Chris Jay Becker is a lifelong writer, novelist, and journalist, and a fourth-generation Californian whose pioneer ancestors emigrated to Utah in 1850 and to California in the 1860s. <br> He grew up in Los Angeles hearing his grandfather’s tales of prospecting in the Mojave Desert, meeting Death Valley Scotty, and stories of the Lost Dutchman Mine. He has spent six decades studying Old West history and once visited Jesse James’s old gravestone at the James Farm in Kearney, MO. <br> His first ambition as a writer was to write Westerns like his heroes, Louis L’Amour, Max Brand, Ray Hogan, and Elmer Kelton.
