Finley Martin's education includes a B.A, M.A. (English) and a B.Ed., as well as Master's Certificate for forty-ton vessels. For two years he was public relations director for International Correspondence Schools and its subsidiaries. He had taught writing courses at the University of Prince Edward Island. His publishing credits include poetry and short stories. He wrote one history book: A View From the Bridge (1984). He edited and contributed to a literary anthology called New Atlantic Writing (1975). He penned feature stories for US and Canadian magazines and wrote and narrated five broadcast journalism pieces for CBC-Radio. He wrote three novels, The Reluctant Detective (2011), the award-winning The Dead Letter (2015), and Killings at Little Rose (2019).