Jeffery Deaver


Jeffery Deaver is an American mystery and crime writer. He has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a J.D. degree from Fordham University and originally started working as a journalist. He later practiced law before embarking on a career as a novelist. He has been awarded the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association and the Nero Award from The Wolfe Pack. He is also a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world, including The New York Times, The Times, Italy's Corriere della Sera, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Los Angeles Times.

Life and career

Deaver was born near Chicago in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. His mother was an artist, and his father an advertising writer. His sister Julie Deaver is an author of young adult novels. The book that inspired him to write was From Russia With Love, a James Bond novel by Ian Fleming.
Deaver's most popular series features Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective, and NYPD Detective Amelia Sachs.
Deaver's 2001 book The Blue Nowhere features criminal hackers, as well as a law enforcement computer crime unit. In this book, Deaver gives credit to Lee de Forest, the inventor of the Audion, who is thus considered to have opened the world to electronic development.
Deaver edited The Best American Mystery Stories 2009.
Three of Deaver's novels have been made into films:
  • A Maiden's Grave adapted as Dead Silence
  • The Bone Collector
  • The Devil's Teardrop
Additionally, The Bone Collector has been adapted as a television series, Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector. Tracker, a television series based on his novel The Never Game, premiered in 2024.
Deaver also created the characters and—in a collaboration with 14 other noted writers—wrote the 17-part serial thriller The Chopin Manuscript narrated by Alfred Molina that was broadcast on Audible.com from September 25 to November 13, 2007. It is also available in print.
Deaver was chosen to write a new James Bond novel: Carte Blanche is set in 2011 and was published on May 25, 2011. He is the second American author to write Bond novels, after Raymond Benson.

Standalone works

  • Mistress of Justice
  • The Lesson of Her Death
  • Praying for Sleep
  • A Maiden's Grave
  • Speaking in Tongues
  • The Blue Nowhere
  • Garden of Beasts
  • The Chopin Manuscript
  • The Bodies Left Behind
  • Edge
  • The October List
  • "Buried"

    Rune Trilogy

  1. Manhattan Is My Beat
  2. Death of a Blue Movie Star
  3. ''Hard News''

    John Pellam (Location Scout series)

  4. Shallow Graves
  5. Bloody River Blues
  6. ''Hell's Kitchen''

    Lincoln Rhyme

  7. The Bone Collector
  8. The Coffin Dancer
  9. The Empty Chair
  10. The Stone Monkey
  11. The Vanished Man
  12. The Twelfth Card
  13. The Cold Moon
  14. The Broken Window
  15. The Burning Wire
  16. The Kill Room
  17. The Skin Collector
  18. The Steel Kiss
  19. The Burial Hour
  20. The Cutting Edge
  21. The Midnight Lock
  22. The Watchmaker's Hand
  23. ''The Collateral Heart''

    Kathryn Dance

  24. The Sleeping Doll
  25. Roadside Crosses
  26. XO
  27. ''Solitude Creek ''

    Parker Kincaid

  • ''The Devil's Teardrop''

    Colter Shaw

  1. The Never Game
  2. The Goodbye Man
  3. The Final Twist
  4. Hunting Time
  5. South of Nowhere
  6. Captivated
  7. The Second Hostage
  8. Forgotten
  9. ''The Deadline Clock''

    James Bond