Contributors

While The Rap Sheet is largely a one-man operation, it has benefited over the last 18 years from the talents of many contributors.


The Usual Suspects
Some of those authors and editors have been with this blog ever since it spun off from January Magazine in May 2006. Others have added their voices on a periodic basis in more recent years, enriching The Rap Sheet’s coverage of crime, mystery, and thriller fiction.

J. Kingston Pierce
is a longtime journalist in Seattle, Washington, and editor of The Rap Sheet, which has won the Spinetingler Award and been nominated twice for Anthony Awards. In addition, he writes the book-design blog Killer Covers, serves as the senior editor of January Magazine and as a contributing editor to CrimeReads, and is a columnist for Down & Out: The Magazine. For almost six years, Pierce was the lead crime-fiction blogger for Kirkus Reviews. He has published more than half a dozen non-fiction books, among them San Francisco: Yesterday and Today, Seattle: Yesterday and Today, Eccentric Seattle, and America’s Historic Trails with Tom Bodett. His various essays on crime fiction have appeared in works such as Following the Detectives: Real Locations in Crime Fiction and Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980. (Photo: Peer van den Boomen)


Linda L. Richards
is a journalist, photographer, and the author of 16 books, including three series of crime novels featuring strong female protagonists. She is the former publisher of Canada’s Self-Counsel Press and the founder and publisher of January Magazine, an award-winning book review and author interview site. Her contribution to Vancouver Noir, “Terminal City,” was given the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Short Story in 2019. Her book Return from Extinction: The Triumph of the Elephant Seal, a work of non-fiction for 9- to 13-year-olds, was published by Orca Books in 2020. Richards’ latest crime thriller is Dead West (Oceanview, 2023). Find out more about her on the Web at LindalRichards.com.


Ali Karim
is the assistant editor of Shots, the chief British correspondent for The Rap Sheet, and a contributing editor of January Magazine. He also writes for Crimespree Magazine, Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Readers International, and has contributed work to the books Dissecting Hannibal Lecter, British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia, and Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads. A resident of the UK, Karim holds associate membership in the Crime Writers Association, the International Thriller Writers, and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has been nominated three times for Anthony Awards. In 2011, he was presented with the David Thompson Special Services Award, and in 2013 he received the Don Sandtstrom Award. Karim was given a Red Herring Award in 2018 from the Crime Writers Association, and he will be the Fan Guest of Honor at Bouchercon 2025, to be hosted in New Orleans. In his “real life” (as if he has time for such things), Karim is a former chemical transport company director, now working as a technical consultant in the chemical and logistics Industries.


Mark Coggins
has been nominated for the Shamus and Barry crime-fiction awards, and his August Riordan novels have been selected for best-of-the-year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press, and Amazon.com, among others. His books Runoff (2007) and The Big Wake-Up (2009) won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY), respectively. Coggins is also a photographer. His photos have been accepted for exhibit across the country, including at galleries in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and have also been used to illustrate books by other authors, notably Red Mist, by Patricia Cornwell. Click here to find Coggins’ Web site. A collection of his author portraits can be found here.


Michael Gregorio
is the joint pseudonym employed by husband-and-wife authors Daniela De Gregorio and Michael G. Jacob. After penning four historical mysteries featuring early 19th-century Prussian magistrate-cum-detective Hanno Stiffeniis, the most recent of which was Unholy Awakening (2010), these two have taken off in a very different direction, publishing Cry Wolf (2015) and Think Wolf (2016), the opening installments in a series of Mafia thrillers set in rural Italy and featuring resourceful park ranger Sebastiano Cangio. De Gregorio was born in Italy, studied philosophy at the University of Perugia, and began work as a journalist and art critic. Jacob hails from Great Britain, where he taught English Lit before relocating to Italy. The pair live in Spoleto, a small town in the Umbria region, and have been writing on a full-time basis since 2006.


Peter Handel
is a Northern California resident who’s been writing about crime fiction since the early 1990s. His reviews, interviews, and profiles have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Portland Oregonian, the long-defunct Pages Magazine, Mystery Reader’s Journal, and CrimeReads. He’s now a regular contributor to The Rap Sheet.


Cameron Pierce Hughes
is a native of San Diego, California, who—in addition to contributing interviews and features to The Rap Sheet—has reviewed books for January Magazine, Crimespree Magazine, the pop-culture Web site CHUD.com, the Philadelphia City Paper, and other publications. His first piece of fiction, “The War Zone,” was featured in Damn Near Dead 2: Live Noir or Die Trying, edited by Bill Crider (Busted Flush Press, 2010). His story “Moving Black Objects” was included in San Diego Noir, edited by Maryelizabeth Hart (Akashic, 2011). Hughes has been an Internet journalist since 2006. And yes, he worships the sun and talks about the weather a lot. He hates rain.


Fraser Massey
is a freelance journalist based in London, England. A former columnist for the Radio Times, Now magazine, and Real People, he is also a regular contributor to The Times. His short story “Have a Cigar” appears in Coming Through in Waves: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Pink Floyd (2021), the latest entry in Gutter Books’ Rock Anthology series. An early draft of his yet-to-be published neo-noir thriller, Whitechapel Messiah, was shortlisted in the New Voices category at the inaugural Capital Crime Festival Awards in 2019.


