SYKM


Writers
Susan Wittig Albert
  • Beatrix Potter: author and illustrator in the Lake District in 1900s England

Bevan Amberhill
  • Jean-Claude Keyes: actor, writer, and amateur sleuth, at the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, Canada

Eric Ambler
  • Charles Latimer: British university lecturer turned detective novelist, in Turkey

Delano Ames
  • Dagobert Brown: sometime researcher and writer and his wife Jane, living in southern France

Christine Andreae
  • Lee Squires: English professor and poet in Montana

Jo Bannister
  • Dr. Clio Rees: physician and mystery writer, and Harry Marsh, a chief inspector, in England

Linwood Barclay
  • Zack Walker: science fiction writer and reporter

Stephanie Barron
  • Jane Austen: the famous author in England

George Baxt
  • Sylvia Plotkin: author and teacher, and Max Van Larsen, a police detective, in New York City

Cynthia Baxter
  • Mallory Marlowe: recent widow with a new career as a travel writer

Tonino Benacquista
  • Fred Blake: writing a history of the WWII Normandy landings — actually Giovanni Manzoni, an ex-Mafia boss in the FBI Witness Protection Program — and his family in Cholong-sur-Avre, Normandy, France

Alan Beechey
  • Oliver Swithin: children’s book author in Great Britain

Anthony Berkeley
  • Roger Sheringham: writer and obnoxious sleuth, in London, England

Ingrid Black
  • Saxon: former US FBI agent turned true-crime writer, and Grace Fitzgerald, Detective Chief Superintendent with the murder squad, in Dublin, Ireland

Meredith Blevins
  • Annie Szabo: writer and mother, and Madam Mina, a fortune-teller and head of Annie’s late husband’s gypsy clan, in California

Michael Bond
  • Aristide Pamplemousse: gourmet restaurant guide inspector, and his bloodhound Pommes Frites, in Paris,

David Bowker
  • Billy Dye: struggling author, and Rawhead, an assassin and Dye’s childhood friend, in Manchester, England

Ray Bradbury
  • Unnamed writer and amateur sleuth in Los Angeles, California

Gyles Brandreth
  • Oscar Wilde: poet, wit, and playwright, friend of Arthur Conan Doyle, and Robert Sherard, great-grandson of Wordsworth, investigate murders in Victorian England, Scotland, and France

Herbert Brean
  • William Deacon: magazine writer
  • Reynold Frame: young freelance writer and photographer, and amateur sleuth, in New York City and New England

Toni Brill
  • Midge Cohen: children’s author fluent in Russian, in Brooklyn, New York

Luisa Buehler
  • Grace Marsden: writer of children’s books in Pine Marsh, Illinois

Christopher Bush
  • Ludovic Travers: wealthy writer and amateur sleuth, later proprietor of the Broad Street Detective Agency, along with Scotland Yard Superintendant George Wharton and later Chief Inspector Jewle, in London, England

Kenneth Cameron (Gordon Kent)
  • General Denton: expatriate U.S. Civil War veteran and former frontier sheriff turned novelist, in turn of the 20th century London, England

Dorothy Cannell
  • Ben Haskell: writer and chef

John Dickson Carr
  • Dr. Gideon Fell: the "old lexicographer" in England

Joanna Challis
  • Daphne du Maurier: young aspiring author in 1920s Cornwall, England

Anna Clarke
  • Paula Glenning: professor and writer, in London, England

Jeffrey Cohen
  • Aaron Tucker: former investigative reporter and aspiring screenwriter, in New Jersey

Max Allan Collins
  • Mallory: small-town student mystery writer in Iowa

Susan Conant
  • Holly Winter: dog trainer and magazine columnist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the Dog Lovers mysteries

Natasha Cooper
  • Willow King: romance novelist in London, England

Susan Rogers Cooper
  • E.J. Pugh: housewife-mom romance writer in Black Cat Ridge, Texas

Alisa Craig
  • Osbert Monk: author, and his wife Dittany Henbit Monk, a garden club member, in Lobelia Falls, Ontario, Canada

Blake Crouch
  • Andrew Thomas: successful horror writer, in North Carolina

Stan Cutler
  • Mark Bradley: gay writer of celebrity biographies, and Rayford Goodman, a jaded, once-famous private investigator, in Los Angeles, California
Elizabeth Daly
  • Henry Gamadge: author, bibliophile, and forgery expert, in New York City

Gloria Dank
  • Bernard Woodruff: curmudgeonly author of children’s books, and his brother-in-law, Arthur “Snooky” Randolph, in Connecticut

