Lee Child is the pen name of Jim Grant, who was born in Coventry, England on October 29, 1954. He attended law school at Sheffield University, worked in the theater, and finally worked as a presentation director for Granada Television. After being laid off in 1995 because of corporate restructuring, he decided to write a book. The Killing Floor won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel and became the first book in the Jack Reacher series. In 2012, the first Jack Reacher film was released starring Tom Cruise. His book's, Worth Dying For and Past Tense, made the bestseller list in 2018.
Val McDermid is a number one bestseller whose novels have been translated into forty languages, and have sold over nineteen million copies. She has won many awards internationally, including the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year and the LA Times Book of the Year Award. She was inducted into the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame in 2009, was the recipient of the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2010 and received the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award in 2011.In 2016, Val received the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award at the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and in 2017 received the DIVA Literary Prize for Crime, and was elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val has served as a judge for the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker Prize, and was Chair of the Wellcome Book Prize in 2017. She is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates, is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and a Professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She writes full time and divides her time between Edinburgh and East Neuk of Fife.
Diana Gabaldon was born in Flagstaff, Arizona on January 11, 1952. She has a B.S. in zoology, a M.S. in marine biology, and a Ph.D. in quantitative behavioral ecology. She has worked as a university professor and has written freelance for various magazines and companies such as Walt Disney. She writes the Outlander series, which was adapted into a television series.
Kathy Reichs was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1948. She received a BA in anthropology from American University in 1971, a MA in physical anthropology from Northwestern University in 1972, and a Ph.D. in physical anthropology from Northwestern University in 1975. She works as a forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina and for the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale in Quebec. She has taught at Northern Illinois University, University of Pittsburgh, Concordia University, McGill University, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her work as a forensic anthropologist is internationally recognized; she has traveled to Rwanda to testify at the UN Tribunal on Genocide, helped in an exhumation in the area of the highlands of southwest Guatemala, and done forensic work at Ground Zero in New York. In addition to her published academic papers and books, Reichs has written numerous works of crime fiction including Temperance Brennan series. Déjà Dead won the 1997 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. She is a producer on the Fox television series Bones, which is loosely based on her own forensic career and writing. In 2015, she won the Silver Bullet Literary Award.
C. J. Box writes short stories and novels including the short story collection Shots Fired and the Joe Pickett series. His first stand-alone novel, Blue Heaven, won an Edgar Award for Best Novel of 2008. He has also received the Anthony Award, French Prix Calibre 38, Macavity Award, Gumshoe Award, and Barry Award. He co-owns an international tourism marketing firm with his wife. In 2008, he was awarded the "BIG WYO" Award from the Wyoming tourism industry. His titles often make the best seller list including Paradise Valley in 2017.
Gayle Lynds is an award-winning American author. She is known for writing spy fiction or spy thrillers. She has co-authored three novels with Robert Ludlum. Her books are published in over 20 countries. Lynds was born in Nebraska, but raised in Iowa. She graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in Journalism, and now lives in California where she is a full-time novelist.
Peter James is an international bestselling thriller writer. He is a #1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and he is published in thirty-seven languages. His DS Roy Grace crime novels have sold 18 million copies worldwide. Prior to becoming a full-time author, he was responsible for twenty-five movies. In 1994 his novel Host was the world's first electronic novel, published on two floppy discs. He received the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2016.
Karin Slaughter was born in Georgia on January 6, 1971. In 2001, she published her first novel, Blindsighted, which made the Dagger Award shortlist for Best Thriller Debut. She is the author of the Grant County series and the Will Trent series. Her stand-alone novels include Cop Town, Pretty Girls, and Pieces of Her.
Charlaine Harris was born in Tunica, Mississippi on November 25, 1951. She attended Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee. She wrote poetry and plays before beginning to publish mysteries set in the American South. She is the author of the Aurora Teagarden Mystery series, the Lily Bard Mystery series, the Harper Connelly series, and the Sookie Stackhouse series. In 2001, the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series, Dead until Dark, won an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Mystery. The series was adapted as a TV show on HBO called True Blood.
