Ann Granger

Patricia Ann Granger (born 1939) is a British crime writer who has written almost forty books in four different detective series, as well as a collection of short stories.

Ann Granger was born in Portsmouth, England and attended the Northern Grammar School for Girls.

Granger wanted to become a veterinarian, but discovered women were not accepted into vet schools because they were not believed to be strong enough.

Instead she earned a Modern Languages degree at the University of London, where she first developed a desire to become a writer.

Realizing that it would take some time to develop a steady income as a writer, Granger instead taught English for a year in France.

She then went to work in the visa sections of British consulates and embassies in France, Germany, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.

She married a colleague in the foreign service and went with him to Zambia and Germany before returning to live in England with their two children.

After returning to England, Granger turned her hand to writing, and produced the historical romance A Poor Relation in 1979.

Between 1982 and 1991, Granger produced several more historical romances.

In 1991, Granger made the decision to switch to crime novels, saying, "Basically, there is only one plot in love stories: You can describe it in different ways, but you always come back to the subject of man and woman. Crime fiction opens up a world of possibilities for the writer. It lets you tackle deep and difficult issues."

Her first crime novel, Say it with Poison, centred on the protagonists Meredith Mitchell, a consular clerk, and police officer Alan Markby.

The book proved popular and Granger wrote thirteen more Mitchell & Markby novels between 1991 and 2004.

During the series, Mitchell and Markby became romantically involved, but Granger resisted marrying them, believing that Meredith Mitchell could only work best as an independent woman.

In 1997, Granger began her second detective series with Asking for Trouble, featuring a very different protagonist, Fran Varady, a out-of-work and temporarily homeless actor.

Granger explained, "I wanted to write about someone who is in a completely different situation than Meredith Mitchell: Meredith has a great job, a house, a car, a nice boyfriend, etc. - Fran has nothing. She is totally unattached."

Over the next ten years, Granger wrote seven Fran Varady novels.

In 1999, Granger was inducted into the Detection Club.

She is also a member of the Crime Writers' Association in the UK and Sisters in Crime in the US.

Granger has been a best-selling author in Germany, selling millions of copies of her novels and placing in Germany's Top Five Bestseller list more than thirty times.

She finally married them in the final novel of the series, That Way Murder Lies (2004).

A young police officer, Jessica Campbell, made an appearance in this novel — Granger would make her the protagonist of a new series four years later.

In 2022, Granger added one more Mitchell & Markby novel featuring the now-retired couple, Deadly Company.

In 2006, as Granger was winding down the Fran Varady series, she wrote A Rare Interest in Corpses, set in Victorian England in the 1860s and featuring Lizzie Martin, a companion to a wealthy widow, and Ben Ross, a police inspector.

Although Granger had resisted marrying Mitchell and Markby in her first crime series, she had Martin and Ross marry very early in this series, reasoning that "Due to the restrictions on single women at the time, Lizzie wouldn't have had the freedom to be a detective in a whole series of books. Likewise, she and Ben shouldn't be allowed to spend much time together unsupervised."

From 2008 to 2023, Granger added eight more novels to the series.

In 2009, Granger returned to the modern world with Mud, Muck and Dead Things, a novel set in the Cotswolds and featuring Detective Inspector Jessica Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter.

To date, Granger has written seven novels in the series.

In the sixth installment, An Unfinished Murder, the retired couple Mitchell & Markby play a prominent role.

In 2021, in recognition of thirty years of crime novels, Granger released a collection of eighteen short stories, Mystery in the Making.