Gloria Dank
  • Bernard Woodruff: curmudgeonly author of children’s books, and his brother-in-law, Arthur “Snooky” Randolph, in Connecticut

Emma Darcy
  • K.C. Gordon: successful romance novelist in Australia

Kyra Davis
  • Sophie Katz: half-Black, half-Jewish mystery writer, in San Francisco, California

William L. DeAndrea
  • Quinn Booker: biographer of Lobo Blacke, a crippled ex-frontier lawman, and in Le Four, Wyoming

Elizabeth Dearl
  • Taylor Madison: novelist in Perdue, Texas

Lillian De La Torre
  • Dr. Sam. Johnson: the real-life 18th-century lexicographer and sage, in London, England

Mary Devlin
  • Geoffrey Chaucer: poet and detective in the late 1300s, in England

Margaret Duffy
  • Ingrid Langley: novelist and British Agent, and Patrick Gillard, a British army major

Francis Durbridge
  • Paul Temple: crime writer turned private investigator, in London, England

Chris Ewan
  • Charlie Howard: mystery writer and professional thief, in Europe

Nancy Fairbanks
  • Carolyn Blue, food writer, and her husband Jason, a scientist specializing in how to clean toxins from the environment, in El Paso, Texas

Robert L. Fish
  • Carruthers, Simpson, and Biggs: elderly down-on-their-luck mystery writers, putting their plots into action, in The Murder League Trilogy

Judy Fitzwater
  • Jennifer Marsh: murder mystery writer in Georgia

Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain
  • Jessica Fletcher: mystery writer in Cabot Cove, Maine, in the “Murder, She Wrote” series

Richard Forrest
  • Lyon Wentworth: children’s book author, and Bea Wentworth, a state senator, in Connecticut

Anthea Fraser
  • Rona Parish: biographer and amateur sleuth, in England

Mickey Friedman
  • Georgia Lee Maxwell: disaffected Florida society editor who moves to Paris to write a magazine column, in Paris, France

Sally Goldenbaum
  • Po Paltrow: writer and quilter, and the Queen Bees quilting group, in the fictitious college town of Crestwood, Kansas

Dolores Gordon-Smith
  • Jack Haldean: former Royal Flying Corps pilot and mystery writer, in early 1920s England

David Graeme
  • Richard Verrell, known as Blackshirt, a self-educated founding who becomes a respected mystery author, and burgles for the fun of it, in England

Adam Hall
  • Bishop: author of books about personality under stress and an observer of other people’s problems, and his Oxford-educated assistant, Vera Gorringe, based in London, England

Oakley Hall
  • Ambrose Bierce: journalist, and his sidekick Tom Redmond in 1880s San Francisco, California

Timothy Hallinan
  • Poke Rafferty: “rough-travel” writer living with Rose, a former go-go dancer, in Bangkok, Thailand

David Handler
  • Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag: celebrity ghostwriter in the United States, and his faithful basset hound, Lulu

Clay Harvey
  • Tyler Vance: ex-operative, free-lance writer, and gun expert, in North Carolina

Simon Hawke
  • Will Shakespeare: young writer, and Tuck Smythe, an aspiring actor, the Elizabethan era’s answer to Holmes and Watson, in London, England

L.C. Hayden
  • Dan Springer: writer for a magazine in Las Vegas, Nevada

Peter J. Heck
  • Mark Twain: 19th century American author, and Wentworth Cabot, his secretary, in the USA

Tim Hemlin
  • Neil Marshall: graduate student in creative writing, struggling poet, and part-time chef and caterer, in Houston, Texas

Hazel Holt
  • Sheila Malory: writer of literary criticism in Taviscombe, England

Greg Iles
  • Penn Cage: lawyer and writer, in Natchez, Mississippi

Dean James
  • Simon Kirby-Jones: gay American writer who became a vampire in Houston, now living in Snupperton Mumsley, a small village in England

P.D. James
  • Adam Dalgliesh: critically acclaimed poet and Scotland Yard commander, in London, England

Paul Johnston
  • Matt Wells: British crime writer caught up in a web of intrigue, murder, satanism, and mind control

Jennifer Jordan
  • Barry Vaughan: history lecturer and spoofy crime writer, and Dee Vaughan, an office temp wife, in Woodfield, England
Cady Kalian
  • Maggie Mars: struggling screenwriter and former investigative journalist, in Los Angeles, California

