Edgar Award winning author Wendy Hornsby is a native of Southern California. Educated at UCLA and California State University, Long Beach, she holds graduate degrees in Ancient and Medieval History. Wendy teaches history at Long Beach City College, writes every day, and is parent of two college students.

Published internationally, Wendy Hornsby is the author of seven mystery novels and many short stories. Her work has been honored time and again. She has received, among others, the prestigious Edgar Allan Poe Award (the "Edgar"), as well as the Reviewers choice Award for Best Contemporary Suspense from Romantic Times Magazine, the Mystery Scene Reader Award, a nomination for the Anthony Boucher Award, and, twice, the Orange Coast Fiction Award. Her short stories are regularly selected for the annual volume, The Year's Best Mystery And Suspense Stories. Her Maggie MacGowen mystery, 77^th Street Requiem, was named one of the six best mysteries of 1995 by Publisher's Weekly Magazine, based on its "literary excellence, originality, timeliness, and the promise of enduring contribution to our culture."

A Hard Light is Wendy Hornsby's most recent Maggie MacGowen mystery from Dutton (August 1997). Barnes & Noble says, "This is an A-list book --- fresh, funny, humane, and eminently readable all the way through."

From her very first book, No Harm, published in 1987, Wendy has received critical acclaim. The New York Times found her work to be "refreshing, real and raunchy." The Los Angeles Times commented upon her gift for creating "unusually poignant figures." According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "No mystery novelist since Raymond Chandler may have captured downtown Los Angeles the way Hornsby does." And the Denver Post said, "Hornsby has a rare gift for taking familiar subjects and writing about them with such style and compassion that Maggie's experience seems entirely fresh and new. Edgar-winner Hornsby is definitely a writer to watch."