Alafair Burke
| Alafair Burke | |
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 in 2005 at signing in Portland, OR |
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| Born | October 1969 (age 42) |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | Stanford Law School Reed College |
| Genres | Crime Fiction, Mystery, Thriller |
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Influences
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www.alafairburke.com |
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Alafair S. Burke (born October 1969) is an American author, professor of law, and legal commentator. She is the author of two series of crime novels, one featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, the other featuring Portland prosecutor Samantha Kincaid.[1] Her books have been translated into 12 languages.
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[edit] Background
Burke was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but was raised primarily in Wichita, Kansas, where her mother was a school librarian and her father, fellow mystery novelist James Lee Burke,[2] was a professor of English. She traces her fascination with crime to BTK, a serial killer who was active in Wichita during the 1970s.[3]
Burke received her B.A. in psychology from Reed College, completing the senior thesis "Emotion's effects on memory: spatial narrowing of attention". After graduating with distinction from Stanford Law School, she served as a deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, where she prosecuted domestic violence offenses and served as an in-precinct advisor to the police department.[4] She currently lives in New York City and is a Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School. She has served as a member of the board of directors of the Mystery Writers of America and as President of its New York chapter.
[edit] Writing techniques
Burke's novels are known for their authenticity and often draw on real-world cases and the author's own personal and professional experiences.
Burke's Samantha Kincaid series is set in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, where Burke worked in the 1990s. In creating NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher, Burke drew on her experience growing up in Kansas. Like Burke, Hatcher was raised in Wichita. Hatcher's father was a Wichita police detective who spent his career hunting a serial killer who evaded police for thirty years.
Burke's first novel, Judgment Calls, was loosely based on the case against Keith Hunter Jesperson, a serial killer known as the Happy Face Killer for the smiley faces he drew on his many letters to the media.[5] Burke's novel, Angel's Tip, was loosely based on the murders of Imette St. Guillen and Jennifer Moore.[5]
In Burke's novel, Dead Connection, Ellie Hatcher tracks a serial killer who uses an online dating service to locate his victims. Burke has said that the plot was inspired by her worst nightmares while briefly enrolled on Match.com. Burke subsequently dedicated the book to her husband, writing, "For Sean, I can't believe I found you on a computer."
[edit] Novels
- Judgment Calls (2003)
- Missing Justice (2004)
- Close Case (2005)
- Dead Connection (2007)
- Angel's Tip (2008) (Published in the UK as City of Fear)
- 212 (2010) (Published in the UK as City of Lies)
- Long Gone (2011)
[edit] Short stories
- Winning (2008) (selected for Best American Mystery Stories of 2009)
[edit] Other works
- Domestic Violence Misdemeanor Prosecutions and the New Policing, in CRIMINAL LAW CONVERSATIONS (Robinson, Ferzan, and Garvey eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2009)
- Revisiting Prosecutorial Disclosure, 84 INDIANA LAW J. 481 (2009)
- Comment, Brady’s Brainteaser: The Accidental Prosecutor and Cognitive Bias, 57 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 575 (2007)
- Prosecutorial Passion, Cognitive Bias, and Plea Bargaining, 91 MARQUETTE L. REV. 183 (2007)
- Neutralizing Cognitive Bias: An Invitation to Prosecutors, 2 N.Y.U. LAW & LIBERTY 512 (2007)
- Domestic Violence as a Crime of Pattern and Intent: An Alternative Reconceptualization, 75 GEORGE WASHINGTON L. REV. 552 (2007)
- Lawless Neptune, in NEPTUNE NOIR (Rob Thomas, ed., 2007) (discussing the depiction of law in the popular television show Veronica Mars)
- Improving Prosecutorial Decision Making: Some Lessons of Cognitive Science, 47 WILLIAM & MARY L. REV. 1587 (2006)
- “Administrative Searches,” “Arrest Without Warrant,” and “Board of Education v. Earls,” in THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES (2006)
- Review: Murder and the Reasonable Man: Passion and Fear in the Criminal Courtroom, 103 MICH. L. REV. 1043 (2005)
- Unpacking New Policing: Confessions of a Former Neighborhood District Attorney, 78 WASH. L. REV. 985 (2003)
- Rational Actors, Self-Defense, and Duress: Making Sense, Not Syndromes, Out of the Battered Woman, 81 N.C. L. REV. 211 (2002)
- A Few Straight Men: Homosexuals in the Military and Equal Protection, 6 STAN. LAW & POL. REV. 109 (1994)
- Note, Reconciling Professional Ethics and Prosecutorial Power: The No Contact Rule Debate, 46 STAN. L. REV. 1635 (1994)
- Remembering Emotional Events, 20 MEMORY & COGNITION 277 (1992) (with co-authors F. Heuer & D. Reisberg).
