Deborah Crombie Biography
Deborah Crombie was born in Dallas and grew up in Richardson, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas, the second child of Charlie and Mary Darden. A rather solitary childhood (brother Steve is ten years older) was blessed by her maternal grandmother, Lillian Dozier, a retired teacher who taught her to read very early. After a rather checkered educational career, which included dropping out of high school at sixteen, she graduated from Austin College in Sherman, Texas, with a degree in biology.
She then worked in advertising and newspapers, and attended the Rice University Publishing Program. A post-university trip to England, however, cemented a life-long passion for Britain, and she immigrated to the UK, living first in Edinburgh, Scotland, and then in Chester, England.
After returning to Dallas and working for several years in her family business (manufacturer's reps for theater concessions) while raising her daughter Kayti, she wrote her first Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid/Sergeant Gemma James novel. A Share in Death (Scribner 1993), was subsequently given Agatha and Macavity nominations for Best First Novel of 1993. All Shall Be Well, Leave the Grave Green, and Mourn Not Your Dead followed. The fifth novel, Dreaming of the Bones (Scribner 1997), a New York Times Notable Book for 1997, was short-listed by Mystery Writers of America for the 1997 Edgar Award for Best Novel, and was voted by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of the hundred best mysteries of the century. Her following seven novels have been received with critical acclaim and are widely read internationally, particularly in Germany.
Crombie's novels are published in North America, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Norway, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Romania, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries.
Crombie divides her time between England and her home in McKinney, Texas, where she lives in an early Arts and Crafts bungalow with her husband, two German shepherds (Hallie and Neela), and three cats.
Series Order (to 2012)
- A Share in Death
- All Shall Be Well
- Leave the Grave Green
- Mourn Not Your Dead
- Dreaming of the Bones
- Kissed a Sad Goodbye
- A Finer End
- And Justice There is None
- Now May You Weep
- In a Dark House
- Water Like a Stone
- Where Memories Lie
- Necessary as Blood
- No Mark Upon Her
This biography was last updated on 02/03/2012.
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