CHARLES PHILIPP MARTIN

Charles Philipp Martin grew up in New York City's Greenwich Village. His father was an opera conductor and both his parents well-known opera translators and librettists. After attending Columbia University and Manhattan School of Music, Martin took off for a six-year paid vacation in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

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While in Hong Kong he hung up his bow and turned to writing, spending four years as a Sunday Magazine columnist for the South China Morning Post, and writing for magazines all over Southeast Asia. His weekly jazz radio show 3 O'Clock Jump was heard every Saturday on Hong Kong’s Radio 3 for some two decades.

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His suspense novel Neon Panic, published in 2011, introduced Hong Kong police inspector Herman Lok. Rented Grave, the first in a new Inspector Lok series, appeard in August 2024. Martin now lives in Seattle with his wife Catherine.