A graduate of Hanover College and Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, he clerked for the Indiana Court of Appeals and the U.S. Federal District Court. A sabbatical from private trial practice took him to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and non-degree study at Union Theological Seminary. Two years later, he joined the Washington, D.C. press corps to cover national politics and Iran-contra for Congressional Quarterly magazine.

In 1992, he moved to California to write movie scripts. His feature screenplay Whisper the Wind, about the Navajo codetalkers of World War II, was awarded the Nicholl Fellowship prize by the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences.

His debut historical novel, The Fire and the Light, was named Best New Fiction by the National Indie Excellence Awards and recognized as an Honorable Mention Winner for Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year. He is a two-time indieBRAG Medallion Honoree and has three times been named a Foreword Reviews Book-of-the-Year Award Finalist. His novels have taken readers to Occitania during the Albigensian Crusade, to the Scotland of Robert Bruce, to Portugal during the Age of Discovery, to the trenches of France during World War I, and to the American Hoovervilles of the Great Depression.

A native Hoosier, he now lives in southern California.