Terry Shames is a highly acclaimed American author, best known for her mystery novels and the Samuel Craddock series. Shames was born on the Gulf Coast of Texas, in Lake Jackson, and spent much of her childhood in a small town in Texas, which later inspired the fictional town of Jarrett Creek, the setting for her series. She attended the University of Texas and earned an MA from San Francisco State University.
Shames' writing career began with stories she wrote as a child, based on the small town in Texas where her grandparents lived. She has always had a soft spot for the landscape and culture of Texas, which is evident in her vivid and well-drawn small-town settings. After working in various jobs to finance her education, including as a secretary, a waitress, and at Yellowstone National Park, Shames joined the CIA as a computer analyst. She later moved to Denver, Colorado, and finally settled in San Francisco, where she felt burned out from working with computers and decided to focus on writing.
Shames' first book, A Killing at Cotton Hill, was a bestseller and a finalist for numerous awards, including the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery, which it won in 2013. The Last Death of Jack Harbin was a Macavity finalist for Best Mystery in 2014 and was named one of the top ten mysteries of the year by Library Journal and top five of 2014 by MysteryPeople. Her sixth Craddock mystery, An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock, was released in January 2017, to a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The latest in the series, MURDER AT THE JUBILEE RALLY, has been praised for its entertaining read, vivid secondary characters, and well-drawn small-town setting.
Shames currently lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband and two terriers. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and on the board of Mystery Writers of America. To find out more about Samuel Craddock and the series, readers can visit Shames' website or watch the YouTube video about the Craddock series.