James Grady was born and raised in Shelby and graduated from the University of Montana. He was a research analyst for the state’s 1972 Constitutional Convention and a legislative aide to Montana’s U.S. Senator Lee Metcalf during Watergate. Grady’s first novel, Six Days Of The Condor, became the iconic Robert Redford movie. He has published more than a dozen other novels, twice that many short stories, and worked as a national investigative reporter.