James D. Doss was a highly regarded American author, best known for his mystery novels featuring the Native American detective Charlie Moon. Doss was born in Kentucky in 1939 and passed away in Los Alamos, New Mexico, on May 17, 2012. Prior to his writing career, he worked as an electrical engineer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory at the University of California.
Doss began his writing career in 1994 with the publication of his first book, "The Shaman Sings," which also marked the start of the Charlie Moon series. Over the course of his career, he wrote a total of 17 books in the series, which gained immense popularity and critical acclaim. Two of the books in the series were named as the best books of their respective years by Publishers Weekly.
In addition to his work as a novelist, Doss was also an electrical engineer who worked on biomedical technology and particle accelerators at the laboratory of California University. However, he had a long-standing interest in writing and continued to write novels alongside his engineering profession. After his retirement from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, he continued to write from his homes in Taos, New Mexico, and Los Alamos, New Mexico.