HORNSBY, Wendy (Nelson) 1947-

PERSONAL: Born September 26, 1947, in Los Angeles, CA; children: one daughter, one son. Education: Attended University of California—Los Angeles, and California State University, Long Beach.

ADDRESSES: Agent—Deborah Schneider, 250 West 57th St., New York, NY 101017.

CAREER: Long Beach City College, Long Beach, CA, professor of history, 1975—.

MEMBER: International Documentary Association, Mystery Writers of America (member of southern California chapter board of directors), Sisters in Crime.

AWARDS, HONORS: Orange Coast Fiction award, 1987; Edgar Allan Poe award, Mystery Writers of America, 1992; American Reader award, 1992; Reviewers Choice award, 1993.

WRITINGS:

No Harm (crime novel), Dodd, Mead (New York, NY), 1987.

Half a Mind (crime novel), New American Library (New York, NY), 1990.

Nine Sons: Collected Mysteries (short stories), Crippen & Landru Publishers (Norfolk, VA), 2002.

Hornsby's manuscripts are maintained at California State University, Long Beach.

"maggie macgowen mystery" series:

Telling Lies, Dutton (New York, NY), 1992.

Midnight Baby, Dutton (New York, NY), 1993.

Bad Intent, Dutton (New York, NY), 1994.

Seventy-seventh Street Requiem, Dutton (New York, NY), 1995.

A Hard Light, Dutton (New York, NY), 1997.

SIDELIGHTS: Wendy Hornsby became a history professor because she did not believe that she could make a living as an author. However, after a dozen years working at Long Beach City College, she managed to complete her first mysteries, No Harm and Half a Mind, which feature history teacher Kate Teague and police officer Roger Tejeda. Set in Orange County, California, this pair of gritty police procedurals set the stage for Hornsby's later novels of life among Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers. Hornsby was praised in these books for her sense of pacing and well-drawn characters. In a Publishers Weekly review of Half a Mind, for example, a critic called the "humor sly and the robust characters … spar with the dexterity of old friends." Since this initial success, the author has focused mainly on series character Maggie MacGowen.

The "Maggie MacGowen" series begins with Telling Lies, a novel about San Francisco documentary filmmaker MacGowen and her quest to find out why her sister, a respected physician and former radical activist, has been shot in Los Angeles. During her investigation, Maggie meets LAPD homicide detective Mike Flint and begins an affair with him. Maggie has liberal ideals while Mike is tough and rather violent in his dealings with criminals. As readers realize, although she tries to have as objective an eye as possible, her view is filtered through the lens of her own prejudices and her love for Mike and her family. "Hornsby's cinematic eye for detail, witty dialogue and credible surprise ending yield a compelling and evocative read," wrote a Publishers Weekly critic of Telling Lies.

Maggie returns in Midnight Baby. Here, while in Los Angeles making another documentary, the filmmaker's generous heart reaches out to a fourteen-year-old prostitute named Pisces. After buying food for Pisces and Pisces' friend Sly, Maggie is shocked to learn from Mike that the girl has been murdered. Although she stays out of the murder investigation itself, Maggie goes on a mission to discover who Pisces really was and where her parents are. The trail leads her to a man and woman who claim to be the parents who lost Pisces ten years ago, as well as to evidence that the girl was actually the daughter of a rich and irresponsible playboy. When more murders appear connected to Pisces' death, Maggie and Mike find themselves in the midst of a complex mystery. Praising the book for having "plenty of action," a Publishers Weekly contributor commented that Hornsby "deftly mines suspense from the fears and vulnerabilities of single parents Maggie and Mike."

Maggie and her teenaged daughter, Casey, eventually move from San Francisco to Los Angeles in order to live with Mike and his son, Michael. In Bad Intent Mike is confronted with the ghost of his past misdeeds within the formerly corrupt LAPD when an old case is resurrected and he is criticized for police brutality against a black suspect. Maggie, making a documentary film about life in the ghetto, cannot help investigating these new claims. The complicated plot also provides a blunt view of how parental neglect can turn children into criminals. Particularly lauding the author's characterization of her heroine, a Publishers Weekly writer concluded that Bad Intent shows that with each book Hornsby "gets better and better at her craft."

