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Tom Layne was born and raised in McAlester, Oklahoma, home of former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Carl Albert. In high school he was the editor of his high school newspaper and a two-sport letterman until suffering a neck injury in football. He has been married to his wife Burma for 40 years. They have three sons and four grandchildren.

Layne holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Oklahoma and a DDS from the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Dentistry. In college, he was an officer in the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He was an officer of his dental school class. Between undergrad college and dental school, he worked briefly as the sports editor of the McAlester News Capital. Between his first and second years in dental school, he worked for the federal government as a chemist on the Arkansas River Navigation Project.

Layne is a veteran, having served as a U.S. Naval officer during the Vietnam War. He practiced dentistry for ten years as an endodontist. He retired from dentistry out of boredom and founded an oil and gas production and marketing company in Oklahoma and built it into a one-hundred million dollar business. In 1993, he sold all his interests in the energy business and retired to the good life.

The good life soon ended when his wife suffered several severe heart attacks. After being defibrillated twice to save her life, she was advised to seek a heart transplant. Layne began his writing career while waiting two years for Burma to receive a heart transplant at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. She received her new heart in 2003 and has been doing great ever since.

A member of the Mystery Writers of America and Pacific Northwest Writers Association, Layne's first novel is the political thriller The Assassination of Rush Limbaugh.