Newell Searle grew up on a Minnesota farm and graduated from a vocational high school. After earning degrees in history from Macalester College and the University of Minnesota, he ditched an academic career to conduct public affairs for corporate, non-profit, and government agencies. His early writing focused on forest conservation. Later, he turned to fiction that draws on the often-overlooked people, mores, and idioms of rural Minnesota. Copy Desk Murders is set in the 1980’s Farm Crisis when the urban-rural cultural divide became visible. He divides his time between a home in Minnetonka and a cabin in Finland, Minnesota.