Name Steve Hamilton Role Novelist | ||
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Awards Edgar Award for Best Novel Nominations Barry Award for Best Novel Books A Cold Day in Paradise, The Lock Artist, Winter of the Wolf Moon, Blood Is the Sky: An Alex McK, Misery Bay |
Cousin to cousin author steve hamilton second life of nick mason writing process biz of books
Steve Hamilton is a mystery novelist. He is one of only two authors (along with Ross Thomas) to win Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards for both best novel and best first novel. His Alex McKnight series includes two New York Times notable books and spots on the New York Times bestseller list. Additionally, he has won or been nominated for such awards as the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award, the Anthony, the Barry, the Gumshoe, the Hammett Prize, and both the British Crime Writers' Association's Gold and Steel Daggers.
Contents
- Cousin to cousin author steve hamilton second life of nick mason writing process biz of books
- Steve hamilton shares his powerful story about drug addiction
- Books
- Personal
- Awards
- References

Steve hamilton shares his powerful story about drug addiction
Books

His first book, A Cold Day in Paradise, won the Private Eye Writers of America/St. Martin's Press Award for best first mystery by an unpublished writer, the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for best first novel, and the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for best first novel, the only first novel to win the latter two awards. That book introduced Alex McKnight, an ex-cop who rents out cabins in the small town of Paradise in Michigan's isolated Upper Peninsula for a living and becomes a reluctant private detective.

Hamilton's second Alex McKnight novel, Winter of the Wolf Moon (2000), was named one of the year's Notable Books by The New York Times Book Review and received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, as did his next three novels: The Hunting Wind, North of Nowhere and Blood Is the Sky (which won the 2004 Gumshoe Award). To date, ten books and one short story in the Alex McKnight series have been published and they have been translated into 12 languages. Hamilton anticipates more McKnight titles in the future.

Night Work is a stand-alone novel featuring a probation officer in upstate New York. Night Work was nominated for the Crime Writers' Association top award, The Duncan Lawrie Dagger. In 2006, Hamilton also won the Michigan Author Award for his body of work.

His standalone novel The Lock Artist won an Edgar Award for best novel, a CWA Steel Dagger for best thriller in the UK, and an Alex Award from the American Library Association, which recognizes books that successfully cross over from the adult market and appeal to young adult readers. The Lock Artist has been translated into seventeen different languages, including Japanese, where it was voted the number-one translated crime novel of 2012 by both the annual Kono Mystery Ga Sugoi guide and by Weekly Bunshun magazine.
His 2016 novel, The Second Life of Nick Mason, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in both Hardcover Fiction and Combined Print and E-Book Fiction, and also appeared on the Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and National Independent bestseller lists. It was also selected as one of five finalists for the prestigious Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime fiction, and was nominated for a Barry Award for Best Novel of the Year.
Personal
Hamilton lives in upstate New York with his wife Julia and their two children Nicholas G. and Antonia. He wrote his first twelve books while working for IBM, writing at night after his family had gone to bed.
Awards
A Cold Day in Paradise (1998)
Winter of the Wolf Moon (2000)
North of Nowhere (2003)
Blood is the Sky (2004)
A Stolen Season (2006)
Night Work (2007)
The Lock Artist (2010)
The Second Life of Nick Mason (2016)