Jeff Mariotte is the award-winning author of more than seventy novels, including crime thrillers Empty Rooms and The Devil's Bait, supernatural thrillers Season of the Wolf, Missing White Girl, River Runs Red, and Cold Black Hearts, horror epic The Slab, and the Dark Vengeance teen horror quartet. Among his many novels set in existing fictional universes are NCIS: Los Angeles: Bolthole and NCIS: New Orleans: Crossroads. With his wife, the author Marsheila Rockwell, he wrote the novels 7 SYKOS and Mafia III: Plain of Jars and numerous shorter works. He also writes comic books, including the long-running horror/Western comic book series Desperadoes and graphic novels Zombie Cop and Fade to Black. He has worked in virtually every aspect of the book business.