Jack Kerley worked in advertising and teaching before becoming a full-time novelist. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, but also spends a good deal of time in Southern Alabama, the setting for The Hundredth Man.

His love of the suspense genre was sparked at age thirteen, when his father gave him a collection of Saint stories by Leslie Charteris. Other cited influences include William Shakespeare, Louis Armstrong, and any large and moving body of water. Jack Kerley is married with two children.