Reed Farrel Coleman, the youngest of three boys, was born and raised in the Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island, Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn.

He has worked at an ice cream store, in air freight at Kennedy Airport, as a car leasing agent, in baby food sales, cooking at a restaurant, as a cab driver, and delivering home heating oil.

[1][2] Coleman only considered making writing a career once taking a Brooklyn College detective fiction class.

He says, though, that his single greatest writing influence was his college poetry professor, David Lehman, who provided "permission to be a writer and...the first clues on self-editing".

[1][12][13] With a four-book contract, Coleman takes over writing Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone series with the September 2014 publication of Blind Spot.

He has also been signed to a two-book deal featuring retired Suffolk County (NY) cop turned PI Gus Murphy.