William Kent Krueger is the New York Times bestselling author of The River We Remember, This Tender Land, Ordinary Grace (winner of the Edgar Award for best novel), and the original audio novella The Levee, as well as nineteen acclaimed books in the Cork O’Connor mystery series, including Lightning Strike and Fox Creek.

He lives in the Twin Cities with his family.

Bill Pronzini is an American writer of detective fiction.

He is also an active anthologist, having compiled more than 100 collections, most of which focus on mystery, western, and science fiction short stories.

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Sunset and Sawdust, Rumble Tumble and The Bottoms.

He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Edgar Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature, and seven Bram Stoker Awards. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Charlaine Harris is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over thirty-five years. Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta, she is the author of the Aurora Teagarden mysteries, basis for the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries Aurora Teagarden original movies; the Midnight, Texas series, now a brand-new TV series; the Sookie Stackhouse urban fantasy series, basis for the HBO show True Blood; the Lily Bard mysteries; the Harper Connelly mysteries; and the co-author of the graphic novel trilogy Cemetery Girl. Harris now lives in Texas with her husband and two rescue dogs.

Sara Paretsky was named 2011 Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. She is the winner of many awards, including the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement from the British Crime Writers' Association and the CWA Gold Dagger for Blacklist.

In 2015 she received the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award. She lives on Chicago's south side with her husband.

Robert J. Randisi has authored more than five hundred published books and has edited more than thirty anthologies of short stories. Booklist magazine said he may be the last of the pulp writers. He cofounded and edited Mystery Scene magazine and cofounded the American Crime Writers League. He founded The Private Eye Writers of America in 1981, where he created the Shamus Award.