Best-selling author Laura Van Wormer has been a force in contemporary fiction since 1988. She is the author of twelve previous novels which include the Sally Harrington mysteries Exposé, The Last Lover, Trouble Becomes Her (People Magazine’s “Page-Turner of the Week”), The Bad Witness, and The Kill Fee. Her engrossing plots, memorable characters and insider’s knowledge of the media glamour professions have won praise from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, USA Today, Good Housekeeping, and People magazine. She was a finalist for the 2004 Mary Higgins Clark Award, although, as Laura was first to point out, “My characters have sex and Mary’s don’t so there’s not a prayer I’ll win.”

In MR. MURDER Laura blends an engaging mystery with insider information, romance, action and thrills, all of which culminates n a satisfying ending. “Essentially,” Laura says, “I write what I like to read—something that’s going to take me a million miles away and keep me entertained.”

Raised in Darien, Connecticut, Laura spent a year at the University of Arizona before transferring to the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.

There she studied to be a television writer, anchorwoman or talk show host, “in case I never got to be a novelist.” Upon graduating with a B.S. Degree in 1978 she went to New York looking for a job in television but landed a job instead as secretary to the editor-in-chief of Doubleday & Company. “Every day my head was spinning there,” Laura says. “Leon Uris, Phyllis Whitney, Alex Hailey, Arthur Hailey, Allen Drury, Edna O’Brien, Stephen King—they were all publishing with Doubleday at that time.”

Laura rose through the ranks to become an editor, somewhat specializing in celebrity and media-related books. Caught in a deadline crunch in 1984, Doubleday and 20th Century Fox flew Laura out to the West Coast to create a book based on the hit series, Dynasty. Upon her return to New York offers came in from the rival shows Dallas and Knots Landing to write books for them and Laura ended up leaving Doubleday to become a writer. The Lorimar projects supported Laura while she labored on her first novel, Riverside Drive, which came out in 1988 and the bestseller lists. West End (1989), Benedict Canyon (1992), Any Given Moment (1985), Jury Duty (1996), Just for the Summer (1997) and Talk (1998) followed. The Sally Harrington mystery series then began with Exposé (1999), The Last Lover (2000), Trouble Becomes Her (2001), The Bad Witness (2002), The Kill Fee (2003) and resulting in this, MR. MURDER, in January of 2006.

“You’ll see why it took longer to write MR. MURDER,” she says.

Laura is a member of the Author’s Guild, the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and the International Crime Writers Association. She divides her time between Manhattan and Meriden, Connecticut and Shelburne, Nova Scotia. She is a trustee for The Friends of the Library and sits on the Board of Directors of The Augusta Curtis Cultural Center.