Inherit the Dead (32 page)

MAX ALLAN COLLINS
is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling graphic novel
Road to Perdition,
made into the Academy Award–winning film. His other credits include such comics as
Batman, Dick Tracy,
and his own
Ms. Tree;
film scripts for HBO and Lifetime TV; and the Shamus Award–winning Nathan Heller detective novels. His tie-in novels include the bestsellers
Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One,
and
American Gangster,
and he is working with the Mickey Spillane estate to finish a number of works by Mike Hammer’s creator. He lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, Barb, with whom he writes the popular “Trash ’n’ Treasures” mystery series (
Antiques Roadkill
).

JOHN CONNOLLY
was born in Dublin, Ireland, and is the writer of the Charlie Parker series of mystery novels, the latest of which is
The Wrath of Angels;
the stand-alone novel
The Book of Lost Things;
and the Samuel Johnson stories for younger readers. He is also the host of the 2XM radio show
ABC to XTC,
which allows him to indulge his love of the music of 1977 to 1989.

JAMES GRADY
’s first novel became the Robert Redford movie
Three Days of the Condor
. Grady has received Italy’s Raymond Chandler Medal, France’s
Grand Prix du Roman Noir
and Japan’s
Baka-Misu
literature award. In 2008, London’s
Daily Telegraph
named Grady as one of “50 crime writers to read before you die.”

HEATHER GRAHAM
is the
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author of more than a hundred novels, including suspense, paranormal, historical, and mainstream Christmas fare. She lives in Miami, Florida, an easy shot down to the Keys, where she can indulge in her passion for diving. Travel, research, and ballroom dancing also help keep her sane; she is the mother of five, and also resides with two dogs and two cats. She is CEO of Slush Pile Productions, a recording company and production house for various charity events.

BRYAN GRULEY
’s Starvation Lake series has been nominated for an Edgar and won the Anthony and Barry awards. Gruley also is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist for Bloomberg News in Chicago, where he lives with his wife, Pam. He’s working on his fourth novel.

CHARLAINE HARRIS
, author of more than thirty novels, is best known for her novels about telepathic barmaid Sookie Stackhouse. A daughter of the South, she now lives in Texas.

VAL McDERMID
escaped from a mining community in Scotland to Oxford University. She abandoned an award-winning career in journalism for fiction and has published twenty-six crime novels. Her bestselling books are translated into more than forty languages and she has won many awards including the Gold Dagger, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Lambda Pioneer Award, and the Diamond Dagger for lifetime achievement. She lives in the north of England with her American wife, her son, and their dog.

S. J. ROZAN
, the Edgar-winning author of fourteen novels and dozens of short stories, was born in the Bronx and lives in Manhattan. Her latest novel, as half of the writing team of Sam Cabot, is
Blood of the Lamb.

JONATHAN SANTLOFER
is the author of five novels, including
The Death Artist,
which has been translated into eighteen languages and the Nero Award–winning
Anatomy of Fear
. He is the coeditor, contributor, and illustrator of
The Dark End of the Street;
editor and contributor of
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories;
and editor, contributor, and illustrator of Akashic Books’
The Marijuana Chronicles
. Also an artist, Santlofer has been the recipient of two National Endowment for Arts grants and sits on the board of Yaddo, the oldest arts organization in the United States. He lives in New York where he is at work on a new novel.

DANA STABENOW
has written twenty-nine novels, many short stories, has edited anthologies and wrote the “Alaska Traveler” column for five years for
Alaska
magazine. She lives in Alaska.

LISA UNGER
is a
New York Times, USA Today,
and internationally bestselling author whose novels have sold more than one and a half million copies in the United States and have been translated into twenty-six languages. Her novels have been hailed as “masterful” (
St. Petersburg Times
), “sensational” (
Publishers Weekly
), with “gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose” (Associated Press). Her next novel,
In the Blood,
will be released by Touchstone in January 2014. She lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.

SARAH WEINMAN
is news editor for
Publishers Marketplace
and the editor of
Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories From the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense
(Penguin). She writes the “Crimewave” column for the
National Post
and contributes to the
Wall Street Journal,
the
New York Observer, Slate,
and other publications. Her fiction has appeared in
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine,
and several anthologies. Weinman lives in Brooklyn.

2 Lafayette Street, 3
^rd
Floor NY NY 10007

T 212.577.7700 F 212.385.0311
www.safehorizon.org

C
rime writers, much like the perps who populate their pages, couldn’t succeed at their work without victims. A murder mystery will offer up at least one corpse; and when a serial killer is on the loose, the body count grows even higher. Some bad guys choose their victims with great care; others catch toddlers or little old ladies in random cross fire.

I was a prosecutor in New York for thirty years, during which time I started my own career as a crime novelist. When I began the job in 1972, there were no victim advocates anywhere in America. Prosecutors represent the state or federal government; and as much as they may empathize with someone who has been assaulted or robbed or burglarized, they are not lawyers for the victim.

When Safe Horizon was founded in New York in 1978, it filled an enormous void, stepping up to provide support and promote justice for victims of crime and abuse, their families, and their communities. Its twenty-four-hour toll-free hotlines are gateways to assistance for so many of the 250,000 crime victims whose lives we touch each year. We are the largest provider of domestic violence services in America, offering innovative programs to support women—in collaboration with the criminal justice system—as they navigate the complexities of leaving abusive relationships and building safe futures. We have state-of-the-art child advocacy centers that aid more than four thousand sexually and physically abused children and their families every year, pioneering the model of fully co-locating police, prosecutors,
doctors, social workers, and mental health professionals in one facility so that the child victim is not exposed to repeated interviews in hostile environments.

Safe Horizon has more than fifty-seven programs in courthouses, schools, precincts, and in our own havens and shelters. Our counseling center helps clients regain a sense of control over their lives, a sense often lost after a violent and traumatic event. Since 1979, we have worked with family members who survive homicide victims—their spouses, siblings, parents, and children. We also advocate nationally for policies on behalf of those affected by violence and abuse.

How especially fitting, then, that this brilliant cast of contributors—some of the finest writers in the genre—have pooled their considerable talent to support Safe Horizon, the largest and best victims’ services agency in the United States. While the writers hold us spellbound with their storytelling, our friends at Safe Horizon will continue to do their work on the side of the angels, using this support to help move victims from crisis to confidence.

LINDA FAIRSTEIN

crime novelist and board member of Safe Horizon

Santlofer has arranged to donate any royalties in excess of editor and contributor compensation to Safe Horizon, the leading victim assistance agency in the country.

Safe Horizon envisions a society free of family and community violence and leads the way by empowering victims of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, and human trafficking to move from crisis to confidence.

www.SafeHorizon.org