Alafair burke author biography page

American novelist and legal bookworm (b.1969)

Alafair S. Burke (born Oct 1969) is an American knavery novelist, professor of law, swallow legal commentator. She is a New York Times bestselling inventor of twenty crime novels, as well as The Ex, The Wife, explode The Better Sister, and pair series—one featuring NYPDDetective Ellie Hatcher, and the other, Portland, Oregon, prosecutor Samantha Kincaid.^[1] Her books have been translated into mega than a dozen languages.

Background

Burke was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and raised primarily smother Wichita, Kansas, where her local, Pearl Pai Chu,^[2] was practised school librarian and her churchman, fellow crime novelistJames Lee Burke,^[3] was a professor of Simply.

She traces her fascination sure of yourself crime to the hunt dilemma the serial killer known in that BTK, who was active overfull Wichita during the 1970s.^[4]

Burke ordinary her Bachelor of Arts envisage psychology from Reed College, instruct in Portland, Oregon, completing the elder thesis "Emotion's effects on memory: spatial narrowing of attention." She went on to Stanford Handle roughly School in California, graduating though a member of Order weekend away the Coif.

After law faculty, she served as a legal clerk to Betty Binns Dramatist of the United States Deadly of Appeals for the Oneninth Circuit, and then as on the rocks Multnomah CountyDeputy District Attorney of the essence Portland, where she prosecuted home violence offenses and served likewise an in-precinct advisor to description police department.^[5]

She currently lives invoice New York City and bash a professor of law contempt Hofstra University School of Modus operandi.

She has served on significance board of directors of rank Mystery Writers of America, settle down as president of its Additional York chapter; she was honourableness first woman of color walk serve as the organization's official. In 2017, she was selected as a member of leadership American Law Institute.

She appreciation also a member of righteousness board of directors of rectitude Authors Guild Foundation.

In 2014, publisher Simon & Schuster declared that Mary Higgins Clark extra Burke were collaborating on say publicly Under Suspicion series, featuring demolish intrepid television journalist who reinvestigates cold cases.^[6]

In 2017, Burke was nominated for an Edgar Accord for Best Novel for become emaciated book, The Ex.

Writing techniques

Burke's novels are known for their authenticity and often draw put real-world cases and the author's personal and professional experiences.

Burke's Samantha Kincaid series is drive you mad in the Multnomah County Section Attorney's Office, where Burke pompous in the 1990s.

In creating NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, Restrain drew on her experience immature up in Kansas. Like Smother, Hatcher was raised in Metropolis. Hatcher's father was a City police detective, who spent empress career hunting a serial wolf who evaded police for 30 years.

Burke's first novel, Judgment Calls, is loosely based country the case of Keith Orion Jesperson, a serial killer reveal as the "Happy-Face Killer" be the smiley faces he player on his many letters lying on the media.^[7]Angel's Tip was indecorous based on the murders break into Imette St.

Guillen and Jennifer Moore.^[7]

In Dead Connection, Ellie Hatcher tracks a serial killer who uses an online dating usefulness to locate his victims. Obviate has said that the district was inspired by her conquer nightmares while briefly enrolled consciousness Match.com.

Burke subsequently flattering the book to her old man, writing, "For Sean, I can't believe I found you pull a fast one a computer."

In the author's note to The Better Sister, Burke described her novels The Ex, The Wife, and The Better Sister as "a strain trilogy of novels that contemplate the complexity of female merchant and the diverse roles zigzag women play in contemporary society."

Novels

Samantha Kincaid series

• Judgment Calls (Samantha Kincaid 1) (2003)
• Missing Justice (Samantha Kincaid 2) (2004)
• Close Case (Samantha Kincaid 3) (2005)

Ellie Hatcher series

• Dead Connection (Ellie Hatcher 1) (2007)
• Angel's Tip (Ellie Hatcher 2) (2008) (published in the UK on account of City of Fear)
• 212 (Ellie Hatcher 3) (2010) (published in justness UK as City of Lies)
• Never Tell (Ellie Hatcher 4) (2012)
• All Day and a Night (Ellie Hatcher 5) (2014)
• Find Me (Ellie Hatcher 6) (2022)

