Richard Child

Love of literature took Richard Child to the Masters of English program at Ohio University where he studied creative writing with Walter Tevis, author of THE HUSTLER as well as Daniel Keys author of FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON. He taught English on both the college and high school levels before returning to university to earn an MBA from Case Western Reserve's Weatherhead School of Management. Richard worked in market research, strategic planning, and advertising before starting his own company. Drawn back to his dream of becoming a writer, he sold the business and went back to teaching.

Richard and his family subsequently moved to Europe, and while living there for a number of years, his interest in historical mysteries grew into a passion. It took him to Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls and the Lycian tombs of southern Turkey. In the French Languedoc he investigated the fortress ruins of the Knights Templar and mountaintop strongholds of the heretical Cathars. He walked the crumbling battlements of a Moorish castle in Sicily and poked around the remnants of a 7th century Scottish monastery. Using his research, he leveraged humanity's timeless fascination with prophecy and created his first novel, HAND OF THE PROPHET. The lightening-paced, thought-provoking thriller takes off with archeologist Kathleen Phillips translating a macabre manuscript of a 9th century, visionary monk. She comes to understand that the desperate search for the prophet's codex was the true motive behind the crusade against Cathar heretics and the later Inquisition. Centuries later, these ruthless forces and ancient fears threaten not only Kathleen and those she loves, but the world itself. The work has been published in both hardcover and paperback in Spain and is currently under contract for publication in Russia.  The manuscript is currently available for US and UK publication.

Today, Richard lives with his wife and son in Michigan. When not working on his next novel, he and his family travel, scuba dive and snow ski.