017 they did the Wainwright coast-to-coast walk across England and would like nothing better than to do it again.

John is professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa and Beverley most recently taught in the Queen’s-Trent Concurrent Education Program. Their daughter, Beatrice Winny, MA, is a Registered Graphic Designer in Guelph, Ontario, while their daughter, Laura Moss, PhD, is a Professor of Literature and Associate Dean of Arts at the University of British Columbia, and their other daughter, Julia Zarb, PhD, is Program Director, Masters of Health Informatics, at the University of Toronto. They have seven grandchildren, Clare, Maddie, and Olivia Zarb, Simon, Owen, and Charlie Cutler, and Joël Winny.