C. M. Wendelboe entered the law enforcement profession when he was discharged from the Marines as the Vietnam War was winding down. In the 1970s, his career included assisting federal and tribal law enforcement agencies embroiled in conflicts with American Indian Movement activists in South Dakota. He moved to Gillette, Wyoming, and found his niche, where he remained a sheriff's deputy for more than twenty-five years. During his thirty-eight-year career in law enforcement, he had served successful stints as police chief, policy adviser, and other supervisory roles for several agencies. Yet he always has felt most proud of "working the street." He was a patrol supervisor when he retired to pursue his true vocation as a fiction writer. Wendelboe is a prolific author of murder mysteries with a Western flair, as well as traditional Westerns. He writes the Spirit Road Mysteries, the Bitter Wind Mystery series, the Nelson Lane Frontier Mysteries, and the Tucker Ashley Western Adventure series.