Jeffery Deaver (born May 6, 1950)[1] is an American mystery and crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri 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[2] and Short Story Dagger[3] from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Wolfe Award, 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 Times, Italy's Corriere della Sera, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times.

Quick Facts Born, Occupation ...
Jeffery Deaver
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Deaver at a Waterstones bookstore in London, 2012
Born (1950-05-06) May 6, 1950 (age 74)
Glen Ellyn, Illinois, U.S.
OccupationWriter
EducationUniversity of Missouri (BJ)
Fordham University (JD)
GenreMystery fiction, crime writer, thriller
Website
www.jefferydeaver.com
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Life and career

Deaver was born near Chicago in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. His mother was an artist, and his father an advertising writer.[4] His sister Julie Deaver is an author of young adult novels.[5] The book that inspired him to write was From Russia With Love, a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming.[6]

Deaver's most popular series features Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective, and NYPD 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 (also known as the triode tube), who is thus considered to have opened the world to electronic development.[7]

Deaver edited The Best American Mystery Stories 2009.

Three of Deaver's novels have been made into films:

Additionally, The Bone Collector has been adapted as a television series, Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector. Tracker, a television series based on his novel The Never Game premiered in 2024.

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 that was broadcast on Audible.com from September 25 to November 13, 2007. It is also available in print.

Deaver was chosen to write a new James Bond novel:[8] Carte Blanche[9] is set in 2011 and was published on May 25, 2011.[10] He is the second American author to write Bond novels, after Raymond Benson.

Bibliography

Standalone 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)
  • The Bodies Left Behind (2008)
  • Edge (2010)
  • The October List (2013)
  • "Buried" (2020) (Amazon Short Stories)

Rune Trilogy

  1. Manhattan Is My Beat (1988)
  2. Death of a Blue Movie Star (1990)
  3. Hard News (1991)

John Pellam (Location Scout series)

  1. Shallow Graves (1992)
  2. Bloody River Blues (1993)
  3. Hell's Kitchen (2001)

Lincoln Rhyme

  1. The Bone Collector (1997)
  2. The Coffin Dancer (1998)
  3. The Empty Chair (2000)
  4. The Stone Monkey (2002)
  5. The Vanished Man (2003) (includes an appearance by Parker Kincaid)
  6. The Twelfth Card (2005) (includes an appearance by Parker Kincaid)
  7. The Cold Moon (2006) (Introduces Kathryn Dance)
  8. The Broken Window (2008)
  9. The Burning Wire (2010)
  10. The Kill Room (2013)
  11. The Skin Collector (2014)
  12. The Steel Kiss (2016)
  13. The Burial Hour (2017)
  14. The Cutting Edge (2018)
  15. The Midnight Lock (2021)
  16. The Watchmaker's Hand (2023)

Kathryn Dance

  1. The Sleeping Doll (2007) (includes a brief appearance by Lincoln Rhyme)
  2. Roadside Crosses (2009)
  3. XO (2012) (includes a brief appearance by Lincoln Rhyme)
  4. Solitude Creek (May 12, 2015)

Parker Kincaid

Colter Shaw

  1. The Never Game (2019)
  2. The Goodbye Man (2020)
  3. The Final Twist (2021)
  4. Hunting Time (2022)

James Bond

Collections

  • A Confederacy of Crime (2001)
  • Twisted (2003)
  • More Twisted (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.

Adaptations

References

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