Charles Kelly, formerly an award-winning investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic and now a novelist, biographer and freelancer, is a senior writer for Legacy Preservation, heading up its southwest office in Phoenix.

Kelly grew up near Falls City, Nebraska, graduated from Creighton University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, spent two years in the U.S. Army as a military policeman, then took a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

He worked briefly as a copy editor and police reporter at the Omaha World-Herald, then spent 36 years as a reporter and columnist at The Arizona Republic. In the course of his work at the Republic, Kelly found missing heirs and wrote their stories, investigated the 1976 bomb murder of Republic reporter Don Bolles, and helped a falsely convicted American tugboat captain get out of a Mexican prison.

He is the author of the novel "Pay Here," co-author with journalist Kris Mayes of "Spin Priests," an account of the 2000 presidential election campaign, and is currently writing a biography of the hard-boiled writer Dan J. Marlowe, author of "The Name of the Game is Death." Kelly’s short story, “The Eighth Deadly Sin” will appear shortly in "Phoenix Noir," a collection of short stories published by Akashic Books in New York.

In 1992, Kelly was honored with the Arizona Journalist of the Year Award.