Ken Goddard is the author of the New York Times bestseller Balefire, as well as ten other novels. He has served as a criminalist in three California police and sheriff's departments and as an instructor in crime scene investigation and forensic techniques at law enforcement academies throughout the United States, as well as for Interpol. He lives in Ashland, Oregon, where he is currently director of the National Fish and Wildlife Forensics Laboratory, the only full-service wildlife crime laboratory in the world.