Jane Dentinger

Jane Dentinger was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She graduated magna cum laude from Ithaca College with a BFA in theatre, then moved to Manhattan, where she still resides. After making her stage debut in Joe Papp’s production of Pericles at the Delacorte Theatre, she acted off Broadway in All My Sons at the Roundabout Theatre and in Jack Heifner’s Vanities for ages.By the time Vanities finally closed, there were a lot of people she wanted to kill, and hence, she wrote her debut mystery, Murder on Cue, on a grant of sorts from the New York State Department of Labor. It was the first of six novels featuring actress Jocelyn O’Roarke, whom the New Yorker dubbed “an artsy Philip Marlowe.”While writing her novels, Dentinger managed Murder Ink, a preeminent mystery bookstore in New York City, for eight years. In October of 1999, Dentinger became senior editor of the Mystery Guild Book Club. In 2005, she was made editor in chief, a position she held until December, 2013.