Explore our new BookBrowse Community Forum!

Alafair Burke Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Alafair Burke
alafairburke.com

Alafair Burke

Alafair Burke Biography

Alafair S. Burke is an American crime novelist, professor of law, and legal commentator. She is the author of two series of crime novels-one featuring NYPD Detective Ellie Hatcher; the other, Portland, Oregon, prosecutor Samantha Kincaid.

A former deputy district attorney in Portland, Oregon, Alafair Burke now teaches criminal law at Hofstra Law School. The daughter of acclaimed crime writer James Lee Burke, she is a graduate of Stanford Law School and currently serves as a legal and trial commentator for radio and television programs, including for Court TV.

She has served on the Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America and as President of its New York chapter.

Her notable works include: Judgment Calls (2003), Missing Justice (2004), Dead Connection (2007), Long Gone (2011), If You Were Here (2013) and All Day and a Night (2014). Her short story Winning was selected for the Best American Mystery Stories of 2009. In 2014, publisher Simon & Schuster announced that Mary Higgins Clark and Burke were collaborating on a novel called The Cinderella Murder.

She lives in New York City with her husband, Sean.

Alafair Burke's website

This bio was last updated on 10/20/2014. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Interview

Alafair Burke discusses her Samantha Kincaid mystery series and gives a surprising reply when asked if she's following in her father, James Lee Burke's, footsteps!

Would you say you're following in the footsteps of your father, James Lee Burke?

Actually, when it comes to mysteries, you could say my father followed in my footsteps. Many people don't know that he published several works before turning to crime fiction with The Neon Rain, so no one thought of my father as a mystery writer during my formative years. I, however, was a huge fan of the genre. I plowed through the entire Encyclopedia Brown series and used to steal time with my dad's manual Royal typewriter to hammer out page turners like "Murder at the Roller Disco." So, for the record, I beat my dad to the mystery punch.

Clearly, though, he's been a huge influence on me. What I really think I inherited from my family more than any particular writing style (or talent for that matter) is a narrative tradition. The Burkes are people who tell stories, and I grew up watching my father work a full-time job and then come home and write every single day ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Books by this Author

Books by Alafair Burke at BookBrowse
The Note jacket If You Were Here jacket Never Tell jacket Long Gone jacket
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Alafair Burke but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Kia Abdullah

    Kia Abdullah

    Kia Abdullah was born in Tower Hamlets in East London, and was raised in a family of eight children. As the most stubborn of six daughters, she constantly found herself in trouble for making choices that clashed with her ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Close Case

    Try:
    Take It Back
    by Kia Abdullah

  • Patricia Cornwell

    Patricia Cornwell

    New York Times bestselling novelist Patricia Daniels Cornwell is the only woman in the United States to receive England's coveted Gold Dagger, widely considered to be the most prestigious crime-writing award in the ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    Close Case

    Try:
    Point of Origin
    by Patricia Cornwell

We recommend 5 similar authors

View all 5 Read-Alikes

Non-members can see 2 results. Become a member
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Graveyard Shift
    Graveyard Shift
    by M. L. Rio
    Following the success of her debut novel, If We Were Villains, M. L. Rio's latest book is the quasi-...
  • Book Jacket: The Sisters K
    The Sisters K
    by Maureen Sun
    The Kim sisters—Minah, Sarah, and Esther—have just learned their father is dying of ...
  • Book Jacket: Linguaphile
    Linguaphile
    by Julie Sedivy
    From an infant's first attempts to connect with the world around them to the final words shared with...
  • Book Jacket
    The Rest of You
    by Maame Blue
    At the start of Maame Blue's The Rest of You, Whitney Appiah, a Ghanaian Londoner, is ringing in her...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Pony Confidential
    by Christina Lynch

    In this whimsical mystery, a grumpy pony must clear his beloved human's name from a murder accusation.

Who Said...

It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

F the M

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.