Before turning his hand full time to fiction, Archer Mayor wrote history books, and has been variously employed as a scholarly editor, a researcher for TIME-LIFE Books, a political advance man, a theater photographer, a newspaper writer/editor, a lab technician and photo editor for Paris-Match in France, and a medical illustrator. In addition to writing novels and occasional articles, Mayor gives talks and workshops all around the Northeast (or wherever else he's invited,) including the Bread Loaf Young Writers conference in Middlebury, Vermont, and the Colby College seminar on forensic sciences in Waterville, Maine. He also works as a volunteer firefighter/Emergency Medical Technician for the NewBrook Fire Department in Newfane, Vermont, where he lives with his family. He is also an assistant medical examiner for the state of Vermont.

Mayor's current series of police novels feature Lt. Joe Gunther of the Brattleboro, Vermont police department. The books, which have been appearing about once a year since 1988, have been published in five languages (if you count British,) and routinely gather high praise from such sources as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, and many others, often appearing on their "ten best" yearly lists.