Keith Yocum was born in Ridgecrest, California, the civilian town supporting the China Lake Naval Weapons Center in the Mojave Desert. He grew up overseas as an Army brat, including long stints in the Panama Canal Zone and Western Australia. He has an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a graduate degree in journalism. Yocum is drawn to writing about men and women caught up in complex moral conflicts. He had an extensive career in publishing, including publications like The Boston Globe and The New England Journal of Medicine. He lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and is the author of eleven novels. His espionage thriller "Valley of Spies," was picked as one of the best indie mysteries, crime stories, thrillers of 2019. He was a semi-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award with his Vietnam War mystery "Daniel."