Miranda James

Miranda James is the name Dean James signs to his cosy mysteries. He grew up in Mississippi, took three degrees in history including a 1986 doctorate from Rice University on medieval England, then trained as a librarian at North Texas, taking the master's in 1992. Twenty years as a medical librarian at the Texas Medical Center in Houston and nine running the Murder by the Book shop there gave him both the material and the readership. Murder Past Due opened the Cat in the Stacks series in 2010, introducing Charlie Harris, a widowed librarian back in his home town of Athena, Mississippi, and Diesel, the Maine coon he walks on a leash. Out of Circulation, fourth in the run, turns on a library fundraising gala, a rich and widely disliked woman named Vera Cassity found dead at the foot of the back stairs, and Charlie's housekeeper Azalea standing over her. His first book was not fiction at all: By a Woman's Hand, a guide to women crime writers written with Jean Swanson, won an Agatha and was nominated for an Edgar. He also publishes as Jimmie Ruth Evans and Honor Hartman.