Hammer has a history of true crime in his family, from the time when his grandfather built the hide out for Pretty Boy Floyd. He was born in Joplin, Missouri, where Bonnie and Clyde worked. His fiction writing style, as if Dan Brown shared a split personality with S. J. Perelman, is much different from his non-fiction, which includes writing over 500 stories. Hammer has also written the novel Mesmerizing Poe, available on Amazon.