Chris Grabenstein was born in Buffalo, New York. At the age of ten he moved to Signal Mountain Tennessee and attended Chattanooga's Notre Dame High School. He studied journalism and theater at college and then moved to New York City. For five years, he performed and won awards with some of the city's top Improvisational Comedy troupes, making up scenes and songs on the spot in front of live audiences, just like they did on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" When not writing scripts for his friends to perform in the small Greenwich Village theatre, Chris also wrote for Jim Henson's Muppets. In 1986, he and his college buddy Ronny Venable wrote a TV movie for CBS called The Christmas Gift. It starred… John Denver and can still be seen almost every year during the holidays, usually on the Hallmark Channel. Chris also spent close to twenty years writing radio and television commercials for Burger King, Seven Up, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dr Pepper, and many, many others. Grabenstein won the Anthony Award for best first mystery for his first adult mystery Tilt A Whirl. The other books in that mystery series have received all sorts of critical praise are called Mad Mouse, Whack A Mole, Hell Hole, Mind Scrambler and Rolling Thunder. In 2012 Chris collaborated with James Patterson on the book I Funny: A Middle School Story, which made The New York Time's Best Seller List. Chris is also the author of bestselling children's book Escape from Mr. Lemonchello's Library.