Seventy-seventh Street Requiem finds Maggie making a documentary on the murder of an LAPD cop back in the 1970s. The murder has never been solved, and many stories have grown up around the event over the years, including the notion that the Symbionese Liberation Army, which had kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst in 1974, was involved. The victim had been a good friend of Mike's, and now Mike and his partner Hector help Maggie dig up information about the crime and the suspects. Soon accidents start happening on her set, and then people she is interviewing are killed one by one. Booklist reviewer Emily Melton enjoyed the "cunningly convoluted, suspense-filled plot and quirky, likable heroine," while a Publishers Weekly critic stated that the author's "powerful writing and … thought-provoking story blend to make this one of the most gripping, compelling mysteries of the year."

Seventy-seventh Street Requiem was followed by A Hard Light in 1997. Once again, history takes an important role in the mystery when Maggie's exhusband, Scot, is murdered, as well as one of his clients, a Vietnamese man who appears to also be linked to a robbery case involving a Vietnamese thief and one of Maggie's friends. Teaming up again with Mike, Maggie learns that the reason for the theft and murders leads back to the Vietnam War. Hornsby goes deeper into her two main characters in this novel, which shows Maggie becoming somewhat more cynical after suffering a miscarriage, and Mike having problems with his alcoholic father. Still "smart, tough, and idealistic," according to Melton in another Booklist review, "Maggie MacGowen is an appealingly unorthodox heroine in a fine series."

Hornsby once commented, "I don't remember ever wanting to be anything except a writer. The problem was that no one seemed to make a living at it. I chose history for my profession because it required so much writing and, almost as wonderful, endless reading. I started my first mystery after graduate school, but put it aside when a teaching position and children consumed not only all of my time, but creative energy as well. Finally, with children in preschool a few mornings each week, I went back to the unfinished manuscript, found it hopeless, and started again. This time I stayed with it until I had a book, No Harm, the first in the Kate Teague pair.

"My influences have been the California hard-boiled authors, [Raymond] Chandler, [Dashiell] Hammett, Ross Macdonald. When I found an old copy of Margaret Millar's Stranger in My Grave in a used bookstore, I found the perfect combination of the social conscience of hard-boiled detectives and a well-rounded, beautifully realized character in her Tom Aragon. More than any other author, Mrs. Millar has been my role model."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Booklist, April 1, 1992, Peter Robertson, review of Telling Lies, p. 1430; June 1, 1993, Emily Melton, review of Midnight Baby, p. 1790; September 15, 1995, Emily Melton, review of Seventy-seventh Street Requiem, p. 143; August, 1997, Emily Melton, review of A Hard Light, p. 1885.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of Nine Sons: Collected Mysteries, p. 223.

Library Journal, October 1, 1987, Jo Ann Vicarel, review of No Harm, p. 112; January, 1990, Rex E. Klett, review of Half a Mind, p. 1430; April 1, 1993, Rex E. Klett, review of Midnight Baby, p. 135; July, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of A Hard Light, p. 131.

New York Times Book Review, August 21, 1994, Marilyn Stasio, review of Bad Intent, p. 16; October 22, 1995, Marilyn Stasio, review of Seventy-seventh Street Requiem, p. 35.

Publishers Weekly, August 21, 1987, Sybil Steinberg, review of No Harm, p. 56; January 19, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Half a Mind, p. 99; April 27, 1992, review of Telling Lies, p. 256; April 19, 1993, review of Midnight Baby, p. 53; June 20, 1994, review of Bad Intent, p. 99; September 4, 1995, review of Seventy-seventh Street Requiem, p. 53; June 16, 1997, review of A Hard Light, p. 47.*