Books

Archer Mayor is an American author. He wrote the Joe Gunther detective series. Mayor is a Yale graduate and lives in Newfane, Vermont.

Mayor's first Joe Gunther novel Open Season was published in 1988.

Stuart Woods was an American novelist, known best for his first novel Chiefs and his series of novels featuring the Stone Barrington character.

Louise 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.

Penny was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1958. Her mother was an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, with a particular liking for crime fiction, and Louise grew up reading mystery writers such as Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Michael Innes.

Craig Allen Johnson is an American author who writes mystery novels. He is best known for his Sheriff Walt Longmire novel series. The books are set in northern Wyoming, where Longmire is sheriff of the fictional county of Absaroka. The series debuted in 2004 and as of September 2021, Johnson has written 18 novels, two novellas, and many short stories featuring Longmire. Some of the novels have been on The New York Times Best Seller list. In 2012, Warner Horizon adapted the main characters and the Wyoming settings of the novels for a television series. Johnson lives at a ranch where he built a residence in the small town of Ucross, Wyoming—population 25.

Robert Brown Parker was an American writer, primarily of fiction within 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 was also produced based on the character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.

James Lee Burke is an American author, best known for his Dave Robicheaux series. He has won Edgar Awards for Black Cherry Blues (1990) and Cimarron Rose (1998), and has also been presented with the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. The Robicheaux character has been portrayed twice on screen, first by Alec Baldwin and then Tommy Lee Jones.

Robert Brown Parker was an American writer, primarily of fiction within 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 was also produced based on the character. His works incorporate encyclopedic knowledge of the Boston metropolitan area. The Spenser novels have been cited as influencing their own work and reviving and changing the detective genre by critics and bestselling authors including Robert Crais, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane.

Richard Stanley Francis was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer whose novels centre on horse racing in England.

Judith Ann (J. A.) Jance (born October 27, 1944) is an American author of mystery novels. She writes three series of novels, centering on retired Seattle Police Department Detective J. P. Beaumont, Arizona County Sheriff Joanna Brady, and former Los Angeles news anchor turned mystery solver Ali Reynolds. The Beaumont and Brady series intersect in the novel Partner in Crime, which is both the 16th Beaumount mystery and the 10th Brady mystery. They intersect again in Fire and Ice.

Jance was born in Watertown, South Dakota, and raised in Bisbee, Arizona (the setting for her Joanna Brady series of novels). Before becoming an author, she worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation (Tohono O'Odham), and as a teacher and insurance agent.

John Dann MacDonald (July 24, 1916 – December 28, 1986) was an American writer of novels and short stories. He is known for his thrillers.

MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many set in his adopted home of Florida. One of the most successful American novelists of his time, MacDonald sold an estimated 70 million books. His best-known works include the popular and critically acclaimed Travis McGee series and his 1957 novel The Executioners, which was filmed as Cape Fear (1962) and remade in 1991.

MacDonald was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, where his father, Eugene Macdonald, worked for the Savage Arms Corporation. The family relocated to Utica, New York in 1926, his father becoming treasurer of the Utica office of Savage Arms. In 1934, MacDonald was given a choice by his father: spend another year in school as a post-graduate, or go to Europe for several weeks. He chose Europe and this began an interest in travel and photography.

Gregory Mcdonald (February 15, 1937 – September 7, 2008) was an American mystery writer whose most famous character is the comedy investigative reporter Irwin Maurice "Fletch" Fletcher.

Two of the Fletch books earned Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America: Fletch was named Best First Novel in 1975, and Confess, Fletch won for Best Paperback Original in 1977. This is the only time a novel and its sequel won back-to-back Edgars. Mcdonald would go on to write nine more Fletch novels, including prequels Fletch Won, Fletch Too, and Fletch and the Widow Bradley. The original book became a 1985 movie of the same name starring Chevy Chase.

Mcdonald was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He was educated at Harvard, paying his own way by operating yachts.

Marcia Muller (born September 28, 1944) is an American author of fictional mystery and thriller novels.

Muller has written many novels featuring her Sharon McCone female private detective character. Vanishing Point won the Shamus Award for Best P.I. Novel. Muller had been nominated for the Shamus Award four times previously.

In 2005, Muller was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master award.

She was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Birmingham, Michigan, and graduated in English from the University of Michigan and worked as a journalist at Sunset magazine. She is married to detective fiction author Bill Pronzini with whom she has collaborated on several novels.

Mary Margaret Truman Daniel (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008) was an American classical soprano, actress, journalist, radio and television personality, writer, and New York socialite. She was the only child of President Harry S. Truman and First Lady Bess Truman. While her father was president, during the years 1945 to 1953, Margaret regularly accompanied him on campaign trips, most notably the 1948 extensive countrywide train-borne 'Whistle-stop' campaign trip, which lasted several weeks; she also appeared often at important White House and political events during those years. She was a favorite with the media.

After graduating from George Washington University in 1946, she embarked on a career as a coloratura soprano, beginning with a concert appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in 1947. She appeared in concerts with orchestras throughout the United States and in recitals throughout the U.S. through 1956. She made recordings for RCA Victor, and made television appearances on programs like What's My Line? and The Bell Telephone Hour.

Paul Doiron (pronounced ) is the author of the Mike Bowditch series of crime novels.

The first book in the Mike Bowditch series, The Poacher's Son, won the Barry Award for Best First Novel and the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel. It was a nominee for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel and for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel PopMatters included it in its Best Fiction of 2010 list.

Doiron's second book Trespasser won the 2012 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction.

His novelette "Rabid" was a finalist for the 2019 Edgar Award for Best Short Story.

His twelfth novel Dead by Dawn won the 2022 New England Society Book Award for Fiction, the 2022 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction and was a finalist for the 2022 Barry Award for Best Thriller.

Peter Abrahams (born June 28, 1947) is an American writer of crime fiction for both adults and children. His works include Oblivion, A Perfect Crime, The Tutor, The Fury of Rachel Monette, Hard Rain, The Fan, Crying Wolf, The Right Side the Echo Falls Mysteries for children, and Lights Out, the last of which was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel. Reality Check won the best young adult Edgar Award in 2011. Down the Rabbit Hole, first in the Echo Falls series, won the best children's/young adult Agatha Award in 2005. The Fan was adapted into a film starring Robert De Niro and directed by Tony Scott (1996).

His literary influences are Vladimir Nabokov, Graham Greene, and Ross Macdonald. Stephen King has referred to him as "my favorite American suspense novelist".

Robert Gerald Goldsborough is an American journalist and writer of mystery novels. He worked for 45 years for the Chicago Tribune and Advertising Age, but gained prominence as the author of a series of 16 authorized pastiches of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe detective stories, published from 1986 to 1994 and from 2012 to 2021. The first novel, Murder in E Minor (1986), received a Nero Award.

Thomas Perry (born 1947) is an American mystery and thriller novelist. He received a 1983 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel.

Perry's work has covered a variety of fictional suspense starting with The Butcher's Boy, which received a 1983 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best First Novel, followed by Metzger's Dog, Big Fish, Island, and Sleeping Dogs. He then launched the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series: Vanishing Act (chosen as one of the "100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century" by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association), Dance for the Dead, Shadow Woman, The Face Changers, Blood Money, Runner, and Poison Flower.