Stephen Miller
was a regular contributor to the late, lamented Mystery News, for which he wrote the “In the Beginning” column, focusing on new writers and their first full-length works of crime fiction. Authors featured in that column included Marcia Talley, Tasha Alexander, Scott Phillips, and Craig McDonald, among others. Miller’s book reviews have also appeared in January Magazine and Blue Coupe. A native of central Ohio, he now makes his home outside Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife, Leslie, and their Blue Headed Pionus parrot, and spends his days working in the insurance industry. Miller is a former trustee of Thurber House, a literary center in Columbus, Ohio. (Photo: Leslie Hutchings)


Steven Nester
is the longtime host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a mystery-fiction author interview show which can be heard on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). In addition, he is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap Sheet, January Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Yellow Mama, Mystery Scene, Plots with Guns, and Firsts Magazine. Nester is a regular contributor to The Rap Sheet’s “forgotten books” series; you’ll find his offerings here. A former high school English teacher in Connecticut, he now lives in the Berkshires of Massachusetts. More information is on his Web site.


Gary Phillips
was born under a bad sign, so he must keep writing to forestall his appointment at the crossroads. He’s penned novels, novellas, short stories, and online serials; edited or co-edited anthologies, such as The Cocaine Chronicles (2005) and Day of the Destroyers (2015); and worked in comics and low-low-budget films. His continuing characters include P.I.s Ivan Monk, Nate Hollis and Nefra Adams, cold-cash courier Martha Chainey, pulp hero Decimator Smith, Vietnam vet-turned-marijuana grower Tal Shanko, 1970s-era vigilante The Silencer, and bounty hunter Irma Deuce. Phillips is past president of the Southern California Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and vice-president of the Private Eye Writers of America. Beyond his Rap Sheet work, he has blogged at Dr. Pop and Views from the Muse, and, with Christa Faust, wrote Hard Case Crime’s Peepland comic-book series. His latest novel is Ash Dark as Night (2024), the sequel to One-Shot Harry, both starring Harry Ingram, a news photographer in 1960s Los Angeles. Phillips has won the Chester Himes and Brody awards for his fiction. His Web site is here. (Photo: Robin Doyno)


Kevin Burton Smith
is a lost Montrealer who has been involved in publishing, in one form or another, ever since he was 4 years old and asked his mother to staple together some of his drawings. Since then he’s worked as a paperboy, an editor, a columnist, an illustrator, a graphic designer, a critic, a cartoonist, a book seller, a layout artist, and a short-story writer. He’s the founder and editor of The Thrilling Detective Web Site, the popular, long-running online encyclopedia of all things private eye, as well as the Web monkey for The Private Eye Writers of America and a contributing editor of Mystery Scene. Smith currently lives in that peculiar state-of-mind known as Southern California and is working on a non-fiction book about married detective couples with his wife, mystery author D.L. Browne (aka Diana Killian, Josh Lanyon). You can learn more about him here. (Photo: Peter Rozovsky)


Jim Thomsen
is a writer and editor who lives in Kingston, Washington. After a 25-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor in his native Pacific Northwest, he’s had his own manuscript-editing business, JimThomsenCreative.com, for more than a decade, and also works for Amazon as a story reviewer for its new Kindle Vella serial-storytelling project. His crime-centric essays and fiction have appeared in West Coast Crime Wave, Shotgun Honey, Switchblade, Pulp Modern, and Mystery Tribune, in addition to The Rap Sheet. He is a Count Chocula-level devotee of all things 1970s.


Past Offenders
Deserving of recognition and applause, too, are those writers who—for one reason or another—are now less active Rap Sheet contributors.

• Megan Abbott is the author of such best-selling novels as The Song Is You (2007), Bury Me Deep (2009), Dare Me (2012), and Beware the Woman (2023). • Declan Burke is an Irish fictionist, editor, and journalist, whose books include The Lost and the Blind (2014), Crime Always Pays (2015), and the essay collection Books to Die For (2012). • Patrick Lennon is the UK author of novels including Corn Dolls (2006), Steel Witches (2008), and—as “P.F. Lennon”—Fixer (2016). • Brendan M. Leonard is a New York City writer specializing in film and television, who also created New York Noir, a short-lived podcast anthology series. • R.N. “Roger” Morris, a British author, has penned four mystery novels starring Porfiry Petrovich (from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment), beginning with 2008’s The Gentle Axe, as well as half a dozen books featuring a “decidedly unconventional turn-of-the-century sleuth,” Detective Inspector Silas Quinn. The most recent Quinn novel is The Music Box Enigma (2020). • Jim Napier created the award-winning Web site Deadly Diversions, and contributed crime-fiction criticism to several Canadian newspapers and to blogs such as The Rap Sheet and January Magazine. Based in Quebec, he was also the author of two Britain-based police procedurals: Legacy (2017) and Ridley’s War (2020). Napier died in 2023 at age 81. • Anthony Rainone is a screenwriter living in Brooklyn, New York. He’s published dozens of short stories, written for The Rap Sheet and January Magazine, and in 2009 won the Mystery Writers of America Mentor Panel award. • Jason Starr is a Brooklyn-born author, screenwriter, and comics writer whose novels include Fake I.D. (2000), Twisted City (2004), The Next Time I Die (2022), and—with Ken Bruen—The Max (2008) and Pimp (2016). • David Thayer is a Niagara Falls, New York, native now residing in the Seattle area, who has published three e-book thrillers (among them Killer in the Box), all featuring Manhattan police detective Armand DiPino. • Jim Winter was the name used by writer T.S. Hottle, a software developer from Cincinnati, Ohio, during the 15 years he penned crime fiction, including private-eye tales about Nick Kepler (Northcoast Shakedown, 2005), a bizarre road-trip adventure titled Road Rules, and several short stories. • Finally, Dick Adler worked as an editor at the venerable Argosy magazine before becoming the crime-fiction critic for the Chicago Tribune, freelancing pieces to TV Guide and Publishers Weekly, and penning an e-book mystery titled The Mozart Code (1999). He began posting in The Rap Sheet in May 2006, the same month this blog launched, and passed away in 2011 at age 74.