John Straley graduated from the Browning School for Boys in New York City in 1971.  His father had grown up in Iowa and Wyoming and didn’t care to have his youngest son become a city boy. On his way to earning degrees in literature from the University of Washington John worked summers in the wilderness of north central Washington State as a wrangler, horseshoer, mill worker and trail crew foreman.

John married Janice (Morrison) Straley - now a prominent marine biologist - and her work took them to Sitka, Alaska where John became a private investigator and wrote The Woman Who Married a Bear, the first in the Cecil Younger series, published in 1992.  In the years since John continued the Cecil Younger series, has written four books in the Cold Storage, Alaska series and has published five books of poetry. He won the best first mystery Shamus award and the Spotted Owl award for the best northwest mystery, was appointed Writer Laureate of Alaska in 2006 and was awarded an honorary PhD from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

In 2017 John retired from the Alaska Public Defender Agency. In October of 2022 he and Jan moved to Carmel, California to be closer to family and to high quality healthcare. After more than 40 years in Sitka John remains an Alaskan at heart.