Brighton, Robert: - Robert Brighton, award-winning author of the Avenging Angel Detective Agency(TM) Mysteries, is an authority on the turbulent final years of the Gilded Age, a vibrant, exciting era that is all too often misunderstood as stuffy and sexless. In his novels, Brighton peels away the glittering surface of the turn of the last century-a time both utterly strange and strangely familiar-to reveal the passions, conflicts, and human drama churning just beneath.When not writing novels, Brighton is an adventurer, having traveled to fifty-six countries around the world, and usually on only a few dollars a day. He is a relentless researcher who, before writing any of his historical novels, spent almost four years reading-cover to cover-four major newspapers from 1897-1904. Among his somewhat quixotic career choices, he has been a mule wrangler, a bison rancher, and a vintage automobile restorer.A graduate of the Sorbonne, Brighton is an admirer of Emily Dickinson and Jim Morrison. He is fond of tinkering with anything mechanical, splitting firewood, and observing the weather.He lives in Virginia with his wife and their two British Shorthair cats.