A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the Times of London, Italy’s Corriere della Sera, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into twenty-five languages.
The author of thirty-five novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, Deaver has received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His The Bodies Left Behind was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller The Broken Window and a stand-alone, Edge, were also nominated for that prize. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and the Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association, as well as the Nero Wolfe Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. The Cold Moon was recently named the Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers of Japan, as well as by Kono Mystery Wa Sugoi! magazine. In addition, the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association awarded The Cold Moon and Carte Blanche their annual Grand Prix. His book The Kill Room was awarded the Political/Adventure/Espionage Thriller of 2014 by Killer Nashville.
Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention. He also recently received another lifetime achievement honor in Italy, the prestigious Raymond Chandler Award. He contributed to the anthology Books to Die For, which won the Agatha Award and the Anthony Award. Deaver has been nominated for seven Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony, a Shamus, and a Gumshoe. He was recently shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. Roadside Crosses was on the shortlist for the Prix Polar International 2013.
His most recent novels are The October List, a thriller told in reverse; The Skin Collector and The Kill Room, Lincoln Rhyme novels, and XO, a Kathryn Dance thriller, for which he wrote an album of country-western songs, available on iTunes and as a CD; and Carte Blanche, the latest James Bond continuation novel, a number-one international bestseller.
His book A Maiden’s Grave was made into an HBO movie starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin, and his novel The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. And yes, the rumors are true: he did appear as a corrupt reporter on his favorite soap opera, As the World Turns. He was born outside Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University. Readers can visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.
• I was, to put it mildly, bookish as a child. I read constantly. (It didn’t hurt that I had absolutely no talent for sports whatsoever; fiction was a safer — and less shameful — way to while away the hours.) Two authors stand out in the well-populated pantheon of my young reader’s experience: J.R.R. Tolkien and Arthur Conan Doyle.
I can’t tell you how many times I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (I can still recite a poem in Elvish, but please don’t tell anyone). Nor could I tally up the hours I spent, yes, in the company of Sherlock. I appreciated then, and still do, an intellectual protagonist: someone who had to outthink the villain and, ideally, prevail in a wholly unexpected way. (Aren’t we all tired of heroes who win simply because they shoot straighter or karate-kick higher?) Add a dash of exotic location, a different era, quirky characters, police procedure, and I’m on that tale in a London minute. Doyle delivered exactly what my story-hungry heart longed for.
When asked what were the inspirations for my own series protagonist Lincoln Rhyme, I answer not Ironside or Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window (Rhyme is a quadriplegic) but Sherlock Holmes. Rhyme is a forensic scientist and criminalist who uses his brain to track down the perps, since he obviously can’t outshoot anyone. He’s also a curmudgeon, reclusive, and substance-dependent (Scotch). Oh, I gave him a Watson too, though Amelia Sachs is a touch different from John: she’s a former fashion model turned NYPD detective who drives a muscle car and shoots like nobody’s business.
When I was asked to be in In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, I did a lot of thinking about the direction to take, rereading many of the original stories, since I knew mine would be among those of so many fine writers — and some with a far better grounding in the Holmes catalog than I possessed. At some point during this research I decided that Doyle seemed to share a trait with me: I delight in creating my villains, and no one created better bad guys than Sir Arthur.
Ping. There was the answer. I would imagine an antagonist in my story worthy of the rarely seen but undeniably evil and enigmatic Moriarty.
The result was “The Adventure of the Laughing Fisherman,” a fairly typical story of mine, in which nothing is quite what it seems to be at first blush.
Brendan DuBois is the award-winning author of seventeen novels and more than 135 short stories. His latest novel, Blood Foam, was published in May.
His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and numerous anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, published in 2000, and The Best American Noir of the Century, published in 2010. This is his sixth appearance in the annual Best American Mystery Stories anthology. His stories have twice won him the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America and have earned him three Edgar Allan Poe Award nominations from the MWA. He is also a Jeopardy! game show champion.
Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com.
• When I saw that the Mystery Writers of America was soliciting short stories for an anthology based on the Cold War (Ice Cold: Tales of Intrigue from the Cold War), I knew I was going to submit a story. All right, at the time I didn’t have a story, but I knew one would quickly come to me, and I was right.