Mike Bowen, a trial lawyer practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is the author of Putting Lipstick on a Pig (2006), Unforced Error (2004) and Screenscam (2002), featuring Rep and Melissa Pennyworth, as well as two other series and one stand-alone involving plucky couples that reluctantly solve classic puzzle mysteries. Retired foreign service officer Richard Michaelson and Washington bookstore owner Marjorie Randolph star in Collateral Damage (1999), Worst Case Scenario (1996), Corruptly Procured (1994), Faithfully Executed (1992) and Washington Deceased (1990). Thomas Curry and Sandrine Carlene Curry solve early 1960's mysteries in Act of Faith (1993), Fielder's Choice (1991), and Badger Game (1989). Gregg Hildebrandt and Abbey Cannon did the trick in The Fourth Glorious Mystery (2000).
        Bowen is also the author of Can't Miss (Harper & Row 1987), a novel about the first woman to play major league baseball, and of Hillary! How America's First Woman President' Won the White House (2003), a satirical and preemptive account of the 2004 presidential election which was published the year before that election actually happened and turned out to be far more interesting than the campaign that actually took place (not that that bar was particularly high). Finally, Bowen's courtroom adversaries have suggested from time to time that some of his briefs belong in the fiction category.
        Bowen has been a member and moderator of panels at several Bouchercons (national conventions of murder mystery readers and writers) and has made presentations at numerous other mystery-related events. A number of his observations are cited in Jon L. Breen's book Novel Verdicts: A Guide to Courtroom Fiction (Scarecrow Press 2d Ed. 1999). He wrote the entry on The American Legal System for the Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing (1999), and was a member of the screening panel for the 1995 Edgar Award for Best Mystery and the 1996 Edgar Award for Best Critical or Biographical Work.
        Bowen graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1976. While at Harvard, he served on the Board of Editors of the Harvard Law Review, and was a member of the winning team and was named the best oralist in the Ames Competition (moot court).
        It was during Bowen's tenure on the Review that its Board of Editors elected Susan Estrich president of the publication. Estrich was the first woman to be chosen for that position in the 90-year history of the Review. Bowen's greatest distinction as far as Harvard Law School is concerned, however, is that he is one of the few people who attended that institution during the 1970's without feeling called upon to write a book about it.
        Before going to Harvard, Bowen graduated summa cum laude from Rockhurst College, a small Jesuit college in Kansas City, Missouri. He received a bachelor's degree in History.
        Bowen was one of the counsel representing the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club in that team's successful effort to prevent construction of a maximum security prison across the street from Milwaukee County Stadium. In addition to disputes involving major league baseball teams, Bowen has represented parties in many types of commercial litigation, particularly distribution disputes. He has participated in several cases leading to published decisions of intense interest to the six people in the Western Hemisphere who care about the latter topic. An opponent of the death penalty, he has represented one death row inmate on a pro bono basis.
        Bowen is co-author of a treatise on the Wisconsin Fair Dealership Law, which was published in the summer of 1988 by the State Bar of Wisconsin and is now in its third edition. He has previously published "Discovery in Patent Interference Proceedings," which appears in 89 Harvard Law Review 573 (1975) and is every bit as fascinating as its title suggests. He is also one of the authors of Passing By: The United States and Genocide in Burundi 1972, a study co-authored with Kay Freeman and Gary Marshall, under the supervision of Dr. Roger Morris, and published in 1973 by the Humanitarian Policy Studies Project of the Carnegie Endowment for International' Peace. (Bowen was a student intern with that project during the semester that began in January, 1973. This was before "intern" became a double entendre in Washington.) In addition, Bowen has published several pieces of personal and political commentary in various newspapers and periodicals.
        Bowen has been involved in a variety of community activities, including the Landlord/Tenant and Family Law Hotlines organized by the Milwaukee Young Lawyers Association. He has received an award from the MYLA for the provision of pro bono legal services to indigent parties in civil cases.
        Bowen reads French, albeit laboriously. He doesn't speak the language well enough to communicate with people who do, but he can impress those who are entirely unfamiliar with it.
        Bowen lives with his wife, Sara Armbruster Bowen (also a Harvard Law School graduate), and their younger children, John, Marguerite and James (not yet Harvard Law School graduates), in Fox Point, a suburb of Milwaukee. Their older daughter, Rebecca, graduated from the United States Naval Academy and is on active duty in the Navy . Their oldest son, Christopher, graduated from Dartmouth and recently received his degree from George Washington University Law School.