Reed Farrel Coleman was born in 1956 and grew up in the Sheepshead Bay, Coney Island and Brighton Beach neighborhoods of Brooklyn. He worked a long list of jobs, including driving a cab and delivering home heating oil, before a detective fiction class at Brooklyn College convinced him to write crime novels. He lives on Long Island.
He is best known for his Moe Prager series about an ex-NYPD cop turned wine merchant and private investigator, and he has also written the Gus Murphy novels and books featuring Dylan Klein, Joe Serpe and Gulliver Dowd. He is also a published poet, and critics often point to the lyrical, hard-boiled quality of his prose.
Coleman took over the Jesse Stone series with Blind Spot in 2014 and wrote six books through The Bitterest Pill in 2019, which won the Scribe Award for best original novel. His other honors include Shamus, Anthony, Barry, Macavity and Audie awards.
He has taught English at Hofstra University and served as executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America.
