Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner is a highly acclaimed American author, well-known for her crime thriller novels. Before venturing into the world of fiction, Gardiner practiced law, taught writing, and even worked as a mime. Although she has no intentions of returning to her legal career, she acknowledges that her past experience as a lawyer has significantly contributed to her writing.

Gardiner was born in Oklahoma and spent her childhood in Santa Barbara, California. She is the daughter of an English professor, Frank C Gardiner and Sally Gardiner. After graduating from Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, she pursued her higher education at Stanford University, where she earned a Bachelor's degree in Economics. She furthered her studies at Stanford Law School and later practiced law in Los Angeles. After practicing law, she returned to Santa Barbara and taught writing and legal research at the University of California. She lived in Surrey, near London, until 2013, when she moved to Austin, Texas, where she currently resides.

Meg Gardiner is the author of sixteen bestselling thrillers, including the Evan Delaney and Jo Beckett series. She is best known for her Evan Delaney novels, which have gained significant popularity among readers. Gardiner's writing is highly regarded, with her novels receiving critical acclaim and earning several awards. China Lake, one of her stand-alone novels, won the 2009 Edgar award for Best Paperback Original. The Nightmare Thief won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense audiobook of the year. Phantom Instinct was one of O, the Oprah magazine's "Best Books of Summer." Her most recent novel, Heat 2, co-written with Michael Mann, debuted at #1 on the NYT best seller list. The Dark Corners of the Night, featuring FBI profiler Caitlin Hendrix, was bought by Amazon Studios for development as a television series.