Jeffery Deaver (born May 6, 1950) is an American
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
and
crime writer
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events.
The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 per ...
. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...
and a
J.D. degree from
Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a career as a novelist. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British
Crime Writers' Association and the
Nero Wolfe Award The Nero Award is a literary award for excellence in the mystery genre presented by The Wolfe Pack, a society founded in 1978 to explore and celebrate the Nero Wolfe stories of Rex Stout
Rex Todhunter Stout (; December 1, 1886 – October 27, ...
, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', Italy's ''
Corriere della Sera'', ''
The Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper ...
'', and ''
The Los Angeles Times
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
''.
Life and career
Deaver was born near Chicago in
Glen Ellyn, Illinois. His mother was an artist, and his father an advertising writer. His sister
Julie Deaver is an author of
young adult
A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...
novels. The book that inspired him to write was
''From Russia With Love'', a
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
novel by
Ian Fleming.
Deaver's most popular series features Lincoln Rhyme, a
quadriplegic
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is defined as the dysfunction or loss of motor and/or sensory function in the cervical area of the spinal cord. A loss of motor function can present as either weakness or paralysis leading to partial or ...
detective, and
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
Detective Amelia Sachs.
Deaver's 2001 book ''The Blue Nowhere'' features
criminal hackers (one using
social engineering to commit murder), as well as a law enforcement
computer crime unit. In this book, Deaver gives credit to
Lee de Forest, the inventor of the
Audion
The Audion was an electronic detecting or amplifying vacuum tube invented by American electrical engineer Lee de Forest in 1906.De Forest patented a number of variations of his detector tubes starting in 1906. The patent that most clearly covers ...
(also known as the
triode
A triode is an electronic amplifying vacuum tube (or ''valve'' in British English) consisting of three electrodes inside an evacuated glass envelope: a heated filament or cathode, a grid, and a plate (anode). Developed from Lee De Forest's ...
tube), who is thus considered to have opened the world to
electronic development.
Deaver edited ''
The Best American Mystery Stories 2009''.
Three of Deaver's novels have been produced into films:
* ''A Maiden's Grave'' made for TV as film ''
Dead Silence
''Dead Silence'' is a 2007 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Leigh Whannell. The film stars Ryan Kwanten as Jamie Ashen, a young widower returning to his hometown to search for answers to his wife's death. I ...
'' 1997
* ''
The Bone Collector'' released 1999
* ''
The Devil's Teardrop'' made for TV 2010
Additionally, ''The Bone Collector'' has been adapted as a television series, ''
Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector''.
Deaver also created the characters and—in a collaboration with 14 other noted writers—wrote the 17-part serial thriller ''
The Chopin Manuscript'' narrated by
Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina (born Alfredo Molina; 24 May 1953) is a British-American actor known for his work on the stage and screen. He first rose to prominence in the West End, earning a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Pla ...
that was broadcast on
Audible.com
Audible is an American online audiobook and podcast service that allows users to purchase and stream audiobooks and other forms of spoken word content. This content can be purchased individually or under a subscription model where the user receiv ...
from September 25 to November 13, 2007. It is also available in print.
Deaver was chosen to write a new
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...
novel: ''
Carte Blanche
A blank cheque in the literal sense is a cheque that has no monetary value written in, but is already signed. In the figurative sense, it is used to describe a situation in which an agreement has been made that is open-ended or vague, and therefo ...
'' is set in 2011 and was published on May 25, 2011.
He is the second American author to write Bond novels, after
Raymond Benson.
Bibliography
Stand alone works
* ''Mistress of Justice'' (1992)
* ''The Lesson of Her Death'' (1993)
* ''Praying for Sleep'' (1994)
* ''A Maiden's Grave'' (1995)
* ''Speaking in Tongues'' (2000)
* ''The Blue Nowhere'' (2001)
* ''Garden of Beasts'' (2004)
* ''
The Chopin Manuscript'' (2008) (
collaborative fiction
Collaborative fiction is a form of writing by a group of authors who share creative control of a story.
Collaborative fiction can occur for commercial gain, as part of education, or recreationally – many collaboratively written works have bee ...
)
* ''The Bodies Left Behind'' (2008)
* ''Edge'' (2010)
* ''The October List'' (2013)
Rune Trilogy
# ''
Manhattan Is My Beat'' (1988)
# ''
Death of a Blue Movie Star'' (1990)
# ''Hard News'' (1991)
John Pellam (Location Scout series)
# ''Shallow Graves'' (1992)
# ''Bloody River Blues'' (1993)
# ''
Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...
'' (2001)
Lincoln Rhyme
# ''
The Bone Collector'' (1997)
# ''
The Coffin Dancer'' (1998)
# ''
The Empty Chair'' (2000)
# ''
The Stone Monkey'' (2002)
# ''
The Vanished Man'' (2003) (includes an appearance by Parker Kincaid)
# ''
The Twelfth Card'' (2005) (includes an appearance by Parker Kincaid)
# ''
The Cold Moon'' (2006) (Introduces Kathryn Dance)
# ''
The Broken Window'' (2008)
# ''
The Burning Wire
''The Burning Wire'' is a crime thriller novel by American writer Jeffery Deaver, featuring the officially retired, quadriplegic criminalist Lincoln Rhyme. It is the ninth novel in the Lincoln Rhyme series.
Plot
The sabotage of a substation of t ...
'' (2010)
# ''The Kill Room'' (2013)
# ''The Skin Collector'' (2014)
# ''The Steel Kiss'' (2016)
# ''The Burial Hour'' (2017)
# ''The Cutting Edge'' (2018)
# ''The Midnight Lock'' (2021)
Kathryn Dance
# ''The Sleeping Doll'' (2007) (includes a brief appearance by Lincoln Rhyme)
# ''Roadside Crosses'' (2009)
# ''XO'' (2012) (includes a brief appearance by Lincoln Rhyme)
# ''Solitude Creek ''(May 12, 2015)
Parker Kincaid
* ''
The Devil's Teardrop'' (1999) (introduces Parker Kincaid, includes a scene with Lincoln Rhyme)
Colter Shaw
# ''The Never Game'' (2019)
# ''The Goodbye Man'' (2020)
# ''The Final Twist'' (2021)
James Bond
* ''
Carte Blanche
A blank cheque in the literal sense is a cheque that has no monetary value written in, but is already signed. In the figurative sense, it is used to describe a situation in which an agreement has been made that is open-ended or vague, and therefo ...
'' (2011)
Collections
* ''A Confederacy of Crime'' (2001)
* ''
Twisted'' (2003)
* ''
More Twisted
''More Twisted'' () is a 2006 collection of short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a ...
'' (2006) (includes a story featuring Lincoln Rhyme)
*''Trouble in Mind'' (2014) (includes two stories featuring Lincoln Rhyme, one story featuring Kathryn Dance and one story featuring John Pellam)
* ''The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives'' (2009) (Includes a short Mysterious Profile about Lincoln Rhyme)
Anthologies
* ''Faceoff'' (2014) (includes Lincoln Rhyme vs. Lucas Davenport in “Rhymes With Prey,” by Jeffery Deaver and John Sandford
* ''Nothing Good Happens After Midnight'' (2020) edited by Jeffery Deaver (includes his story "Midnight Sonata") and includes Rhys Bowen, Linwood Barclay, Heather Graham, et al.
See also
*
Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deaver, Jeffery
Living people
1950 births
American mystery writers
People from Glen Ellyn, Illinois
Nero Award winners
20th-century American novelists
21st-century American novelists
Novelists from Illinois
American male novelists
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers