J R Canfield was born and raised in northern New Jersey and graduated from the Bloomfield, N.J. High School. His interest in fiction writing was awakened when he won a nationwide short story contest for ninth graders. (Actually he came in second but the original winner was disqualified.) After graduating from NYU, Canfield spent his working career in railroad operations serving as Trainmaster for his beloved DL&W R.R. (RIP Oct. 17, 1960), Superintendent, General Superintendent and Director of Operations for several rail carriers. Since retirement, Canfield has authored seven books of rail photography for Morning Sun Books, Inc. He also has written "The Bobcat Mountain Murders," a fiction effort featuring amateur detective Hamilton Smith, "Where We Went Wrong," "The Boardman Ridgeley Murders - Return to Bobcat Mountain," "Tales of an Unlikely Sleuth," "Murder x3," "The Lodge - The Disillusioning," "The Triangle - Rough Justice - Windbrooke's War," "The Vigilantes," and the railroad-themed autobiography "Life's Lessons Learned."