ABOUT DOUGLAS
Douglas Schofield was raised and educated in British Columbia, where he earned degrees in History and Law. Over the years, he has worked as a trial lawyer in Canada, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, prosecuting and defending hundreds of cases of murder, sexual assault and other serious crimes. In 2018, Douglas retired from the practice of law to devote himself full time to writing.
Although Douglas dabbled in creative writing for many years, Flight Risks was his first completed novel-length manuscript. The first draft was finished in 2002. The original 752-page manuscript went through several revisions and several years of sitting untouched in a drawer before it was finally picked up by a small publishing house in England. Enthusiastic reader feedback fully justified the publisher’s initial reaction. A January 2011 review in Victoria Times-Colonist, a leading daily newspaper in Western Canada, described Flight Risks as:
“…a fast-paced snappy thriller … utterly believable … The resolution, while something of a surprise, is absolutely satisfying”
Douglas has also written a number of screenplays. In 2004, he enrolled in an intensive screenwriting seminar in Los Angeles. He spent the entire course sitting next to an engaging young actress named Drew Barrymore. Not surprisingly, this encounter was a bit distracting, but somehow Douglas managed to pick up the essentials. A year later, his script for Time Out Of Mind, a murder mystery love story, took first prize in its category in the Fade In Magazine/Writer’s Network Screenwriting Competition. His next screenplay, Succession–a thriller set in New Jersey and England during the traumatic days following Princess Diana’s death in that Paris tunnel–attracted serious attention in Hollywood.
In 2012, Flight Risks was re-issued in the UK by MIWK Publishing. That event was followed immediately by release of his second novel, Succession, based on the screenplay.
Douglas’s third novel, Time of Departure (based on his prize-winning screenplay, Time Out Of Mind) was released by his U.S. publisher, St. Martin’s Press, in December, 2015. It was followed by Storm Rising in November 2016.
Douglas’s fifth novel, Killing Pace, was released by St. Martin’s Press on November 21, 2017.
Most recently, in a departure into true crime writing, Douglas collaborated with Giovanni Rocco, the former undercover officer who infiltrated the New Jersey crime family known as “the true Sopranos.” Their account of Rocco’s gut-wrenching adventures in that murky and dangerous Mafia world is to be found in Giovanni’s Ring – My Life Inside The Real Sopranos, released by Chicago Review Press on June 1, 2021.