John Maddox Roberts was born in Ohio and was raised in Texas, California, and New Mexico.[2] He lived in various places in the United States as well as in Scotland, England and Mexico.[3] He was kicked out of college in 1967 and joined the Army.[2] He was in the US Army 1967–70, and did a tour in Vietnam. After he returned, he became a Green Beret.[3]
Upon returning to civilian life, Roberts decided to be a writer and sold his first book to Doubleday in 1975;[2] his book was published in 1977 as The Strayed Sheep of Charum.[5] His earlier books were in the science fiction, fantasy and historical genres.[2]
In 1989, Roberts published his first historical mystery, The King's Gambit, set in ancient Rome. The book was nominated for the Edgar Award as best mystery of the year.[5] The book was first in Maddox's SPQR series of mysteries.[2]
Roberts also wrote a series of contemporary detective novels about a private eye named Gabe Treloar. The first book, A Typical American Town, is set in a fictionalized version of that Ohio town where he was born. The second, The Ghosts of Saigon, used his experiences in Vietnam. The third, Desperate Highways, is a road novel.[2]
When asked by TSR to do a Dragonlance mystery, he wrote Murder in Tarsis.[2] Roberts wrote an unpublished science fiction book called The Line, a police procedural set in a near-future Los Angeles where the biggest racket is illegal traffic in fetal pineal glands.[2]
An action series telling the story of a Crusader returning to Europe to seek vengeance on his father's killers (each written under the pen name of Mark Ramsay)
