William Martin is the author of eight novels, an award-winning PBS documentary, and a horror movie that's now considered a cult classic. But he's best known for his historical novels, which have chronicled the history of Boston, New England, and the nation.

His first novel, Back Bay (1980) spent fourteen weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List, and his latest, The Lost Constitution, debuts on the Mass Market List at #19 on June 29, 2008. The works in between have established him, in the words of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, as a "master story-teller."  At the publication of Annapolis, a saga about the U.S. Navy, Publisher's Weekly said "Martin is the maritime Michener." Of his biographical novel, Citizen Washington, USA Today wrote, " Deft, spicy, and excitingly readable... This fiction is so complex in its understanding of humanity as to seem actually true."

And he has joined the historical novel and the mystery-thriller to create a genre all its own. In Back Bay, Cape Cod, Harvard Yard, and now, The Lost Constitution, his characters track the passage of priceless artifacts through American history while, in alternating chapters, the history comes to life. He explores the links we have to the past - to the decisions of distant ancestors, to the evolution of the physical world, to the grand movements of history itself.

But his first goal is to keep readers turning pages. He says, "This is a story. It's supposed to be fun..." And he has told his tale so well that The New England Booksellers Association gave him their 2005 New England Book Award for Fiction.