Jorn Lier Horst (born in Bamble, Telemark 1970) is a former Senior Investigating Officer at the Norwegian police force. He made his literary debut as a crime writer in 2004 and is now considered one of the foremost Nordic crime writers.

His William Wisting series of crime novels has been extremely successful, having sold more than 500,000 copies in Scandinavia, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Thailand. Dregs, sixth in the series, was published in English by Sandstone Press in 2011.

The next book, Closed for Winter, won Norway's Booksellers' Prize in 2012 and was shortlisted for the Riverton Prize. His latest novel, The Hunting Dogs, won both the prestigious Golden Revolver, for best Norwegian crime, and The Glass Key, which widened the scope to best crime fiction in all the Nordic countries, in 2013.