About
Bill grew up in California and went to Hollywood High School, then served in the Air Force as a combat cameraman.
After hiring on at Disney Studios as a film loader, he soon advanced and moved on to other film studios.
He earned a master’s degree in psychology. A big help when working with Trumpish Hollywood producers.
During his more than twenty-five years in the movie business as a cameraman, film editor, and general manager, Bill worked on everything from the hilarious, The Love Bug, to the creepy, The Exorcist, to the far out, Star Trek and Battle Star Galactica.
Eight years ago, Bill switched from reading scripts to writing mysteries and driving racecars. After completing three award-winning novels, he signed with Black Opal Books. His first novel, The Devil Orders Takeout, is a standalone mystery/thriller about a devoted father and husband who makes a deal with a real-life devil to protect his golf-prodigy son after his wife and older son are killed in a mysterious accident — and pays hell for it.
Bill’s second mystery, The Killer Who Hated Soup, is Book One in the 1950s The Killer Who series, and it launches this Summer. The Internet? Never heard of it. Smart phones? Who you kiddin’? It’s the 1950s.
Energetic and eager to make his mark on what Time magazine called the next great boom town, Bucky Ontario leaves his daddy and little sister in Louisiana and rides a bus to Defiance, Oklahoma, a town not particularly adverse to murders, just the embarrassment of them when committed by high officials.
Book Two, The Killer who Wasn’t There, will be on bookshelves this fall.
Bill writes everyday and golfs infrequently (that damn right knee!). His five children and eight grandchildren keep him busy going to birthday parties, and he never misses a one!
The Brier Patch is Bill’s wildly entertaining blog about his shameless early days in Hollywood. It’s on his website, billbrier.com, along with a contest linked to The Devil Orders Takeout, which will award the grand prizewinner $1,000.
Bill is a member of Mystery Writers of America.
AWARDS
The Devil Orders Takeout was a finalist in the 2015 Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. The Killer Who Hated Soup placed third in the Southwest Writers 2013 contest for mysteries and was shortlisted for finalist in the 2015 Faulkner Creative Writing Competition. The Killer Who Wasn’t There placed semi-finalist in the same Faulkner contest.
