Robert Goldsborough has been a writer and editor in Chicago for almost half a century. He spent more than 20 years each with the Chicago Tribune (where he was Sunday Magazine Editor for seven years) and Advertising Age, the national marketing publication, where he was a writer and editor. He also has published seven murder mysteries from Bantam Books marking the return of classic detective Nero Wolfe, who was created by Rex Stout. Most recently, he has published four murder mystery novels featuring his own detective, a Chicago newspaperman. The first book, “Three Strikes You’re Dead,” published by Echelon Press, is set in Chicago in 1938, with its central character Steve “Snap” Malek, a police reporter with the Chicago Tribune. The book mixes fictional characters with the real people of the time, including actress Helen Hayes, baseball star Dizzy Dean, mafia kingpin Al Capone, Tribune Publisher Col. Robert R. McCormick, and future Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. Settings include Oak Park and the Chicago neighborhoods of Logan Square, Beverly Hills and North Clark Street in the vicinity of Wrigley Field.
A second Snap Malek murder mystery, “Shadow of the Bomb,” was released by Echelon in 2006 and is set at the University of Chicago in 1942 against a backdrop of the early experiments leading to the development of the atomic bomb. Famed Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi makes an appearance in the book. Goldsborough’s third book in the Malek mystery series, “Death in Pilsen,” was published by Echelon in October 2007 and Goldsborough’s fourth Steve Malek book, “To Kill a President,” set against the 1948 presidential campaign between Harry Truman and Thomas E. Dewey, and was published by Echelon Press in 2009.
Goldsborough has been a winner of the Nero Award, presented annually by the Wolfe Pack, for mystery writing in the tradition of the late Rex Stout. He also won “Best Historical Mystery” in 2005 from the Love Is Murder” conference for “Three Strikes You’re Dead.”
A resident of Wheaton, Ill., Goldsborough is married with four children and five grandchildren.