Susan Kandel
  • Cece Caruso: 40-something biographer of dead mystery writers and fan of vintage fashions, in Southern California

Susan Kelly
  • Liz Connors: former English professor and freelance crime writer, in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Bill Kent
  • Shep Ladderback: aging obituary writer for a tabloid, and his assistant Andrea “Andy” Cosicki, who also writes the Mr. Action consumer column, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Nina Killham
  • Jasmine March: cookbook author and gourmand specializing in rich recipes in Georgetown, Washington, DC

Peter King
  • Jack London: the author in the 1890s (before his famous novels) in San Francisco, California

Mary Kittredge
  • Charlotte Kent: freelance writer in fictional Pelican Rock, Mendocino County, California

Rochelle Krich
  • Molly Blume: true-crime writer in Los Angeles, California

Mary Kruger
  • Brooke Cassidy: mystery writer, and Matt Devlin, a private eye, in 1890s Newport, Rhode Island

Camilla Läckberg
  • Erica Falck: writer, and Patrik Hedstrom, a police detective, in the fishing town of Fjällbacka, Sweden

Josh Lanyon
  • Adrien English: mystery writer and bookseller, in Los Angeles, California
  • Christopher (Kit) Holmes: gay bestselling mystery writer in decline, and J.X. Moriarity, a former cop and bestselling novelist

Janet Laurence
  • Darina Lisle: caterer-chef and food writer in West Country, England

Laura Levine
  • Jaine Austen: freelance writer in Los Angeles, California

Jackie Lewin
  • Grace Beckmann: middle-aged mother and freelance writer in Colorado

Lawrence Light
  • Karen Glick: feature writer for a Wall Street magazine, in New York City

Anna Maclean
  • Louisa May Alcott: amateur sleuth before becoming a famous author, in pre-Civil War Boston, Massachusetts

Lauren Maddison
  • Connor Hawthorne: lesbian mystery novelist and former district attorney

Mary Jane Maffini
  • Fiona Silk: talent-challenged romance writer, in the bilingual tourist town St. Aubaine, Quebec, Canada

Jaye Maiman
  • Robin Miller: lesbian romance novel and travel writer turned private investigator, in New York City

Valerie Malmont
  • Tori Miracle: ex-New York City crime writer turned novelist, in Pennsylvania

Amy Patricia Meade
  • Marjorie McClelland: a smart and sassy mystery writer, and rich British expat Creighton Ashcroft, in 1930s Ridgebury, Connecticut

Sharyn McCrumb
  • Jay Omega: college professor and science-fiction author

Craig McDonald
  • Hector Lassiter: legendary crime novelist who writes what he lives and lives what he writes, in the 1930s-1950s

Neil McGaughey
  • Kyle Malachi: who publishes mystery book reviews under the pseudonym Stokes Moran

Hope McIntyre
  • Lee Bartholomew: ghostwriter in London, England, and then Long Island, New York

Annette Meyers
  • Olivia Brown: bohemian poet and women’s rights advocate in 1920s Greenwich Village, New York

Kasey Michaels
  • Maggie Kelly: writer of historical romances, dumped by her publisher, starts writing mysteries, in New York City

Lisa Miscione
  • Lydia Strong: true-crime writer in New York City, with side trips to New Mexico and Florida

Paul Nathan
  • Bert Swain: divorced middle-aged writer and head of public relations at a Manhattan medical research center, in New York City

Kris Neri
  • Tracy Eaton: mystery writer and sleuth, in New York City

Denise Osborne
  • Queenie Davilov: struggling screenwriter and investigator, in Hollywood, California
Robin Paige
  • Kathryn Ardleigh: American author who moves to Victorian Dedham, England, and Sir Charles Sheridan, a landed peer and amateur scientist

Ellen Pall
  • Juliet Bodine: successful writer of Regency novels and ex-professor of English literature at Barnard in New York City

Linda Palmer
  • Morgan Tyler: 30-year-old widow, the head writer of the daytime drama “Love of My Life” in New York City

William J. Palmer
  • Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens: 19th century writers in London, England

Orania Papazoglou
  • Patience Campbell McKenna: 6-ft romance novelist turned crime writer, in New York

Tony Perona
  • Nick Bertetto: freelance writer and stay-at-home dad, in Indianapolis, Indiana

Elizabeth Peters
  • Jacqueline Kirby: librarian turned romance novelist, in New York

Audrey Peterson
  • Jane Winfield: British journalist and music writer, in London, England

Linda Lee Peterson
  • Maggie Fiore: magazine writer and editor in San Francisco, California

