Ernesto Patino grew up in El Paso where he graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso. He received a Bachelor of Music Degree and taught school for a couple of years before joining the FBI as a Special Agent. His career spanned 23 years, most of which were spent in South Florida. He now lives in Southern Arizona with his wife Pamela with whom he shares a passion for ethnic cuisines, classical music and traveling. The characters in his novels are loosely based on people he met during the course of his life as an FBI agent and later as a private investigator.