RICK CAMPBELL, a retired Navy Commander, spent more than twenty-five years in the Navy, serving on four nuclear-powered submarines, finishing his career with tours in the Pentagon and in the Washington Navy Yard. On his last submarine, he was one of the two men whose permission is required to launch the submarine's nuclear warhead-tipped missiles.

Upon retirement from the Navy, Rick tried his hand at writing and was offered a two-book deal (which has been extended to a four-book deal) by Macmillan / St. Martin's Press for his novel - The Trident Deception, which has been hailed by Booklist as "The best submarine novel since Tom Clancy's classic - The Hunt for Red October". Rick lives with his wife and three children in the greater Washington, D.C. area, and is working on the third and fourth books in this series, sequels to The Trident Deception (2014) and Empire Rising (2015), due out in 2016 and 2017.