| About Deborah Crombie
Deborah Crombie was born in Dallas and grew up in Richardson, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas, 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 with her first husband, Peter Crombie, a Scot, 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 theatre 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 six 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, and the United Kingdom. The latest novel in the series, Water Like a Stone, was published in February, 2007, by William Morrow.
Although she travels to England several times a year, Crombie now lives in McKinney, Texas, an historic town north of Dallas, sharing a 1905 house with her husband, Rick Wilson, two German shepherds (Hallie and Neela), and three cats. She is currently working on her twelfth Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novel, Where Memories Lie, due to be released by William Morrow in Summer 2008.
Awards, Honors, Achievements and Recognition
Water Like a Stone
 April, 2007, hits #3 on the German Best Seller List
In a Dark House
July-August, 2005, the newly published Goldman edition of In a Dark House hits the German Best Seller List
Dreaming of the Bones
Edgar award nomination by Mystery Writers of America for Best Novel in 1997
Macavity award, Best Novel
New York Times Book of the Year, 1997
One of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century according to the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America
A Share in Death
Agatha nomination for Best First Novel of 1993
Macavity nomination for Best First Novel of 1993
Other Recognition
Deborah has been a frequent, featured speaker at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford, and Austin College, where she serves on the President’s Advisory Council.
In 2004, Deborah was nominated by the Romantic Times for a 2004 Career Achievement Award, Mystery & Suspense series.
In 2003, Deborah was acknowledged as a Distinguished Alumna by Austin College President Oscar C. Page.
The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy funds the development of innovative family literacy projects in which parents and their children can learn and read together, and which provide parents with the skills they need to be their children’s “first teachers”. Mrs. Bush personally asked Deborah to participate in a Dallas literary fundraising event, requesting that she read an excerpt from one of her books. Deborah read from her most acclaimed book, Dreaming Of The Bones.
Praise for Deborah Crombie
Deborah Crombie is an American mystery novelist who writes so vividly about England, she might have been born within the sound of Bow Bells. (She) gets better with each book…lyrical, biting and evocative.– Cleveland Plain Dealer
Crombie has laid claim to the literary territory of moody psychological suspense owned by P. D. James and Barbara Vine. – Washington Post
A master of the modern British mystery…one writer who gets better with every book. – Harrisburg Patriot News
Crombie keeps this series on its toes with her smooth procedural techniques and engagingly eccentric characters. – New York Times Book Review
An uncanny affinity for the English detective genre…Her characters are three-dimensional and are drawn with compassion and sensitivity. – Dallas Morning News
Crombie has evolved into a masterful novelist. – Denver Post
Also by Deborah Crombie
The Sunken Sailor. Berkley Publishing Group, 2004, by arrangement with Malice Domestic Ltd.
Deborah contributed a chapter for the round robin mystery novel, The Sunken Sailor, for Malice Domestic Ltd. This novel was written by 14 writers, editors and readers of crime novels who each contributed a chapter, then sent the manuscript on to the next author who picked up the story and sent it on to the next. Fourteen masters of suspense…one unpredictable mystery.
The Sunken Sailor
Between the two world wars, just outside a proper English village, the Dowager Duchess of Faughstrayne is hosting a house party. Her once-magnificent estate, Castle Crawsbey, may be in disrepair, but the chorus-girl-turned-aristocrat can still impress her guests: a London charlady who has a secret past (or does she?); a Russian émigré now impoverished (or is she?); and a wounded vet who can solve crimes (or can he?). Just one rule: Don’t mention the hostess’s dead husband (five years and mum is till the word) or her missing son (rumored to be in a Patagonian prison), lest you be met with a violet-eyed look that could kill. But what offence did American visitor Admiral Cornelius Brandon commit? A dreadful one, apparently – his body has been discovered at the bottom of the koi pond, tied to a submerged statue of Neptune. And the weekend has only just begun…
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