W.R. Philbrick
  • J.D. Hawkins: wheelchair-bound mystery writer, in Boston, Massachusetts

T.J. Phillips
  • Joe Wilder: playwright and novelist in New York City

Nancy Pickard
  • Marie Lightfoot: true crime author

Ellery Queen
  • Ellery Queen: author in Manhattan, New York

Anthony Quogan
  • Matthew Prior: Canadian playwright

William J. Reynolds
  • Jay Omega: college professor and science-fiction author

Robert Richardson
  • Augustus Maltravers: journalist turned playwright and novelist, in fictional Vercaster, England

Lora Roberts
  • Liz Sullivan: freelance writer and organic gardener, and Police Detectives Paul Drake and Bruno Morales in Palo Alto, California

Laura Joh Rowland
  • Charlotte Brontë: the author, in mid-1880s England

Betty Rowlands
  • Melissa Craig: British crime novelist in the Cotswolds, England

Patricia H. Rushford
  • Helen Bradley: ex-cop travel-writer in Lincoln City, Oregon

William Sanders
  • Taggart Roper: freelance writer, living in a trailer with his dog, and moonlighting as a petty criminal, in Oklahoma

Walter Satterthwait
  • Kate Ivory: novelist turned amateur detective in Oxford, England

Harold Schechter
  • Edgar Allan Poe: in the 1830s-1840s, in Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, and Massachusetts

Michael W. Sherer
  • Emerson Ward: freelance writer in Chicago, Illinois

Beth Sherman
  • Anne Hardaway: ghostwriter in Oceanside Heights, New Jersey, in the Jersey Shore mysteries

Clea Simon
  • Theda Krakow: cat-loving, freelance writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts

E. Joan Sims
  • Paisley Sterling: author of children’s books, in Rowan Springs, Kentucky

Murray Sinclair
  • Ben Crandel: pornographic novel author and amateur detective, in Los Angeles, California

Edward Sklepowich
  • Urbino McIntyre: American expatriate writer and amateur sleuth, and his friend Barbara, Countess da Capo-Zendrini, in Venice, Italy

Barbara Burnett Smith
  • Jolie Wyatt: radio station reporter and aspiring writer, in Purple Sage, Texas

Julie Smith
  • Paul MacDonald: ex-reporter and mystery writer, in San Francisco, California
  • Talba Wallis: (AKA Baroness de Pontalba), black poet and computer expert, in New Orleans, Louisiana

Troy Soos
  • Marshall Webb: freelance reporter for Harper’s Weekly (who secretly pens dime novels), beau of Rebecca Davies, a child of privilege running a home for desperate women

Veronica Stallwood
  • Kate Ivory: novelist turned amateur detective in Oxford, England

J.B. Stanley
  • Molly Appleby: writer for Collector's Weekly magazine, in North Carolina and Virginia, in the Collectible mysteries

David Stukas
  • Robert Wilsop: recovered Catholic and copywriter for feminine hygiene products, in New York

Maureen Tan
  • Jane Nichols: secret agent turned mystery writer, in Savannah, Georgia

Alice Tilton
  • Leonidas Witherall: retired academic and secret pulp fiction author, in Boston, Massachusetts

L.C. Tyler
  • Ethelred Tressider: a mystery author, and his chocoholic literary agent, Elsie Thirkettle, in West Sussex, England

Lisa Unger (Lisa Miscione)
  • Ridley Jones: freelance writer in New York City

Nicola Upson
  • Josephine Tey: the mystery writer in 1930s Britain

Noreen Wald
  • Jacqueline “Jake” O’Hara: ghost writer in Manhattan, New York City

Mary Willis Walker
  • Mollie Cates: true-crime writer and reporter, in Texas

Kate White
  • Bailey Weggins: true crime author, in Warren, Massachusetts

John Morgan Wilson
  • Benjamin Justice: gay crime reporter and writer in Los Angeles, California

Matt Witten
  • Jacob Burns: at-home dad and part-time scriptwriter, in Saratoga Springs, New York

Sue Owens Wright
  • Elsie "Beanie" MacBean: freelance writer and member of the Washoe Tribe, and her basset hound, Cruiser, in South Tahoe, Nevada

Joyce Yarrow
  • Jo Epstein: private investigator and performance poet, based in Brooklyn, New York

R.D. Zimmerman
  • Alex Phillips: technical writer and his sister, Maddy Phillips, a blind forensic psychiatrist, on an island in Lake Michigan