WDonna Andrews is an American mystery fiction writer of two award-winning amateur sleuth series. Her first book, Murder with Peacocks (1999), introduced Meg Langslow, a blacksmith from Yorktown, Virginia. It won the St. Martin's Minotaur Best First Traditional Mystery contest, the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice awards for best first novel, and the Lefty award for funniest mystery of 1999. The first novel in the Turing Hopper series debuted a highly unusual sleuth—an Artificial Intelligence (AI) personality who becomes sentient—and won the Agatha Award for best mystery that year.
WNevada Barr is an American author of mystery fiction. She is known for her Anna Pigeon series, which is primarily set in a series of national parks and other protected areas of the United States.
WSarah Caudwell was the pseudonym of Sarah Cockburn, a British barrister and writer of detective stories. She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred on the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln’s Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a professor of medieval law, who also acts as detective.
WJames Dover Grant, primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.
WDame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, Lady Mallowan, was an English writer known for her sixty-six detective novels and fourteen short story collections, particularly those revolving around fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, which was performed in the West End from 1952 to 2020, as well as six novels under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. In 1971, she was made a Dame (DBE) for her contributions to literature. Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling fiction writer of all time, her novels having sold more than two billion copies.
WHarlan Coben is an American writer of mystery novels and thrillers. The plots of his novels often involve the resurfacing of unresolved or misinterpreted events in the past, murders, or fatal accidents and have multiple twists. Among his novels are two series, each involving the same protagonist set in and around New York and New Jersey; some characters appear in both.
WReed Farrel Coleman is an American writer of crime fiction and a poet.
WMax Allan Collins is an American mystery writer, noted for his graphic novels. His work has been published in several formats and his Road to Perdition series was the basis for a film of the same name. He wrote the Dick Tracy newspaper strip for many years and has produced numerous novels featuring the character as well.
WMichael Joseph Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of 31 novels and one work of non-fiction, with over 74 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 40 foreign languages. His first novel, The Black Echo, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly's 1997 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer starred Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.
WJohn Connolly is an Irish writer who is best known for his series of novels starring private detective Charlie Parker.
WPatricia Cornwell is an American crime writer. She is known for her best-selling novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, of which the first was inspired by a series of sensational murders in Richmond, Virginia, where most of the stories are set. The plots are notable for their emphasis on forensic science, which has influenced later TV treatments of police work. Cornwell has also initiated new research into the Jack the Ripper killings, incriminating the popular British artist Walter Sickert. Her books have sold more than 100 million copies.
WRobert Crais is an American author of detective fiction. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. His writing is influenced by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck. Crais has won numerous awards for his crime novels. Lee Child has cited him in interviews as one of his favourite American crime writers. The novels of Robert Crais have been published in 62 countries and are bestsellers around the world. Robert Crais received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2006 and was named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2014.
WDame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning, was an English author and playwright.
WChristopher "Chris" Grabenstein is an American author. He published his first novel in 2005. Since then he has written novels for both adults and children, the latter often with frequent collaborator James Patterson. He graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1977 with a degree from the College of Communication and Information.
WSue Taylor Grafton was an American author of detective novels. She is best known as the author of the "alphabet series" featuring private investigator Kinsey Millhone in the fictional city of Santa Teresa, California. The daughter of detective novelist C. W. Grafton, she said the strongest influence on her crime novels was author Ross Macdonald. Before her success with this series, she wrote screenplays for television movies.
WDavid Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and a best-selling author.
WBryan Gruley is an American writer. He has shared a Pulitzer Prize for journalism and been nominated for the "first novel" Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.
WCharlaine Harris Schulz is an American author who specializes in mysteries. She is best known for the adaptations of her series The Southern Vampire Mysteries, which was adapted as the TV series True Blood. The television show was a critical and financial success for HBO, running seven seasons, from 2008 through 2014. A number of her books have been bestsellers and this series was translated into multiple languages and published across the globe.
WAnthony Grove Hillerman was an American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels. Several of his works have been adapted as theatrical and television movies.
WPhyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park,, known professionally as P. D. James, was an English crime writer. She rose to fame for her series of detective novels featuring police commander and poet Adam Dalgliesh.
WHarley Jane Kozak is an American actress and author. She made her film debut in the slasher film The House on Sorority Row (1982), and had a recurring role as Mary Duvall on the soap opera Santa Barbara between 1985 and 1989. She later had supporting parts in Clean and Sober (1988) and When Harry Met Sally... (1989), before starring in the major studio films Parenthood (1989) and Arachnophobia (1990).
WWilliam Kent Krueger is an American novelist and crime writer, best known for his series of novels featuring Cork O'Connor, which are set mainly in Minnesota. In 2005 and 2006, he won back-to-back Anthony Awards for best novel. In 2014, his stand-alone book Ordinary Grace won the Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2013.
WKarl Stig-Erland "Stieg" Larsson was a Swedish journalist and writer. He is best known for writing the Millennium trilogy of crime novels, which were published posthumously, starting in 2005, after the author died suddenly of a heart attack. The trilogy was adapted as three motion pictures in Sweden, and one in the U.S.. The publisher commissioned David Lagercrantz to expand the trilogy into a longer series, which has six novels as of September 2019. For much of his life, Larsson lived and worked in Stockholm. His journalistic work covered socialist politics and he acted as an independent researcher of right-wing extremism.
