Christopher Newman

Christopher Newman was born in San Francisco, California and raised in the Santa Clara Valley before its thousands of acres of apricots,cherries and prunes were turned to Silicon. 

In his youth he traveled overland alone from Europe across the Asian subcontinent to Singapore. Before he was 21, he had been incarcerated in a Thai drug prison and worked for a year aboard a super-tanker plying trade between the Persian Gulf and ports around the Pacific rim.  

He wrote the first draft of his third published novel, Manana Man, while in residence in Cali, Colombia his senior year in college. 

At 27, he moved to New York City, working as a trim carpenter before publishing his first Joe Dante novel, Midtown South, in 1985. When that title met with considerable commercial success, his publisher convinced him to turn his protagonist into a series character. 

Eight more Joe Dante novels followed, several making various national best seller lists. Midtown North, published in 1991, was nominated for an Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America. 

Chains of Command, left unfinished at the time of best-selling author William Caunitz's death in 1998, was completed by Mr. Newman at the estate's request. It was named a 1999 New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Mr. Newman has a BA in Literature/Creative Writing from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University.   

Three new suspense thrillers featuring protagonist Sean Malloy, a California-based former FBI profiler and Defense Department violent crimes investigator turned medical cannabis advocate.are forthcoming from TouchPoint Press: The Forced Hand in 2024  soon to be followed by Pillage and Not Bad Enough. 

In addition to his suspense thriller work, Mr. Newman also writes contemporary slice-of-life novels with an emphasis on social justice under the pen name Pete O'Brien. The fourth of those titles, Barstow Boy- a love story, was published by Impolitic  Press in 2024.