William Deverell is a renowned Canadian author, born in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1937. He followed in his father's footsteps, who was a newspaperman, and pursued a career in journalism to fund his way through law school. Deverell's determination to become a lawyer was strong, and he even found time to contribute to his university's newspaper as an editor.
Deverell's career as a journalist spanned seven years, after which he graduated in law in 1963. His legal practice involved working for both the prosecution and defense, and he worked on civil rights, labor, and environmental law. He is also a founding director, former president, and now honorary director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. Deverell's first novel, Needles, won the $50,000 Seal Prize in 1979 and the Book of the Year Award in 1981. He has since written numerous novels, including High Crimes, Mecca, The Dance of Shiva, Platinum Blues, Mindfield, Kill All the Lawyers, Street Legal, Trial of Passion, Slander, The Laughing Falcon, Mind Games, April Fool, Kill All the Judges, Snow Job, and I'll See You in My Dreams. His novels have been translated into fourteen languages and sold worldwide, with most of them still in print.
Deverell's legal career involved working on over a thousand criminal cases, and he has received numerous awards for his literary contributions. He won the Arthur Ellis Award in 1998 for Trial of Passion and again in 2006 for April Fool. His novels have also won the Dashiell Hammett award for literary excellence in crime writing in North America and the Arthur Ellis prize in crime writing in Canada. Deverell has been referred to as a national treasure by the Toronto Star and received the Best Canadian Crime Writer award at the Scene of the Crime Festival in Ontario. In 2011, he was awarded an honorary doctor of letters from Simon Fraser University.
In addition to his work as an author, Deverell created the television series Street Legal and has written screenplays and radio plays. He is also a screenwriter and splits his time between Pender Island, British Columbia, and Quepos, Costa Rica. Deverell's website is deverell.com, where readers can find his active blog.