Elmore Leonard was born in New Orleans in 1925. He wrote forty-five books during his phenomenal career, including the bestsellers Mr Paradise, Tishomingo Blues, Be Cool and The Hot Kid.

Many have been made into successful movies, including Get Shorty with John Travolta, Out of Sight with George Clooney and Rum Punch, which became Tarantino's Jackie Brown.

He is the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award and the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award. He died in 2013 in Detroit.

Laura Lippman was a reporter for twenty years, including twelve years at The Baltimore Sun. Her novels have won numerous crime fiction prizes, including the Edgar, Anthony, Nero Wolfe and Agatha awards in the US. As well as featuring in numerous end of year lists, her most recent novel Sunburn (2018) was nominated for the CWA Gold Dagger Award, won the eDunnit Award and was a Waterstones Book of the Month.

Anne Perry was born Juliet Marion Hulme in Blackheath, London. She is an English author of historical detective fiction.

Her books have appeared on bestseller lists in a number of foreign countries, where she has also had excellent reviews. The Times selected her as one of the 100 Masters of Crime.

Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature.

His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award.

He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Award in the USA, won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis.

Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University.A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts. Rankin is a number one bestseller in the UK and has received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction.

She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Walter Mosley is one of America's best loved authors.

He is the author of the internationally bestselling Easy Rawlins series, and his novels include Devil in a Blue Dress, which was made into the acclaimed film of the same name starring Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.

His books have been translated into 23 languages and have sold more than 3.5 million copies to date. He lives in New York City.

John Connolly is author of the Charlie Parker mysteries, The Book of Lost Things, the Samuel Johnson novels for young adults and, with his partner, Jennifer Ridyard, co-author of the Chronicles of the Invaders.

John Connolly's debut Every Dead Thing introduced the character of Private Investigator Charlie Parker, and swiftly launched him right into the front rank of thriller writers.

All his subsequent novels have been Sunday Times bestsellers. He was the winner of the 2016 CWA Short Story Dagger for On the Anatomization of an Unknown Man (1637) by Frans Mier from Night Music: Nocturnes Vol 2.

In 2007 he was awarded the Irish Post Award for Literature. He was the first non-American writer to win the US Shamus award and the first Irish writer to win an Edgar award.

Books to Die For, which he edited with Declan Burke, was the winner of the 2013 Anthony, Agatha and Macavity awards for Best Non-Fiction work.

Andrew Klavan is an award-winning writer, screenwriter, and media commentator. An internationally bestselling novelist and two-time Edgar Award-winner, Klavan is also a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine of the Manhattan Institute, and the host of a popular podcast on DailyWire.com, The Andrew Klavan Show.

His essays and op-eds on politics, religion, movies, and literature have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, and elsewhere.

Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille, then moved with his parents to Long Island. He graduated from Elmont Memorial High School, where he played football and ran track.

DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army where he attended Officer Candidate School and was commissioned a Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69). He saw action in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Cavalry Division and was decorated with the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After his discharge, DeMille returned to Hofstra University where he received his bachelor's degree in Political Science and History.

He has three children, Lauren, Alexander, and James, and he and his wife reside on Long Island. DeMille's first major novel was By the Rivers of Babylon, published in 1978, and is still in print as are all his succeeding novels. He is a member of American Mensa, The Authors Guild, and is past president of the Mystery Writers of America.

He is also a member of International Thriller Writers and was chosen as ThrillerMaster of the Year 2015. He holds three honorary doctorates: Doctor of Humane Letters from Hofstra University, Doctor of Literature from Long Island University, and Doctor of Humane Letters from Dowling College.

Jay McInerney came to prominence in 1984 with his first novel Bright Lights, Big City.

He is the author of six further novels: Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, The Last of the Savages, Model Behaviour and The Good Life, two short story collections, and three non-fiction books on wine, one of which was the acclaimed A Hedonist in the Cellar.

He writes a wine column for Town and Country and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, the New York Times Book Review and Corriere della Sera. He lives in Manhattan and Bridgehampton, New York.

J.A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J.P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family, and Edge of Evil. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.