ON TOUR WITH DEAD WRITERS: Renaissance Man

by Rogue Women Writers | Nov 11, 2025 | On Tour With Dead Writers, The Writer's Life

by Z. J. Czupor

ZJ Czupor‘s On Tour with Dead Writers brings us clues to a mystery author each second Tuesday of the month. Dust off your investigative skills and send your answer to mysteryminutecontest@gmail.com by the 20th of the month. From the correct responses, one will be randomly drawn to win a copy of The Falcon by Rogue Isabella Maldonado!

dead writers parents started this camp — In 1953, this famous author’s parents started Echo Hill Ranch in Texas’s Hill Country as a camp for children and as a rescue camp for dogs needing adoption. It closed operations after 60 years, but then he and his sister re-opened the camp as a “Gold Star” program for kids whose father or mother was killed in military service. They also opened the camp to children of Afghan refugees and other kids in need and offered them free attendance.
*Photo courtesy,* Echo Hill Ranch, Doug Brown.

Born in Chicago in 1944 to Jewish parents, he and his family later moved to the Texas Hill Country where they opened a summer camp for children. In addition to running the ranch, his father was a professor at the University of Texas, and his mother was a speech therapist.

At the age of seven, he was one of 50 chess players to challenge U.S. grandmaster Samuel Reshevsky (1911-1992) to simultaneous games in Houston. He lost and Reshevsky won all 50 games. In later years, the author said, “I let the older man win so as not to hurt his feelings.”

He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and served in the U.S. Peace Corps for three years in Borneo, Malaysia as an agricultural extension worker. When he returned to his parent’s ranch in Texas, he founded Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch where he saved more than 1,000 dogs from euthanasia.

While at summer camp he was drawn to country and western music because it was the only music he could find on the radio. He later formed two bands. The first band satirized the Beach Boys’ surf music and the second satirized country rock music. His songs were full of social commentary and often criticized bigotry. He sang and toured with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, appeared on Saturday Night Live, and the Grand Ole Opry.

After his music career lost steam in the 1980s, he focused on writing detective novels, whose main character featured a fictionalized version of himself solving crimes in New York City with the aid of a close friend, ala Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous characters Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Who was this famous author?

Click here for the answer!

Did you guess Laura DiSilverio last month? Cherie in Florida won Evidence of Murder by Rogue Lisa Black!

Subscribe to our Newsletter to receive an extra clue at the beginning of each month as well as automatic entry to several more monthly Giveaways and first looks at weekly blogs!

Contest rules:
1. All US addresses are eligible to win.
2. Each month’s prize will be a book written by one of the Rogues and donated by that author.
3. All subscribers who email us with the correct answer before the 20th will be entered in a drawing to win.

Z.J. Czupor’s new murder mystery, When The Fog Rises, is published at zjames.substack.com. He’s also the author of the thriller Cut Right Through Me (also at Substack) and a book of poetry THE BIG WEIRD: Haikus in Times of Pandemic and Chaos. Z.J. is immediate past president of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. He is represented by Terrie Wolf, founder and owner of AKA Literary Management.