A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he is most famous for his bestselling Prey series of crime novels. Beginning in the early 1980s, he worked as a columnist for The Saint Paul Pioneer Press.
He studied journalism and American history at the University of Iowa. During the 1970s, he wrote for the Miami Herald.
His real name is John Roswell Camp; John Sandford is his pen name.
He grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. In 1966, he married Susan Lee Jones.
Marc Andreessen is another famous Iowa-born author.