Meg Gardiner

Meg Gardiner (born May 15, 1957) is an American thriller writer and author of fifteen published books. Her best-known books are the Evan Delaney novels, first published in 2002. In June 2008, she published the first novel in a new series, featuring forensic psychiatrist Jo Beckett. More recently she has published three stand-alone novels—Ransom River (June 2012), The Shadow Tracer (June 2013), and Phantom Instinct (June 2014)—and three novels in a new series: Unsub (2017), Into the Black Nowhere (2018), and The Dark Corners of the Night (2020).

Her first novel, China Lake, received the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original novel upon its publication in the United States in 2008. Her first Jo Beckett novel, The Dirty Secrets Club, won the 2009 The Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice award for Best Procedural Novel. Her ninth novel, The Nightmare Thief, won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense Audiobook of the Year. Gardiner was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Santa Barbara, California. She currently lives with her husband, Paul Shreve, in Austin, Texas. She has two sons (Mark and Nathaniel) and a daughter (Katherine). Gardiner has said: "I write thrillers.... I used to practice law. I taught writing at the University of California. Of course, there's more – and because the Internet can fact-check you, faster than you can type 'Sarah Palin', I'm going to come clean: It's true that I used to be a mime. But only before mimes became annoying. And yes, I did go in costume to the Star Trek exhibition in Hyde Park. But I did not wear the Ferengi ears.Gardiner is the daughter of English professor Frank C. Gardiner and Sally (née Love) Gardiner. Meg attended Dos Pueblos High School in Goleta, a community just north of Santa Barbara, graduating in June 1975.Following graduation, she attended Stanford University, where she attained her Bachelor's degree in Economics and lettered in track. She went on to graduate from Stanford Law School and to practice law in Los Angeles, before returning to Santa Barbara to teach legal research and writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

In June 1987, competing as Meg Shreve, she became a 3-time champion on Jeopardy!, winning $29,799 (along with a stay at Beaver Creek Resort in Vail, Colorado, as her prize for coming in second place in her fourth game). Her daughter, Kate Lazo, also became a Jeopardy! champion in 2020.She lived in Surrey, near London, until 2013, when she moved to Austin.