Jeffery Deaver was born on May 6, 1950 in Chicago, Illinois. He received a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University. Before attending law school, he worked as a business writer, writing poetry in his spare time, as well as songs, which he traveled around the country and performed. After law school, Deaver got a job with a Wall Street law firm practicing corporate law. In 1990, he decided to stop practicing law and become a full-time writer. His first novel was a horror story entitled Voodoo. Deaver went on to write suspense novels, including A Maiden's Grave, which was made into a film by HBO called Dead Silence. His novel The Bone… Collector was made into a feature film featuring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He writes short stories for Ellery Queen Readers and Alfred Hitchcock magazines. He is the author of more than 25 novels and has written some of those stories under the pseudonym William Jeffries. He writes the Lincoln Rhyme series and the Kathryn Dance series. He received the Steel Dagger and Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association, the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year three times, and the British Thumping Good Read Award.