Louis Begley was born in Poland in 1933. He and his parents survived the Holocaust, and he came to the U.S. at 13 years of age. He attended Harvard College, graduating summa cum laude. He then entered the U.S. Army. In 1959, after graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, he became an attorney in a prestigious law firm, where for many years, he headed its international practice.
When he was 58 years old and still practicing law, Wartime Lies, his first novel, was published. Based on his childhood as a Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi death camps, it won the Hemingway/PEN Award in 1991, and the Irish Times Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize. His 1996 novel, About Schmidt was made into a film starring Jack Nicholson.
Harlan Coben is known to readers everywhere. His first novel was published when he was twenty-six, and after two stand-alone thrillers, Play Dead in 1990 and Miracle Cure in 1991, he began writing the popular Myron Bolitar series. His 2001 standalone novel, Tell No One, was hugely popular. In 2006, Film director Guillaume Canet made the book into the French thriller, Ne le dis a personne. The movie was the top box office foreign-language film of the year in the U.S.; won the Lumiere (French Golden Globe) for best picture; and was nominated for nine Cesars (French Oscar), winning four awards.
After receiving a doctorate in American literature at Pennsylvania State University, in 1970, David Morrell became an English professor at the University of Iowa. In 1972, his debut novel, First Blood was published; and by 1982, was made into the blockbuster movie, Rambo, First Blood, the first in the wildly successful series bearing the iconic Rambo name. David kept writing novels while teaching literature, but eventually devoted himself to full-time writing. He was a finalist for the Edgar and Anthony Awards, received the Macavity and Nero Awards, and is a recipient of the International Thriller Writers Thriller Master Award.
Gone, and Shutter Island became blockbuster movies, with the most recent film being The Drop, which is based on his short story, Animal Rescue.
Owen Laukkanen’s debut novel, The Professionals, received high praise and was nominated for many honors, including the International Thriller Writers’ Award, the Anthony, the Barry, and the New Voices Awards. He graduated from the University of British Columbia’s creative writing program, and before turning to fiction, spent three years reporting on the world of professional poker.
Dennis Palumbo is a thriller writer and psychotherapist in private practice. He’s the author of the non-fiction book, Writing from the Inside Out and a collection of mystery stories, From Crime to Crime. He has also been writing the Daniel Rinaldi mystery series. He was formerly a Hollywood screenwriter, whose credits include the film My Favorite Year, which was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay. He was a staff writer for the TV series Welcome Back, Kotter. Currently, he blogs for the Huffington Post and has a column, Hollywood on the Couch, for Psychology Today.
C.J. Box is the bestselling author of 16 Joe Pickett novels, four standalone novels, and a collection of short stories called Shots Fired. He’s won multiple awards including the Edgar, the Anthony, the Gumshoe, and the Barry awards. He lives with his family outside Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Clive Cussler is an adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. His thrillers have reached The New York Times best-seller list more than 20 times. His books have been published in 40 languages in more than 100 countries. He is the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than sixty shipwreck sites. He is the sole or lead author of more than 60 books. After his discharge from the military, he worked in advertising, first as a copywriter and later as a creative director. He produced radio and television commercials, many of which won international awards. He began writing fiction in 1965.
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and New York Times bestselling author of Insane City and You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty. From 1983 to 2005, he wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for The Miami Herald.
Alex Berenson, a former New York Times reporter, covered topics ranging from the occupation of Iraq; the flooding of New Orleans; to the financial crimes of Bernard Madoff. He’s written eight previous John Wells novels, all geopolitical thrillers, with his first, The Faithful Spy, having won the 2007 Edgar Award for Best First Novel.