Iles was born in 1960 in Stuttgart, West Germany, where his physician father ran the US Embassy Medical Clinic.

[2] He quit the band after he was married and began working on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess.

During his three-year recovery, he wrote three volumes of a trilogy set in Natchez, Mississippi, and featuring former prosecutor Penn Cage.

[6][7] Iles is a member of the literary musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders, which includes or has included authors Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, and James McBride.

[9] The ebook combines essays, fiction, musings, email exchanges and conversations, photographs, audio and video clips, and interactive quizzes to give readers a view into the private lives of the authors/musicians.