Belinda Bauer (author)

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Belinda Bauer (born 1962) is a British writer of crime novels. She grew up in England and South Africa, [1] but later moved to Wales, where she worked as a court reporter in Cardiff; the country is often used as a setting in her work. [2] She spent seven years as a screenwriter before writing her first novel at age 45. [3]

Contents

Early life

Bauer is originally from Bromley, on the edge of London and Kent, the daughter of a dentist and dental nurse. She has four sisters. As a child, Bauer lived in South Africa for ten years before returning to England, settling in Devon. [4] She studied journalism at Cardiff University. [5]

Literary career

Bauer's debut novel, Blacklands, won the British Crime Writers' Association's Gold Dagger for the best crime novel of 2010. [6] [7] She told a reporter she had been surprised to learn her book would be considered crime fiction because it wasn't a whodunit. She felt "pigeonholed" by genre expectations while writing her first three books, a trilogy set around Exmoor in Somerset, though later became convinced it was possible to tell stories of all kinds within the crime fiction genre. [3]

She was awarded the 2013 CWA Dagger in the Library. In 2014, her book Rubbernecker, set in Cardiff and Brecon, won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. [8] In July 2018 Bauer's novel, Snap, was longlisted for that year's Man Booker Prize, which was considered unusual for a work of crime fiction. [3] It also won the Specsavers National Book Award for best crime/thriller in 2018. [9]

In addition to crime novels, she published a thriller, High Rollers, under the name Jack Bowman, in 2013. [10]

Bibliography

Novels

As Jack Bowman

References

  1. ↑ "Biography". Author's website. Archived from the original on 1 November 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  2. ↑ Elena Cresci (1 April 2013). "Belinda Bauer: I want to prove that books set in Wales do sell". WalesOnline. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 Flood, Alison (10 August 2018). "Belinda Bauer, the Crime Author up for the Booker: 'If it's Tokenism, I Don't Care'". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  4. ↑ Smith, Joan (2 January 2011). "She's a thriller queen". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  5. ↑ Jakeman, Jane (1 February 2013). "Anatomy of melancholy: Belinda Bauer's chilling crime mysteries have caused a sensation". The Independent. Retrieved 27 March 2025.
  6. ↑ "Belinda Bauer wins the CWA Gold Dagger 2010". Crime Writers' Association. Archived from the original on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2011.
  7. ↑ Lea, Richard (11 October 2010). "Debut Novelist Belinda Bauer Wins Golden Dagger". The Guardian . Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  8. ↑ Lea, Richard (18 July 2014). "Theakstons Old Peculier crime novel of the year taken by Belinda Bauer". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  9. ↑ Hampson, Laura (21 November 2018). "All the Winners from the 2018 National Book Awards". The Evening Standard . Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  10. ↑ Forshaw, Barry (19 September 2017). "Killer Women Scoop: Crime Writer to Reveal Secret Identity at 'Killer Weekend'". Crime Time. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
  11. ↑ "The Impossible Thing". Penguin. 1 August 2024. Retrieved 1 August 2024.
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