Decure, John

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DeCURE, John

PERSONAL:

Married; children: two sons. Education: California State University, Fullerton, B.A. (English); graduated from law school, 1990; studied creative writing at University of California, Irvine. Hobbies and other interests: Skateboarding, surfing.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Long Beach, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010.

CAREER:

Attorney and author. Motorola, San Jose, CA, salesman; called to the Bar of the State of California, 1990; juvenile dependency court attorney, 1991-93; California State Bar, Los Angeles, prosecuting attorney; Office of California Attorney General, prosecuting attorney.

WRITINGS:

Reef Dance, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2001.

Bluebird Rising, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals, including Surfer and Surfer's Journal.

SIDELIGHTS:

John DeCure is a California attorney and mystery writer. His debut novel, Reef Dance, introduces readers to protagonist J. Shepard, a young West Coast lawyer who spends his days in court and his free time catching waves on his surfboard.

DeCure, an avid surfer, grew up in La Mirada, California. After receiving an undergraduate degree in English, he worked in sales for a copier company and then for Motorola before attending law school. He began his legal career in juvenile dependency court, a vocation his Reef Dance protagonist also shares. While still dedicated to practicing law, DeCure started to write in his spare time and began studying creative writing in the evening. A year after accepting a position as a prosecutor for the State Bar of California, he began writing his first novel.

The title of Reef Dance comes from a surfing term used to indicate being stuck in one place, a situation in which DeCure's Shepard metaphorically finds himself. Shepard is frustrated in his personal life and overwhelmed by his caseload, until his work on a case involving a mother who has tried to sell her newborn child motivates him to explore the mysterious disappearance of his own mother when he was sixteen. Surfing plays a prominent role in the novel, and Joanne Wilkinson noted in Booklist that the "amply detailed surfing scenes and the rude, irreverent humor give this debut novel plenty of zip." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly dubbed Reef Dance an "edgy, in-your-face legal thriller," but added that "most readers …will find that surfing and detection make for an uneasy mix." David Olan in Surfer ranked the novel "with some of the best in surf fiction" and Rex E. Klett in Library Journal highly recommended the novel, writing that "surfing commentary, savory courtroom melodrama, and wry humor provide much attraction." DeCure's second J. Shepard novel, Bluebird Rising, was published in late 2003.