About Cathryn

Most children out-grow the phase, but as an adult, I’ve continued to irritate family, friends, and co-workers by incessantly asking, Why? In real crime, too many times, the why is left unanswered. My fiction tells the stories of ordinary people driven to commit crimes, especially homicide. You could call them why-dunnits rather than who-dunnits.

So why Suburban Noir? Even as a child, I was aware of the dark side of suburbia. I started life in a suburban town in New York and grew up in the suburbs of Silicon Valley, California. My first inkling that I had a cynical view of  suburban living was my immediate and visceral disdain for station wagons and mini vans with fake wood paneling. To me, that was symbolic of the desire to pretend you’re something you’re not.

My cynicism blended with an insatiable curiosity about why people behave as they do, and grew into stories of psychological suspense that eventually ended up in a hybrid genre that I like to call Suburban Noir.

I wrote my first novel when I was ten years old — The Mystery of the Missing Mansion. When I discovered Ruth Rendell through her novel, The Bridesmaid, I knew I’d discovered the kind of stories I wanted to tell — novels with “subdued tones, stultifying atmosphere, and … psychological obsession” as the Library Journal said about The Bridesmaid.

A reader told me I make “the mundane menacing”. That’s exactly right, because the mundane is menacing. Think, for several minutes, about nerves rubbed raw by bad drivers and a fifty minute commute, or expertly sharpened kitchen knives, or the gooey white of an undercooked egg. You’ll see what I mean.

When I’m not writing, I work in marketing for a Silicon Valley company and read lots of fiction. In the winter I  curl up by the fire with a glass of wine, a bowl of popcorn, a novel, my husband, and two cats. In the summer, I do the same, without the fire, and try to play golf without hitting my ball in the sand.

List of published work.

Check out some of my favorite authors here and my favorite films here.

Member of Mystery Writers of America