Margaret Maron is the author of twenty-six novels and two collections of short stories. Winner of several major American awards for mysteries (Edgar®, Agatha, Anthony, Macavity), her works are on the reading lists of various courses in contemporary Southern literature and have been translated into sixteen languages. She has served as president of Sisters in Crime, the American Crime Writers League, and Mystery Writers of America. A native Tar Heel, she still lives on her family’s century-old farm a few miles southeast of Raleigh, the setting for Bootlegger’s Daughter, which is numbered among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the 20th Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. In 2004, she received the Sir Walter Raleigh Award for best North Carolina novel of the year. In 2008, she was honored with the North Carolina Award for Literature, the state’s highest civilian honor.
Martin Meyers is the author of five Patrick Hardy PI mysteries, beginning with Kiss and Kill. His short stories have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Using the pseudonym Maan Meyers, Martin and his wife Annette Meyers have written seven Dutchman historical mysteries and numerous short stories set in New York in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. The seventh in the series, set in 1899, The Organ Grinder, was published in October 2008. Martin’s latest short story, “Nate Devlin’s Money,” was a Black Mask feature in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in 2009.
A lifelong New Yorker, Terrie Farley Moran dabbles in genealogy and is learning to play the Irish tin whistle, which she finds far more troublesome than babysitting for her ever-increasing number of grandchildren. Her short stories have been published in several venues, including the anthologies Murder New York Style and Dying in a Winter Wonderland, as well as in the final issue of the never-to-be-forgotten e-zine, Hardluck Stories. Terrie invites one and all to drop by the blog www.womenofmystery.net to enjoy the grand banter of nine talented New York mystery writers.
Jeff Somers strongly regrets the quote he chose for his high school yearbook, which was a lyric from an Iron Maiden song, and wishes he could devise time travel specifically to fix this gaffe. Since math makes him sleepy, however, he never gets further than writing “Time Masheen” on a cardboard box before falling asleep in his jammies. As with most other folks who can’t comprehend physics, he writes instead-most notably the Avery Cates series of science fiction noir novels, published by Orbit Books. He maintains a blog at www.jeffreysomers.com just in case.
Mickey Spillane (1918-2006) and Max Allan Collins collaborated on numerous projects, including twelve anthologies, two films, and the Mike Danger comic book series. Spillane was the best-selling American mystery writer of the twentieth century. He introduced Mike Hammer in I, the Jury (1947), which sold in the millions, as did the six tough mysteries that soon followed. The controversial PI has been the subject of a radio show, comic strip, and two television series; numerous gritty movies have been made from Spillane novels, notably director Robert Aldrich’s seminal film noir, Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Collins has earned an unprecedented fifteen Private Eye Writers of America Shamus nominations, winning twice. His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman, directed by Sam Mendes. An independent filmmaker in the Midwest, he has had half a dozen feature screenplays produced. His other credits include the New York Times best sellers Saving Private Ryan and American Gangster. Both Spillane and Collins received the Private Eye Writers life achievement award, the Eye.
Elaine Viets writes two national bestselling mystery series. Publishers Weekly called her Dead-End Job series “wry social commentary.” In book nine, Half-Price Homicide, Helen Hawthorne works at a designer consignment shop in south Florida. Her Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper series is set in Elaine’s hometown, St. Louis. Elaine has won the Agatha Award and Anthony Award, as well as the Lefty for the funniest mystery novel in 2008. Her grandmother Frances Vierling believed she had second sight. Elaine is relieved she has no psychic gifts.
Mike Wiecek once traveled widely in Asia and worked many different jobs, mostly in finance. Now he lives outside Boston, at home with the kids. His short stories have received wide recognition, including a Shamus Award. His first novel, Exit Strategy, was short-listed for the ITW’s Thriller Award. More at www.mwiecek.com.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author, has been writing for twenty-seven years. Her body of work includes many novels, a few novellas, and a growing body of short stories in genres ranging from mystery to science fiction and romance. Married and the mother of three, Charlaine lives in rural Arkansas with her family, three dogs, and a Canada goose. She pretty much works all the time. The HBO series True Blood is based on Charlaine’s Sookie Stackhouse novels.
COPYRIGHTS
Introduction copyright © 2010 by Charlaine Harris, Inc.
“Dahlia Underground,” copyright © 2010 by Charlaine Harris, Inc.
“Hixton,” copyright © 2010 by William Kent Krueger
“Small Change,” copyright © 2010 by Margaret Maron
“The Trespassers,” copyright © 2010 by Brendan DuBois
“Madeeda,” copyright © 2010 by Harley Jane Kozak
“House of Horrors,” copyright © 2010 by S. W. Hubbard
“Sift, Almost Invisible, Through,” copyright © 2010 by Jeffrey Somers
“The Bedroom Door,” copyright © 2010 by Elaine Viets
“The Conqueror Worm,” copyright © 2010 by Barbara D‘Amato
“In Memory of the Sibylline,” copyright © 2010 by Lou Kemp
“The Bloodflower,” copyright © 2010 by Martin Meyers
“The Awareness,” copyright © 2010 by Terrie Farley Moran
“Tadesville,” copyright © 2010 by Jack Fredrickson
“Limbo,” copyright © 2010 by Steve Brewer
“The Insider,” copyright © 2010 by Mike Wiecek
“Swing Shift,” copyright © 2010 by Dana Cameron
“Riding High,” copyright © 2010 by Carolyn Hart
“Grave Matter,” copyright © 2010 by Mickey Spillane Publishing, L.L.C.
“Death of a Vampire,” copyright © 2010 by Parnell Hall
“Taking the Long View,” copyright © 2010 by Toni L. P. Kelner
