I’m a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) serious crimes detective with a second stint doing sudden and unexplained death investigations for the British Columbia Coroners Service. In my younger years, I served as a marksman (sniper) on British Special Air Services (SAS) trained RCMP Emergency Response Teams. I’m also a recognized expert witness in Canadian courts on the identification and operation of firearms.

In my third reincarnation, I made #5 bragging rights on the Amazon Best Seller list, sandwiched between the names Stephen King and Dean Koontz with my debut crime thriller No Witnesses To Nothing. It’s based on a true story where many believe paranormal intervention occurred. At the moment, I was working on a series of books based on true crime cases I was involved in. These are In The Attic, Under The Ground, From The Shadows, Beside The Road, On The Floor, Between The Bikers, Beyond The Limits, and At The Cabin.  There are a total of twelve books planned in this Amazon Prime series, but I suddenly switched to an entirely new hardboiled detective fiction, Netflix-style series called City Of Danger. Logline/Pitch: A modern city in existential crisis caused by malevolent artificial intelligence enlists two private detectives from its 1920s past for an impossible task: Dispense street justice and restore social order.

2020 was a strange year. That’s putting it mildly. Despite the doom and gloom of a worldwide pandemic, I had my best writing year ever. I changed my publishing business model from being Amazon-exclusive and “went wide” by partnering with Kobo, Apple, and Nook. By year’s end, I had over 25,000 eBook downloads in 56 different countries. That gave me international bestselling status which has now grown (October 2024) to 175,000 downloads in 111 countries.

I have a popular blog here at DyingWords with a third-million website hits per year. The tagline is provoking thoughts on life, death, and writing. There are 400+ posts ranging from rants on bureaucratic stupidity to analyzing high-profile death cases. I used to blog at the HuffPost and do ghost-written op-eds over there, but I’ve signed off from the divisive politics and toxic trolls. Recently, The Kill Zone gang invited me as a regular contributor which is flattering and encouraging peer recognition.

Besides writing books and blogs, I’ve progressed into the film industry as a content producer. I formed a service titled Twenty-Second Century Entertainment—22ENT for short. I do screenplay and script planning as well as consulting on specialties like police procedures, forensic applications, and realism in dialogue and characterization. I also appear on-camera as a resource in non-scripted documentaries and podcasts.

A few non-fictional facts about me…

• My first name is actually Alan – not Garry.
• I’m hyper-allergic to root beer (sarsaparilla).
• I’ve had my nose broken six times and it shows.
• I’ve never owned nor operated a crystal meth lab.
• I’m really good at losing money on the stock market.
• My Levi’s jean size has been 32-32 since high school days.
• I’m 68 and can still fit into my RCMP red serge issued in 1978.
• I collect neckties and have around 500 of them. Seriously, I do.
• I’m a passionate cook. Not a chef, but I thoroughly enjoy cooking.
• I ruk n’ rope and aim for 6-8,000 steps per day.  12 if real ambitious.
• I grew up around the drag strip and was an NHRA C – SuperMod racer.
• I also raced snowmobiles (sleds) for Mercury Marine on the SnoPro circuit.
• I won a mechanical bull riding competition — stayed on 8.75 seconds at level 8.
• I pulled nearly 3 Gs doing a loop while strapped into a US Navy F-18 flight simulator.
• I was struck by lightning and survived to talk about it (that really, really, really sucked).
• I was bitten by a venomous brown recluse spider while I was innocently writing a book.
• I was completely humiliated by having to karaoke-sing You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog.
• I won an award for Outstanding Police Service from the Province of British Columbia. It’s dated November 27, 1986  but no one seems to know what it was that I did. I checked back in my notes and see I wasn’t even on duty that day.  Okay, it looks good on my wall.
• Oh, and I almost killed Neil Young, the rocker. Neil was flying over a tree-lined hill crest on his bicycle at Botanical Beach near Port Renfrew west of Victoria on Vancouver Island, and I nearly bug-squashed him with the brush guard on my Ford Explorer. It was close. Real close, I’ll tell ya. Like, laundry time for the Old Man with the Heart Of Gold.

Outside of being an old murder cop, an accredited body snatcher, and self-appointed crime writer, I’m a certified boat skipper. I went to school, took Transport Canada courses, wrote exams, and proved sea time to get my 60-Tonne Marine Captain ticket. I’m good-to-go (from a legal point) to run tugs, seiners, small ferries, and luxury yachts. However, outside of operating a few touristy whale and grizzly bear-watching boats, I don’t drive watercraft commercially. I just love spending time around the Pacific saltwater near my home in Nanaimo on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island at Canada’s beautiful west coast.

Here’s some pics of my mind-space… my story-lab… my imagination cavern… my AI room… my writing & recording studio.