About the Author: A seventh-generation Mississippian now transplanted to Texas, Dean James grew up with scads of cousins all over the place, none of whom has ever married one another as far as he knows. Sitting around on porches on hot summer days, listening to adults telling stories, he decided he wanted to tell stories, too. He wrote his first novel when he was twelve and has been making up stories ever since. No matter where those stories are set, something Southern creeps in, because he thinks that growing up Southern was like living in the middle of every one of Shakespeare's plays all at once. Comedy, drama, tragedy, farce--they're with you every day; all you have to do is choose.
When he's not thinking up stories, Dean is the Manager of "Murder by the Book", Houston's nationally known mystery specialty bookstore. He is the co-author, with Jean Swanson, of By a Woman's Hand: A Guide to Mystery Fiction by Women (second edition, Berkley Prime Crime, 1996). The first edition of this popular reference book on contemporary women mystery writers was nominated by the "Mystery Writers of America" for the Edgar Award for Best Critical-Biographical Work, and it won the Agatha and Macavity Awards for Best Non-Fiction. The second edition was nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony Awards.
With Jan Grape, he is the co-editor of Deadly Women , another volume on women mystery writers, published by Carroll & Graf in 1997. Deadly Women was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work and won the Macavity Award for Best Non-Fiction from Mystery Readers International. In 1998, Berkley Prime Crime published Killer Books: A Reader's Guide to Exploring the Popular World of Mystery and Suspense, which he wrote with Jean Swanson. His first mystery short story, "The Village Vampire and the Oboe of Death," was published by Avon Books in September 1998 in the Malice Domestic 7 anthology; it was nominated for the Agatha Award for Best Short Story. Other stories have appeared in Canine Crimes and A Canine Christmas, both published by Ballantine Books. Two new stories will be published in summer 2000, in the anthologies Magnolias and Mayhem (Silver Dagger Mysteries) and A Confederacy of Crime (NAL/Signet). His first novel for Silver Dagger is Cruel As The Grave.
What do You think about Closer Than The Bones (2001)?
