Lyndsay Faye moved to Manhattan in 2005 to audition as a professional actress; her schedule opened up when her day-job restaurant was knocked down with bulldozers.  Her first novel Dust and Shadow: an Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson is a tribute to the aloof genius and his good-hearted friend whose exploits she has loved since childhood. After writing fifteen additional short stories over the next six years, she collected them in the critically acclaimed The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes. This collection was followed by Observations by Gaslight, which shows Holmes and Watson through the eyes of their closest companions, including Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and young Wiggins.

Faye's fascination with the origins of the New York City Police Department led to her first Best Novel Edgar Award nomination; The Gods of Gotham, Seven for a Secret, and The Fatal Flame follow ex-bartender Timothy Wilde as he navigates the rapids of his turbulent city, learning police work in a riotous pre-Civil War political landscape. Following this trilogy, Faye turned to what she calls “satirical romance.” Her Edgar-nominated Jane Steele re-imagines Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer who battles for justice with methods inspired by Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Her next novel, The Paragon Hotel, follows “Nobody” Alice James as she flees the Harlem Mafia only to wind up in Ku Klux Klan-plagued Portland, Oregon in 1921.

Her most recent novel is a modern, feminist, queer magic realism take on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, titled The King of Infinite Space. Faye is pansexual, so gay representation forms a significant aspect of all her works.

Aside from the Edgar, Faye was nominated for a Dilys Winn Award, was featured in Best American Mystery Stories 2010, and is honored to have been selected by the American Library Association's RUSA Reader's List for Best Historical.  She is an international bestseller and has been translated into 15 languages. She does a great deal of volunteer mentoring and often creates workshops for libraries. In 2016, she was thrilled to implement the National Mentorship Program at Mystery Writers of America.

Born in Northern California and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Faye migrated back to "the Peninsula" and graduated from Notre Dame de Namur University with a dual degree in English and Performance. She worked as a professional actress throughout the Bay Area for several years, nearly always in a corset, and if not a corset then--at the least--heels and lined stockings.  She has a very high pop belt and is a soprano, supposing that interests you.

Faye lives in Ridgewood, Queens.  When she isn’t writing or editing, she is most often cooking, cooing at her houseplants, nuzzling her cat (Prufrock), or sifting through thrift store racks for designer clothing.  She is a very proud member of Actor’s Equity Association, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street Babes, the Baker Street Irregulars, and Mystery Writers of America.  She is hard at work on her next novel...always.