Steve Hamilton

Steve Hamilton is one of the most acclaimed mystery writers in the world, and one of only two authors (along with Ross Thomas) to win Edgars for both Best First Novel and Best Novel. His Alex McKnight series includes two New York Times notable books, and he’s put two recent titles on the New York Times bestseller list. He’s either won or received multiple nominations for virtually every other crime fiction award in the business, from the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award to the Anthony to the Barry to the Gumshoe. But it was his standalone The Lock Artist that made publishing history, his first book to win an Edgar for Best Novel, a CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller in the UK, and an Alex Award – which is given out by the American Library Association to those books that successfully cross over from the adult market and appeal to young adult readers. The Lock Artist has been translated into seventeen different languages, and was an especially strong seller in Japan, where it was voted the number one translated crime novel of 2012 by both the annual Kono Mystery Ga Sugoi guide and by Weekly Bunshun magazine.

Hamilton’s very first book, A Cold Day in Paradise, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin’s Press Award for Best First Mystery by an Unpublished Writer. After it was published, the novel went on to win the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for Best First Novel, the only first novel to win both awards. That book introduced Alex McKnight, an ex-cop now making a living renting cabins in the small town of Paradise in Michigan’s isolated Upper Peninsula, who becomes a reluctant private detective.

Hamilton’s second Alex McKnight novel, Winter of the Wolf Moon, was named one of the year’s Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, as did his next three novels, The Hunting Wind, North of Nowhere and Blood is the Sky (which won the 2004 Gumshoe Award). As of 2015 there are ten books in the Alex McKnight series.

Night Work is a departure from the Alex McKnight series, featuring instead a probation officer in upstate New York. Night Work was nominated for the Crime Writers’ Association top award, The Duncan Lawrie Dagger.

In 2006, Hamilton won the Michigan Author Award for his body of work.

Hamilton lives in upstate New York with his wife Julia and their two children Nicholas G. and Antonia.