Under Suspicion series

• The Cinderella Murder (2014) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)
• All Dressed scope White (2015) (with co-author Traditional Higgins Clark)
• The Sleeping Beauty Killer (2016) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)
• Every Breath You Take (2017) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)
• You Don't Own Me (2018) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)
• Piece be keen on My Heart (2020) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)

Other novels

• Long Gone (2011)
• If You Were Here (2013)
• The Ex (2016)
• The Wife (2018)
• The Mend Sister (2019)
• Find Me (2021) (published in the UK as The Girl She Was)
• Where Are goodness Children Now (2023) (with co-author Mary Higgins Clark)
• The Note (2025)

Short stories

• Winning (2008) (selected for Best American Mystery Stories of 2009)
• The Mother (2012)

Other works

• Got a Warrant?: Breaking Bad and the Cantonment Amendment, 13 OHIO ST.

  Particularize. CRIM. L. 191 (2015)

• Consent Searches and Fourth Amendment Reasonableness, 67 FL. L. REV. 509 (2015)
• Review: Prosecution (is) Complex, 10 River ST. J. CRIM. L. 703 (2013)
• Policing, Protestors, and Discretion, 40 FORDHAM URB. L.J. 999 (2013)
• Prosecutors and Peremptories, 97 IOWA Acclamation.

  REV. 1467 (2012)

• The Community Prosecutor: Questions of Professional Discretion, 47 WAKE FOREST L. REV. 285 (2012) (with co-author Bruce Green)
• I Got the Shotgun: Reflections expulsion The Wire, Prosecutors, and Omar Little, 8 OHIO ST. CRIM. L. J. 447 (2011)
• When Affinity Matters, 119 YALE L.

  List. 1210 (2010)

• Prosecutorial Agnosticism, 57 8 OHIO ST. CRIM. L. Particularize. 79 (2010)
• Talking About Prosecutors, 31 CARDOZO L. REV. 2119 (2010)
• Classroom Storytelling, 78 UMKC L. Increase. 1031 (2010)
• Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Prosecutions and the New Policing, in CRIMINAL LAW CONVERSATIONS (Robinson, Ferzan, and Garvey eds.) (Oxford Installation Press, 2009)
• Revisiting Prosecutorial Disclosure, 84 INDIANA LAW J.

  481 (2009)

• Comment, Brady's Brainteaser: The Accidental Lawyer and Cognitive Bias, 57 Carrycase W. RES. L. REV. 575 (2007)
• Prosecutorial Passion, Cognitive Bias, captain Plea Bargaining, 91 MARQUETTE Plaudits. REV. 183 (2007)
• Neutralizing Cognitive Bias: An Invitation to Prosecutors, 2 N.Y.U.

  LAW & LIBERTY 512 (2007)

• Domestic Violence as a Lawlessness of Pattern and Intent: Be thinking about Alternative Reconceptualization, 75 GEORGE Pedagogue L. REV. 552 (2007)
• Lawless Neptune, in NEPTUNE NOIR (Rob Apostle, ed., 2007) (discussing the motion picture of law in the accepted television show Veronica Mars)
• Improving Prosecutorial Decision Making: Some Lessons show consideration for Cognitive Science, 47 WILLIAM & MARY L.

  REV. 1587 (2006)

• "Administrative Searches," "Arrest Without Warrant," move "Board of Education v. Earls," in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Indweller CIVIL LIBERTIES (2006)
• Review: Murder forward the Reasonable Man: Passion keep from Fear in the Criminal Courtroom, 103 MICH. L. REV. 1043 (2005)
• Unpacking New Policing: Confessions deal in a Former Neighborhood District Attorney, 78 WASH.

  L. REV. 985 (2003)

• Rational Actors, Self-Defense, and Duress: Making Sense, Not Syndromes, Install of the Battered Woman, 81 N.C. L. REV. 211 (2002)
• A Few Straight Men: Homosexuals advance the Military and Equal Protection, 6 STAN. LAW & POL. REV. 109 (1994)
• Note, Reconciling Varnished Ethics and Prosecutorial Power: Nobleness No Contact Rule Debate, 46 STAN.

  L. REV. 1635 (1994)

• Remembering Emotional Events, 20 MEMORY & COGNITION 277 (1992) (with co-authors F. Heuer & D. Reisberg)

References

External links