It has been said that John Hansen is an adventurous, front lines type of guy. In 1966, at age 19, he joined the U.S. Navy, itching to go to Vietnam. He served over half of his four-year enlistment as a Gunners Mate aboard a WW2 vintage amphibious assault ship that was deployed on lone missions to remote locations and participated in several major assault operations on the coastal waters and rivers of South Vietnam, the DMZ and other places.

After his honorable discharge in 1970 he joined the Bellevue, Washington Police Department. While in the Patrol Division, his fellow officers nicknamed him “Mad Dog” for his high arrest rate and tenacity. After ten years he transferred to the Detective Division where for eleven years he worked homicide, suicide, robbery, assault, rape, missing person and serial sex offender investigations, earning him a reputation for unraveling long-term, complex cases.

Following his retirement from law enforcement in 1991, John’s cases as a private investigator took him to Northern Europe, Russia, New York and Alaska, Mexico, Guatemala, and the Caribbean Islands. His track record for finding hard-to-find people, provided they were upright, breathing and in the U.S. was 100%.

Though not raised in a Christian home, John underwent a fiery Christian conversion while in his early 30s. No stranger to action or the gritty side of life, for years he reached out to the down-and-out in society’s trenches-the Seattle waterfront andSkid Row, often at night. He made weekly outreach visits to inmates the King County Jail and several state prisons.

After moving his family to Arizona in 2002, John quickly became involved in the border crisis as a volunteer. In 2009, he lost Kristene, his wife of twenty-eight years to cancer. Grief stricken, he wrote Song of the Waterwheel to honor her and the marriage he lost. While becoming grounded again through his faith and riding on mounted search-and-rescue missions with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s posse, he met and fell in love with Patricia, who had been helping him with editing and sales and married her after a year of dating

At the urging of his readers, John continued writing award-winning and published stories and essays based on his experiences. Looking back, he realized he had served on the front lines during his time as a cop in the 70’s, a pivotal decade for America. Thus he began writing The Bluesuit Chronicles series to tell the untold side of the Boomer generation.