As a specialist in infectious diseases worldwide, Ross Pennie has treated multifarious patients battling every germ imaginable, from drug-resistant malaria in Papua New Guinea to flesh-eating Streptococcus in Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe. His first two Zol Szabo mysteries, Tainted and Tampered, won the Arts Hamilton Literary Award for fiction. The third, Up in Smoke, stirred the RCMP into investigating the trade in contraband tobacco in eastern Canada. He is the father of two adult children and lives with his wife in southern Ontario.