BOOKS

Robert Anderson was raised in a small corn town in Illinois with two older sisters and a brother. His father was an English professor and mother who was an artist and a school teacher.

 In 1972 his family moved to St. Louis, Missouri to attend a private Christian boarding school. Robert played several sports but at the age nine put all of his efforts into excelling at tennis. He competed at a national level throughout his junior years earning an athletic scholarship in 1981 to Rice University in Houston, Texas. His senior year he transferred to a California school to complete his education. After graduating he moved to Mercer Island, Washington to be the tennis pro at a private club. He attended Seattle Pacific University in 1987 and obtained a teaching credential and substitute taught for two years. 

In 1990 he moved back to Southern California where he was a fitness instructor and manager of a health club in Dana Point. At the age of thirty he returned to the Midwest to pursue a career in law enforcement. He completed the St. Louis City police academy and spent a year on their department before moving to Tennessee to become an officer for the Nashville-Davidson County PD. He served twenty-six years on their agency, twenty-one of them as a homicide detective, before retiring in 2020.