Brett Battles was born and raised in southern California. Though he still makes California his home, he has traveled extensively, including trips to Vietnam and Germany—two locations that play prominent parts in his debut thriller, The Cleaner. He is a founding member of Killer Year.
New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan is the author of six romantic thrillers. RT Book Reviews called her newest release, Fear No Evil, “fast-paced,” “pulse-pounding,” and “Brennan’s best book to date.” A former consultant in the California State Legislature, she lives in northern California with her husband and five kids. Look for her next novel in spring 2008.
Ken Bruen was a finalist for the Edgar, Barry, and Macavity Awards, and the Private Eye Writers of America presented him with the Shamus Award for the Best Novel of 2003 for The Guards, the book that introduced Jack Taylor. He lives in Galway, Ireland.
Winner of the prestigious AMPAS Nicholl award, Robert Gregory Browne spent several years riding the Hollywood roller coaster before severe motion sickness forced his retirement from the business. At the urging of a novelist friend, Browne tried his hand at long-form fiction and the result, a thriller called Kiss Her Goodbye, is the first of a two-book deal with St. Martin’s Press.
Bill Cameron lives with his wife and poodle in Portland, Oregon, where he also serves as staff to a charming yet imperious cat. He is an eager traveler and avid bird-watcher, and likes to write near a window so he can meditate on whatever happens to fly by during intractable passages. Lost Dog is his first suspense novel. He is currently at work on his second novel.
Toni McGee Causey lives in Baton Rouge with her husband and two sons; a Louisiana native (and Cajun), she has nearly completed a double masters at LSU. She’s placed in top-tier screenwriting contests, published many nonfiction articles, and edited a popular regional magazine. To support her writing addiction, she and her husband, Carl, run their own civil construction company. Bobbie Faye’s Very (very, very, very) Bad Day is the first in a three-book deal with St. Martin’s Press on a pre-empt; the chaotic, roller-coaster thriller world of Bobbie Faye owes much to Toni having way more experience than she’d like to own up to in the world of troubleshooting, disaster prevention, and survival.
After graduating from Columbia College Chicago and the American Security Training Institute, Sean Chercover worked as a private investigator in Chicago and New Orleans. He has since written for film, television, and print. He’s also worked as a film and video editor, scuba diver, nightclub magician, truck driver, waiter, car jockey, encyclopedia salesman, and in other, less glamorous positions. These days, he splits his time between Chicago and Toronto and generally stays out of trouble. Big City, Bad Blood is his first novel.
Lee Child was born in 1954 in Coventry, England, but spent his formative years in the nearby city of Birmingham. By coincidence he won a scholarship to the same high school that J. R. R. Tolkien had attended. He went to law school in Sheffield, England, and after part-time work
in the theater he joined Granada Television in Manchester for what turned out to be an eighteen-year career as a presentation director during British TV’s “golden age.” During his tenure his company made Brideshead Revisited, The Jewel in the Crown, Prime Suspect, and Cracker. But he was fired in 1995 at the age of forty as a result of corporate restructuring. Always a voracious reader, he decided to see an opportunity where others might have seen a crisis and bought six dollars’ worth of paper and pencils and sat down to write a book, Killing Floor, the first in the Jack Reacher series.
J. T. Ellison is a thriller writer based in Nashville, Tennessee. A graduate of Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and The George Washington University, Ellison had a career in politics before turning to crime fiction full time. Her short stories have appeared in Demolition Magazine, Flashing in the Gutters, Mouth Full of Bullets, and Spinetingler Magazine . She blogs at www.Murderati.com and is a founding member of Killer Year. All the Pretty Girls is the first novel in the Taylor Jackson series.
Patry Francis has published stories and poems in The Ontario Review, Tampa Review, Antioch Review, Colorado Review, The American Poetry Review, Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. She is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize and has been the recipient of a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council twice. The Liar’s Diary is her first novel.
Born in Minneola, Marc Lecard grew up in Massapequa, Long Island, New York. He gave up a promising career as a circular delivery person when he left the East Coast in 1976 for California. For more years than he cares to think about, he has worked in one form of publishing or another, on everything from computer manuals to environmental magazines. He now lives at an unspecified location in Northern California with his family. Vinnie’s Head is his first novel.
Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began writing novels while working full-time and published seven books about “accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Her work has earned the Edgar, the Anthony, the Agatha, the Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe, and Barry Awards. She also has been nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first ever recipient of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.
Like his novel’s protagonist, Derek Nikitas was born on Saint Lucy’s Day, December thirteenth. Raised in Manchester, New Hampshire, then Rochester, New York, he earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, then sought adventure in the Czech Republic, England, and Costa Rica. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English from Georgia State University, and has published stories in The Ontario Review, Chelsea, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and The Pedestal Magazine. Joyce Carol Oates nominated him for a Pushcart Award in 2005, after she said his fiction was “subtly written, and quite touching and powerful.” Pyres is his first novel.
New York Times bestselling author Gregg Olsen is the author of eight books, including the Western Writers of America Spur Award finalist, The Deep Dark: Disaster and Redemption in America’s Richest Silver Mine (Crown Publishers). As a journalist and true crime author, Olsen has been a guest on Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, Entertainment Tonight , CNN, Fox News, 48 Hours, and other national and international programs. The Seattle native lives in rural Washington with his wife, twin daughters, five chickens, and obedience-school-dropout cocker spaniel, Milo. A Wicked Snow is his fiction debut, and was selected as a
feature alternate for the Book of the Month Club, Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, and Mystery Guild.
Jason Pinter was born in 1979 in New York City and graduated from Wesleyan University in 2003 with a BA in English. He is a founding member of Killer Year, and maintains his blog, “The Man in Black.” His first Henry Parker novel, The Mark, was released in July 2007 from MIRA books, with the next two Parker books scheduled for 2008. He lives in New York City with his wife, Susan.
M. J. Rose is an internationally bestselling writer, the editor of Buzz, Balls, & Hype, founder of AuthorBuzz.com, and on the board of International Thriller Writers. Please visit her Web site, mjrose.com, for more information.
Ten years in advertising gave Marcus Sakey the perfect background to write about criminals and killers. Sakey’s debut novel, part of a major two-book deal, has drawn comparisons to Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, and James Ellroy. The story of a retired thief turned respectable businessman who discovers that the more he has, the more he has to lose, The Blade Itself appeared in January 2007 from St. Martin’s Minotaur. Foreign rights have sold in seven countries to date.
Duane Swierczynski is the author of The Blonde and the critically acclaimed noir masterpiece The Wheelman, both from St. Martin’s Minotaur, as well as other books about crime and vice and exploding heads. He is also the editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia City Paper.
Dave White is an eighth-grade language arts teacher. His stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies. His first novel, When One Man Dies, was released in September 2007. He lives in New Jersey. You can visit his Web site at jacksondonne.blogspot.com.