After earning a B.A. degree at Washington University in St Louis and graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Ed Cone spent a year studying political science on a Fulbright Scholarship at the Université de Lyon, France, then won a Fellowship to Columbia University's School of International Affairs. He pursued a career in publishing while writing novels and short stories on the side, has been a book reviewer and book review editor for Publishers Weekly and Library Journal, and a Tour Guide licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs. He is also an enthusiastic linguist with varying degrees of fluency in French, German, Italian, Russian, and modern Greek. He has studied tap dancing and is probably the only tap-dancing former managing editor in New York City. Originally from the South, Cone has lived with his family in Manhattan for decades. The Counterfeiter is his first published novel.