Susan Kelly

I knew I was going to be a writer before I could write. My earliest books were squiggles on a piece of paper, which I then illustrated with crayons. Then I’d “read” the squiggles and explain the drawings to my mother and father, who were very admiring of these pre-school literary efforts. When I did actually learn to write, I spent most of my elementary school career grinding out short stories, all science fiction, mysteries, or horror tales. In high school, I wrote mostly about the anguish of alienated youth. I’m very happy that all of this stuff ended up in a landfill somewhere.

I was born in New York, grew up (mostly) in Andover, Massachusetts, lived for four years in Scotland, and while there acquired a Ph.D. in English literature (Medieval) from the University of Edinburgh. The doctorate enabled me to teach at the college level, which I have done, with great enjoyment, at Tufts, Harvard, and Hampshire College. I’ve also taught arrest/incident report writing at the Cambridge (Massachusetts) Police Academy, where I learned that police work in real life is far more interesting than anything you see in the movies or on television.

For a long time I lived in Cambridge, which was an experience I plan to write about shortly. I’ve always thought that if you stood in the middle of Harvard Square, sooner or later everyone you’d ever known or heard of would pass through your field of vision.

My novels to date, all of which have as their protagonist a crime reporter named Liz Connors, are The Gemini Man, The Summertime Soldiers, Trail of the Dragon, Until Proven Innocent, And Soon I’ll Come to Kill You, and Out of the Darkness. The Gemini Man received an Anthony Award nomination for Best First Novel of 1985. My non-fiction book is The Boston Stranglers. I’ve also done articles for The Writer and other publications, including Folklore, The African American Review, and the Japanese edition of Penthouse. My short stories appear in Sisters in Crime I and Sisters in Crime III.

The Boston Stranglers is now available from Blackstone as an audio book. You can listen to a sample at www.blackstoneaudio.com. The updated paperback of the book can be purchased from the publisher, Kensington Books, or through Amazon or one of the other online booksellers. If it isn't available on the shelves at your local bookstore, they can order it for you.

The audio version of The Boston Stranglers is read by Lorna Raver, who has one of the lead roles in Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell."

Until Proven Innocent; And Soon I'll Come to Kill You; and Out of the Darkness have been re-released as audio books by Brilliance Audio. You can listen to samples of all three at www.brillianceaudio.com.