After a successful career as an internationally-published romance writer, Rosemary Aubert turned to the world of crime, graduating with a Certificate of Criminology from the University of Toronto and publishing the six-volume award-winning, Ellis Portal mystery series. Rosemary also worked in the real world of crime. She was a security officer at the United States Consulate. She ran the office of a half-way house for men leaving the federal prison system. She served as a Community Relations director assisting women coming out of the prison system. And for ten years, she was a bailiff in the criminal courts. These experiences introduced Rosemary to a wide variety of people-innocent and guilty, dangerous and safe. These denizens of the real world of crime inspired the characters that inhabit The Midnight Boat to Palermo. Born in Niagara Falls, New York, Rosemary has long made her home in Toronto, where she has worked as a university instructor, an editor and a bookstore clerk and of course-a writer.