Romance author Lisa Jackson grew up in Oregon. She graduated from Oregon State University and started working in the banking/investment industry. In the early 1980s, she stopped working in order to become a stay-at-home mom and started writing romance novels at the suggestion of her sister and fellow romance author Nancy Bush. She published her first novel, A Twist of Fate, in 1983. Her books regularly appear on the New York Times, USA Today and Publisher's Weekly bestseller lists. In April 2011 Lisa Jackson's title Devious hit the Publisher's Weekly bestseller list and in Aug 2012 her title You Don't Want to Know made The New York Times Best Seller List. In 2014 she continued this trend with her book, Close to Home.
Lara Adrian, whose real name is Tina St. John, is an American author who writes dark contemporary vampire novels. She is the author of the Midnight Breed series. Her novel, Merciless, was in a collection of novels entitled Masters of Seduction. The collection made it to the New York Times bestseller list in 2014.
Michael Koryta is the New York Times bestselling author of twelve suspense novels. His books have won or been nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Edgar® Award, Shamus Award, Barry Award, Quill Award, International Thriller Writers Award, and the CWA Gold Dagger. Michael has written for the screen in both feature film and television, writing scripts for Fox, Universal, and Amazon Studios.
Lisa Scottoline was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 1, 1955. She received a B.A. in English with a concentration in the contemporary American novel from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976 and graduated cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1981. Before becoming an author, she worked as a trial lawyer. Her first novel, Everywhere That Mary Went, was published in 1994. Her other books include Come Home, Keep Quiet, Every Fifteen Minutes, and Most Wanted. She also writes the Rosato and Associates series and the Rosato and Dinunzio Novel series. Lisa's title, Daddy's Girl, is a April 2016 New York Times bestseller.
Judith Ann (J. A.) Jance was born in Watertown, South Dakota on October 27, 1944. She received a degree in English and secondary education in 1966 and a M. Ed. in library science in 1970 from the University of Arizona. Before becoming an author, she taught high school English, worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation, and sold insurance. She is the author of many popular mystery series including the J. P. Beaumont Mystery series, Joanna Brady Mystery series, and the Ali Reynolds series. She won the American Mystery Award for Without Due Process in 1992 and for Failure to Appear in 1993. Both of these titles are books in the J. P. Beaumont Mystery series. In 2014, her fiction book, A Last Goodbye, made the New York Times bestseller list. Random Acts, a title in A Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds Novella Series, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2016.
Christopher Rice's debut novel, A Density Of Souls, was published when the author was just twenty-two years old. A controversial and overnight bestseller, it was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it devoted to the fact that Christopher is the son of famed vampire chronicler, Anne Rice. Christopher has received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine's Sexiest Men Alive. His two novels of dark supernatural suspense, The Heavens Rise and The Vines, were both finalists for the Bram Stoker Award.
Nelson DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943. He attended Hofstra University for three years, then joined the Army and went to Officer Candidate School. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant and served in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Calvary Division. He received the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while in the service. He eventually returned to Hofstra University and received a degree in political science and history. His first writings were NYPD detective novels, but his first major novel, By the Rivers of Babylon, was published in 1978. His other works include Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, and The Quest. His New York Times bestsellers include Radient Angel and The Cuban Affair.
Eric Van Lustbader was born in Greenwich Village, New York City in 1946. He received a bachelor's degree in sociology from Columbia College in 1968. While still in college, he began work in the entertainment industry by creating his own music production company that included work with such bands as Cheap Trick, Mountain, and Blue Oyster Cult. He is a writer of both thriller and fantasy novels. He has written several series including The Pearl Saga Series, The Sunset Warrior Cycle, The China Maroc Series and The Nicholas Linnear/Ninja Cycle Series. He is also the co-author of the Jason Bourne series, starting with book 4, with Robert Ludlum.
