California-born crime novelist J.D. Knight worked 10 years for the City of Oakland on public safety technology projects, including web-based crime incident maps used by citizens in community policing.

His first novel ZERO TOLERANCE (Bantam Doubleday Dell) was nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America, and lauded as “an impressive debut” by bestselling author Richard North Patterson.

Knight conducted his field research by riding along with Oakland Police response units during the ‘dogwatch’ shifts.

He studied creative writing at UC Berkeley under award-winning teachers: Leonard Michaels, Thom Gunn, Louise Glück and Ishmael Reed.

J.D. Knight is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and spent many school vacations with his grandmother in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.