He is famous for creating the character of Abbie Kearney, a fictional female detective who pursues serial killers in Buffalo, New York.
Talty attended Bishop Timon High School in Buffalo, New York and Amherst College in Massachusetts, before finding employment as a journalist with the Miami Herald.
He co‑wrote the book that was the basis for Captain Phillips, and wrote The Black Hand, a novelization about the killing of Italian American cop Joe Petrosino in 1909.
[2] In 2013, the movie Captain Phillips was released in the US, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi.
The screenplay by Billy Ray was based on the 2010 book A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty as co-writer.