Walter Satterthwait, born in 1946, was a writer of historical fiction and mysteries. From a young age, he was an avid fan of mystery novels, often immersing himself in the works of Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane throughout his high school years.
Satterthwait's professional writing career began in the late 1970s when he was working as a bartender in New York. It was during this time that he wrote his first book, an adventure novel titled Cocaine Blues, which was published in 1979. The novel followed the story of a drug dealer on the run from a pair of killers. After the success of his first book, Satterthwait published a second thriller, The Aegean Affair, in 1982.
Following the publication of his first two books, Satterthwait created his best-known character, Santa Fe private detective Joshua Croft. The first Croft novel, Wall of Glass, was published in 1988, and Satterthwait went on to write a further four books in the series, concluding with Accustomed to the Dark in 1996. Alongside the Joshua Croft series, Satterthwait also wrote mysteries featuring historical figures, including Miss Lizzie in 1989, a novel about Lizzie Borden, and Wilde West in 1991, a western mystery starring Oscar Wilde.
Satterthwait's most recent novel, Dead Horse, was published in 2007 and tells the story of the mysterious death of Depression-era pulp writer Raoul Whitfield.