Minnesota Mystery Night

Craig Johnson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mystery novels, which are the basis for Longmire, the hit Netflix original drama. The books have won numerous awards: Le Prix du Polar Nouvel Observateur/Bibliobs, the Wyoming Historical Association’s Book of the Year, Le Prix 813, the Western Writers of America’s Owen Wister Award and multiple Spur Awards, the Mountains & Plains Book of the Year, the SNCF Prix de Polar, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Library Journal's Best Mystery of the Year, and multiple Will Rogers Medallion Awards and the Lariat Award.  Spirit of Steamboat was selected by the Wyoming State Library as the inaugural One Book Wyoming.  Johnson lives in Ucross, Wyoming, population twenty-six. 

Raised in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, William Kent Krueger ( he goes by Kent) briefly attended Stanford University—before being kicked out for radical activities. After that, he logged timber, worked construction, tried his hand at free-lance journalism, and eventually ended up researching child development at the University of Minnesota. He makes his home in St. Paul, a city he dearly loves.

Krueger writes the New York Times bestselling Cork O’Connor mystery series, which is set in the north woods of Minnesota. His protagonist, Corcoran O’Connor, is the former sheriff of the fictional Tamarack County, and also a man of mixed heritage—part Irish-American and part Ojibwe. 

His work has received a number of awards, including the Edgar Award, the Anthony Award, the Barry Award, the Minnesota Book Award, the Loft-McKnight Fiction Award, and the Friends of American Writers Prize. He does all his writing in a couple of wonderfully funky St. Paul coffee shops.