Robert Germaux

Both my parents were readers. I'm talking stacks-of-books-on-their-nightstands readers. So it's no surprise that an early age, I, too, became an avid reader. Everything from sports books (especially baseball) to Nancy Drew to the Hardy Boys to almost anything about distant and exotic places. And although I've always enjoyed putting words on paper, the writer in me didn't fully emerge until I retired after three decades of teaching high school English. I quickly wrote two books aimed at middle school readers, at which point my wife urged me to try a novel for adults. As is usually the case, Cynthia's idea was a good one, and I’ve now written five books about Pittsburgh private eye Jeremy Barnes, four of which (“Small Bytes,” “Leaving the LAW,” “Hard Court” and “In the Eye”) are currently available on Amazon, with “Speak Softly” coming soon. I’ve also written two books (“Small Talk” and “One by One”) about Pittsburgh police detective Daniel Hayes. Along the way, I took a brief hiatus from the detective genre to write “The Backup Husband,” the plotline of which came to me one day when I was playing the What-if game. On that particular day, the question that occurred to me was, What if a woman suddenly realized she might be in love with two wonderful men? I also tried my hand at writing humorous essays, which resulted in “Grammar Sex (and other stuff),” “More Grammar Sex” and “Grammar Sex 3,” what I like to call my Grammar Sex Trilogy. Recently, I tried something completely different, a semi-biographical novel based on my wife’s experiences during the six weeks she spent in Europe prior to her senior year in high school. “Love Stories” bounces back and forth between that summer of 1966 and 1989, the year we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, and also the year that, in my narrative, Cynthia reconnects with one of the boys from that summer in Europe, someone who suddenly reappears in her life after two decades of silence. In our spare time, Cynthia and I enjoy reading (of course), seeing Broadway plays and musicals, watching reruns of our favorite TV shows, such as "Sports Night" and "The Gilmore Girls," and traveling to some of those distant and exotic places I used to read about as a child. So far, we've been fortunate enough to walk in the sands of Waikiki, swim in the warm waters of the South Pacific, enjoy a romantic dinner in Paris and celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary with a cruise of the Mediterranean. I love interacting with my readers and getting their input on my stories and c