WDennis Lehane is an American author. He has published more than a dozen novels; the first several were a series of mysteries featuring a couple of protagonists and other recurring characters, including A Drink Before the War. Of these, three were adapted as films of the same name: 2003’s Mystic River, directed by Clint Eastwood, which won several awards; 2007’s Gone Baby Gone; and 2010’s Shutter Island directed by Martin Scorsese.
WLaura Lippman is an American author of detective fiction.
WAttica Locke is an American fiction author and writer/producer for television and film.
WPeter (Harmer) Lovesey, also known by his pen name Peter Lear, is a British writer of historical and contemporary detective novels and short stories. His best-known series characters are Sergeant Cribb, a Victorian-era police detective based in London, and Peter Diamond, a modern-day police detective in Bath.
WMargaret Maron is an American writer, the author of award-winning mystery novels.
WSharyn McCrumb is an American writer whose books celebrate the history and folklore of Appalachia. McCrumb is the winner of numerous literary awards, and the author of the Elizabeth McPherson mystery series, the Ballad series, and the St. Dale series.
WVal McDermid, is a Scottish crime writer, best known for a series of novels featuring clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill in a grim sub-genre that McDermid and others have identified as Tartan Noir. At Raith Rovers football stadium, a stand has been named after McDermid.
WMichelle Eileen McNamara was an American true crime author. She was the author of the true crime book I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer and helped coin the moniker "Golden State Killer" of the serial killer identified after her death as Joseph James DeAngelo. The book was released posthumously in February 2018 and later adapted into the documentary series I'll Be Gone in the Dark which debuted on HBO on June 28, 2020.
WSara Paretsky is an American author of detective fiction, best known for her novels focused on the protagonist V. I. Warshawski.
WRobert Brown Parker was an American writer of fiction, primarily of the mystery/detective genre. His most famous works were the 40 novels written about the fictional private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the mid-1980s; a series of TV movies based on the character was also produced. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited by critics and bestselling authors such as Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane as not only influencing their own work but reviving and changing the detective genre.
WLouise Penny is a Canadian author of mystery novels set in the Canadian province of Quebec centred on the work of francophone Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny's first career was as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). After she turned to writing, she won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha Award for best mystery novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2007–2010), and the Anthony Award for best novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2010–2013). Her novels have been published in 23 languages.
WNancy Pickard is a US crime novelist. She has won five Macavity Awards, four Agatha Awards, an Anthony Award, and a Shamus Award. She is the only author to win all four awards. She also served on the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America. She received a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and began writing when she was 35 years old.
WQiu Xiaolong is a crime novelist, English-language poet, literary translator, critic, and academic, who has lived for many years in St. Louis, Missouri. He originally visited the United States in 1988 to write a book about T. S. Eliot, but following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, he remained in America to avoid persecution by the Communist Party of China.
WRuth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, was an English author of thrillers and psychological murder mysteries.
WRichard Russell Riordan Jr. is an American author. He is known for writing the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, about a teenager named Percy Jackson who discovers he is a son of the Greek god Poseidon. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million copies in the US. 20th Century Fox has adapted the first two books of his Percy Jackson series as part of a series of films. His books have spawned related media, such as graphic novels and short story collections.
WPeter Robinson is an English-Canadian crime writer. He is best known for his crime novels set in Yorkshire featuring Inspector Alan Banks. He has also published a number of other novels and short stories as well as some poems and two articles on writing.
WJoanne Rowling, better known by her pen name J. K. Rowling, is a British writer and philanthropist. She is best known for writing the Harry Potter fantasy series, which has won multiple awards and sold more than 500 million copies, becoming the best-selling book series in history. The books are the basis of a popular film series, over which Rowling had overall approval on the scripts and was a producer on the final films. She also writes crime fiction under the pen name Robert Galbraith.
WS. J. Rozan is an American architect and writer of detective fiction and thrillers, based in New York City. She also co-writes a paranormal thriller series under the pseudonym Sam Cabot with Carlos Dews.
WHank Phillippi Ryan is an American investigative reporter for Channel 7 News on WHDH-TV, a local television station in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also an author of mystery novels.
WDavid Judah Simon is an American author, journalist, and television writer and producer best known for his work on The Wire (2002–08). He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years (1982–95), wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991), and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood (1997) with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–99), on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner (2000).
WJulia Spencer-Fleming is an American novelist of Mystery fiction. She has won the Agatha Award, Anthony Award, Macavity Awards, Dilys Award, Barry Award, the Nero Award, and Gumshoe Awards. She has also been a finalist for the Edgar Award. Her books feature Clare Fergusson, a retired helicopter pilot turned Episcopal priest and Russ Van Alstyne, a police chief. They are set in Millers Kill, a fictional town in upstate New York.
WJason Starr is an American author, comic book writer, and screenwriter from New York City. Starr has written numerous crime fiction novels and thrillers.
WChristopher Voelker was an American photographer.
WDonald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hard-boiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.