Son of an American mother and a Spanish father, Josué Raúl Conte, a native of Andorra, a principality in the Pyrenees, was born in 1969. After his early education with the Jesuits, he enrolled at the Opus Dei University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, where he received his doctorate in medieval philosophy and literature. During his years at the university, he became a member of the Neo-catechumenal Way, but later was very disillusioned with the stringent constraints of ultraconservative Catholicism and adopted a more moderate approach to the faith and dropped out of the Way. Having taught at various colleges and universities, he is now a freelance journalist, living in San Francisco with his second wife Alicia and Ivan, their Russian wolfhound. He is also author of The Chancery Murders and Rosanada Requiem that continue the story that began in The Stones Cry Out! and complete The Rosanada Trilogy.