- David Baldacci - David has published 17 novels. My favorites are the Camel Club series.
- Raymond Chandler - Chandler is the master practitioner of American hard-boiled crime fiction. His more popular writing are the Phillip Marlowe novels, many of which have been made into movies.
- Lee Child - Lee Child is one of my most favorite authors. His main character, Jack Reacher, is a well-travelled veteran of many conflicts who has no home, but routinely gets called in for covert specialty work.
- Dr. Richard Darling - Althought this book does not fall into the mystery/thriller category as the others do, Richard's book inspired me to begin my writing journey. Richard and I hooked up through a hepatitis on-line forum after my liver transplant and he and I have attended several seminars together since then promoting organ donor awareness as well as the inequities in disease research spending by Congress and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
- Patricia Cornwell - She has written numerous best sellers based on her experience as a forensic Medical Examiner.
- Arthur Conan Doyle - Not much needs to be said about the creator of the great Sherlock Holmes.
- David Ellis - A Chicago attorney, David Ellis writes best selling crime novels, mostly courtroom thrillers.
- Lisa Gardner - Author of 10 New York Times bestseller crime thrillers, Lisa writes about crime, murder, mystery, and suspense.
- Parnell Hall - The Stanley Hastings series is about the lightest crime novel reading I have ever seen. He is a stumbling, bumbling, ambulance chaser that always seems to find trouble. I have read all 14 books in the series.
- William Lashner - Lashner writes about Victor Carl, a private investigator. William is a former criminal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.
- John Lescroart - Author of 13 Dismas Hardy novels about an attorney/private detective.
- Perri O'Shaughnessy - This is the pen name of sisters Pam and Mary O'Shaghnessy, who write about a single-mom attorney-at-law, Nina Reilly.
- James Patterson - Patterson ranks right up there at the top. He has written 39 New York Times best sellers, including the Alex Cross series and the Women's Murder Club, both of which have been turned into film.
- Mickey Spillane - Author of the hard-boiled detective, Mike Hammer, Spillane has written 15 Hammer novels and was turned into a TV series.
