Michael Connelly - Murder in Vegas

EDWARD WELLEN is a man of many talents who has had fiction published in almost every genre imaginable. His short stories have appeared in Universe, Imagination, Infinity, and numerous other science fiction and mystery magazines starting in the 1950s. His best known work, the comic “Galactic Origins” series, was a highlight in Galaxy, which between 1952 and 1962 published all nine of his pseudofactual examinations of the roots of future law, etiquette, medicine, philosophy, and other social doctrines. He is also no stranger to crime and mystery stories, having appeared in anthologies such as The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Sci-Fi Private Eye, and Murder Is My Business. He is also the author of Hijack , a satirical novel of organized crime and space travel. Recently his short mystery fiction was collected in the anthology Perps .

K.j.a. WISHNIA broke into publishing when his self-published novel, 23 Shades of Black, was nominated for the Edgar and the Anthony Awards. He has written four other novels featuring Ecuadorian-American female sleuth, Filomena Buscarsela, including Red House, which was a Washington Post Book World “Rave” Book of the Year in 2002, and Blood Lake , the latest entry in what the Minneapolis Star-Tribune called “one of the most distinctive series in mystery fiction.” By day, he is an English professor, teaching writing and a notoriously amusing crime fiction course at Suffolk Community College on Long Island.

LINDA KERSLAKE is from the Northwest, where she manages a medical practice and moonlights as office help at the local police department. Her short stories have appeared in Mystery Times and Death Dance, another IACW anthology edited by Trevanian. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the International Association of Crime Writers. She has finished her first novel and continues to write short stories.

JOHN WESSEL is the author of the Harding series- This Far, No Further; Pretty Ballerina; Kiss It Goodbye. He lives outside Chicago.

LISE McCLENDON is the author of two mystery series, the Alix Thorssen series ( Blue Wolf , etc.) set in Jackson Hole, and the Dorie Lennox series ( Sweet and Lowdown ) set in WW2-era Kansas City. She lives in Billings, Montana, with her family. She is a former board member of International Association of Crime Writers and currently on the national board of Mystery Writers of America.

RONNIE KLASKIN has had a number of stories published, some in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, and Whittle Communications , Special Report, among others, the most recent of which was in the anthology, A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime , edited by Jeffrey Deaver. She has won prizes for her short stories and poems. She has a MFA in fiction writing from Vermont College.

RUTH CAVIN was born in the very middle of the terrible 1918 flu epidemic, but recent events find her with Thomas Dunne Books at St. Martin’s Press for the past sixteen years. While she has published many mystery novels under the company’s Minotaur imprint, her output surprises some agents by being quite a bit more varied. Before taking her first editorial nine-to-five job, she was the author of several published books-none of them mysteries, all of them now long out of print. She lives in a suburb of New York and commutes daily to St. Martin’s offices in Manhattan’s historic Flatiron Building.

Brooklyn-born A. B. “ROBBIE” ROBBINS joined the Marines at seventeen, where he started on the road to his black belt in judo and brown belt in karate. He became a professional ballroom dancer at the age of twenty-one. During his career he garnered a national championship and status as a master performer, coach, and choreographer. Robbie is an outstanding chef and has written a cookbook, The Convenience Market Gourmet. Other writing credits include a feature-length screenplay, religious lyrics set to classical music, and a short story published in Magnolias and Mayhem. He is at work on a mystery novel called Dancing in the Darkness , plus a short story collection based on the character in this anthology. He plays classical and flamenco guitar, has owned a nightclub/restaurant in the New Orleans area, a judo/karate dojo in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex, and health clubs in California, Washington, and Texas. He loves sailing, and his idol is Leonardo da Vinci.

DR. GAY TOLTL KINMAN has eight award nominations for her mysteries. She was the 2003 Edgars Chair for Best Children’s Mystery, and a presenter of the award; is a scholar for the Center for the Book, Library of Congress/UCLA “Women of Mystery” Program; and coordinates Workshops for Writers at Cal State, San Bernardino. She has published over one hundred and fifty articles and several mystery short stories; had a play produced; coedited a cookbook, Desserticide II: AKA Just Desserts and Deathly Advice ; and has a recipe in A Second Helping of Murder. Anthology mysteries include “Miss Parker and the Cutter Sanborn Tables” in A Deadly Dozen: Tales of Murder from Los Angeles (Agatha nominee) and “Neither Tarnished nor Afraid” in Murder on Sunset Boulevard. Her gothic novel, Castle Reiner, is set in California in 1899. Five children’s mysteries featuring Alison Leigh Powers, Super Sleuth, were published by Amber Quill Press.

Sharing initials with Mickey Mouse, Mighty Mouse, Marilyn Monroe, Mitch Miller, and flying candy disks, MICKI MARZ writes stories beneath a two-hundred-year-old, moss-feathered oak tree in southeastern Louisiana. Micki, published under two other names, says trying on new identities suits a felonious mind. When not writing or teaching the occasional writing class, Micki edits abstruse technical documents about how to blow up things and clean up afterward. Fiction work in progress is a tale featuring a child runaway during Depression times, with, of course, a mystery attached to his exploits.

RICK MOFINA’S suspense novel, Blood of Others, the 2003 Arthur Ellis Award Winner for Best Novel, is a book from his acclaimed crime fiction series featuring reporter Tom Reed and detective Walt Sydowski. Series titles include If Angels Fall, Cold Fear, No Way Back, and Be Mine. Mofina is a former journalist who has reported from the Persian Gulf, Africa, and the Caribbean. His true-crime articles have appeared in The New York Times, Reader’s Digest, and Penthouse . Please visit him at www.rickmofina.com.

JEREMIAH HEALY is a graduate of Rutgers College and Harvard Law School. He is the creator of two mystery series, the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator novels under his own name, and the Mairead O’Clare legal-thriller novels under his pseudonym of Terry Devane. The most recent O’Clare novel, A Stain upon the Robe, deals with the Boston priest/rape scandal, and it was recently optioned for feature film. A past president of the Private Eye Writers of America, Jerry just finished a four-year term as president of the International Association of Crime Writers, a thousand-member organization with branches in twenty-two countries spread over four continents.