Paul L. Gaus biography

Paul L. Gaus Biography

Paul L. Gaus was born in Athens, Ohio, in 1949, and he has lived in Ohio for most of his life.  He has lived in Wooster, Ohio, for the past 33 years with his wife Madonna.  Paul's extensive knowledge of the culture and lifestyle of the Ohio Amish comes from over thirty years of travel throughout Holmes and surrounding counties in Ohio, where the world's largest Amish and Mennonite population sprawls out over the countryside near Millersburg, Wooster, and Sugarcreek. 

Paul took an interest in writing fiction in 1993, and with the advice and encouragement of author Tony Hillerman, he began writing mystery novels set among the Amish in Holmes County, Ohio. The first of Gaus's mysteries, Blood of the Prodigal, An Ohio Amish Mystery, was published by Ohio University Press in June of 1999.

Paul and his wife Madonna still travel frequently in Holmes County. He lectures widely about Amish culture at libraries, bookstores, literary societies, and the like, and his books have been featured at Book Expo America and similar professional shows and book fairs around the country. Paul frequently attends writer's conventions such as Malice Domestic and Bouchercon. Paul's novels have been reviewed in prominent journals and newspapers, for instance, Kirkus Reviews, ForeWord Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Booklist, Ohioana Quarterly, and the New York Times Book Review. Paul retired recently as the Benjamin S. Brown Professor of Chemistry at The College of Wooster, where he was Chairperson of the Chemistry Department. He was educated at Miami University (B.S.) and Duke University (Ph.D.), and he has held positions as Visiting Professor of Chemistry at the University of Illinois, Texas A&M University, University of Wisconsin (Madison), and The Ohio State University. In his academic career, he taught chemistry at the freshman, junior, and senior levels, and he is co-author of the best-selling senior text, Basic Inorganic Chemistry, published in its third edition in 1995, by John Wiley and Sons. (Abbreviated from the author's website Jan 2016)


Ohio Amish Mystery series order to date:
Blood Of The Prodigal (1998)
Broken English (2000)
Clouds Without Rain (2001)
Cast a Blue Shadow (2003)
A Prayer for the Night (2006)
Separate from the World (2008)
Harmless as Doves (2011)
The Names of Our Tears (2013)
Whiskers of the Lion (2014)

Paul L. Gaus's website

This bio was last updated on 01/07/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.