About Rob Kantner
Born in Ohio in 1952,
Rob Kantner has lived in Michigan since 1972. He served a Vietnam-era hitch as a journalist in the U. S. Naval Reserve, and was honorably discharged in 1977. In 1978 he graduated from Eastern Michigan University.
Rob spent early adult years in middle-management marketing and advertising posts, later times in general management for small manufacturing/service firms. From 1995 to 2021 he ran his own business management consulting firm.
In 1982 Rob's first published fiction appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. Subsequently he published nine Ben Perkins novels and several dozen short stories. The tenth Perkins novel, Final Fling, first appeared in 2008 and was republished in 2025.
Rob won the Shamus award for private eye fiction four times. "Something Simple," a Ben Perkins short story, was anthologized in The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories (Ed Gorman, ed.) in 2000. His short story "How Wendy Tudhope Was Saved From Sure and Certain Death," published in 2003 in Alfred Hitchcock, appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2004 (Houghton Mifflin). "Down Home Blues," another Perkins short story, was published in The Best Amerian Mystery Stories 2009 (Jeffrey Deaver, Ed.).
Rob is the father of to Meaghan, John, and Robert, step-dad to Jon and Adrienne, and has six grandchildren. He lives with his ride-or-die Deanna Heath in west-central Michigan.
Latest publications
The tenth Ben Perkins novel, long out of print, is once again available in hardcover and Kindle editions.
This anthology of 18 Ben Perkins stories of crime and detection is now available for the first time in a Kindle edition.
This brand new anthology collects 13 non-Perkins crime stories published in various places between 1983 and 2006. Available in hardcover and Kindle editions.
