Justin Scott has written twenty-nine thrillers and mystery novels, including The Shipkiller, Normandie Triangle, A Pride of Royals, Rampage, The Widow of Desire, The Nine Dragons, and Treasure Island: A Modern Novel. With many of his books set at sea, he has been called “the Dick Francis of yachting.”
In his life as a mystery writer, he created the Ben Abbott detective series (HardScape, StoneDust, FrostLine, McMansion, and Mausoleum), and was twice nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award by the Mystery Writers of America: for his first novel Many Happy Returns; and his short story “An Eye for a Tooth” in the Adams Round Table Anthology Justice in Manhattan.
Scott’s main pen name is Paul Garrison under which he has written five sea stories (Fire And Ice, Red Sky At Morning, Buried At Sea, Sea Hunter, and The Ripple Effect).
He collaborates with Clive Cussler on the Isaac Bell adventures (The Wrecker, The Spy, The Race, The Thief), set in early 20th Century America. As Paul Garrison, he writes the Janson novels, (The Janson Command) a modern thriller series inspired by Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Directive.
Scott was born in Manhattan and grew up on Long Island’s Great South Bay in a family of professional writers. His father, A. Leslie Scott, wrote some 250 Western novels—under a variety of pen names, a penchant for which runs in the family—and reams of poetry. His mother, Lily K. Scott, wrote novels and romances as well as short stories for slicks and pulps. His sister, Alison Scott Skelton, is also a novelist, as was her late husband, C.L. Skelton.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Scott worked at a variety of jobs: he drove boats and trucks, built Fire Island beach houses, tended bar in a Hell’s Kitchen saloon, and edited an electronic engineering journal. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in American history, and has traveled extensively in Russia, China, and Scotland, while researching his novels. In addition to his Garrison pen name, Justin Scott has written mysteries as J.S. Blazer and Alexander Cole. All live in Connecticut with his wife, the filmmaker Amber Edwards