Merle Temple is the author of the Michael Parker series: Deputy: Once Upon A Time in Mississippi, Blood On The Ground, A Ghostly Shade of Pale, A Rented World, The Redeemed: A Leap of Faith, and Resurrection: Home Before Dark.

The novels are written as fiction but drawn from his experiences as a deputy sheriff, a Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics agent and captain in the first drug wars, a manager in the corporate world, and a Georgia campaign chairman where the world tried to crush him.

Drug dealers plotted where to bury his body, hit men tried to kill him, and treachery led all the way to the White House when he opposed government malfeasance and the unholy trinity of politics, crime, and business. He was class president of the New England Institute of Management and founded the most successful Christian ministry in the history of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Merle signed books for the casts of Criminal Minds and Major Crimes in Hollywood, appeared on KKLA, the largest Christian radio station in America, and dined with Morgan Freeman. X-G Productions took an option on the books for a proposed TV series based on a life story that epitomizes the saying: "Truth is stranger than fiction." He was the state criminal justice chairman for Ronald Reagan and the Georgia Chairman of the Reagan Legacy Project. He met many of the iconic figures of the twentieth century including British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and was mentored by Cappy Harada, aide to General Douglas MacArthur, and Colonel Donald Ware, Air Force fighter pilot and scientist on SDI, Star Wars.

His books are used in many middle and high school English classes in five states, and are required reading at three colleges. Ghostly is the all-time bestselling novel at the Barnes and Noble store in Tupelo, and his books are favorites in many church libraries, including the 30,000 member Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. His books are in shelters and prisons in California, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. The books were received by the Vicar of Baghdad in Jerusalem, and they were in the bookstore attached to Christ Church, the oldest protestant church in the Middle East.

Merle signs books across America, and speaks to churches, schools, civic clubs, book clubs, and library groups. He has interviewed on radio and TV stations from Alaska to Florida and New York to California and in Israel and Australia to warn of the dangers and darkness of this rented world and to tell of his journey to the peace and purpose of Jesus Christ.