Brad Smith was born and raised in the hamlet of Canfield, southern Ontario. As a child, he had a Huck Finn existence, before working for the Canadian National Railway, where he got the chance to work in South Africa. Upon returning, Smith worked all over the place - Alberta, British Columbia, Texas - at a variety of jobs: farmer, signalman, insulator, truck driver, bartender, schoolteacher. He eventually settled on carpenter, and still works as one when not writing. He now lives in an eighty-year-old farmhouse near the north shore of Lake Erie. As well as the Virgil Cain trilogy, Smith has written five other novels.