Donald Harstad is an American novelist and former police officer specializing in crime fiction and police procedurals. Prior to taking up writing, he had a 26-year career with the Sheriff's Department of Clayton County, Iowa, retiring as a Deputy Sheriff.[1] His first novel, Eleven Days, was loosely based on a case he worked on during that time, and he is known for drawing on his career in law enforcement for details of police and investigative procedure.
Donald Harstad | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1945 |
| Occupation | novelist |
| Period | 1999–present |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Subject | Crime, Rural Iowa |
| Notable works | Eleven Days, Big Thaw |
All of his novels are set in "Nation County", a fictional rural county in Iowa, and include many of the same characters, primarily centering on police officer Carl Houseman, a loose analog for Harstad himself. His novels have appeared in nine languages.[2][3]
Harstad lives in Elkader, Iowa, with his wife of 40 years, his former high school sweetheart with whom he has one daughter. In a 2002 interview, he said that he has always been fascinated by the people mixed up in matters that come to the attention of the police, and as a novelist he is looking at how chains of bad choices lead to outcomes.[4]
Bibliography
editNovels
editCarl Houseman Series
edit- Eleven Days (1999) Bantam ISBN 0-553-58148-1
- Known Dead (2000) Bantam ISBN 0-553-58095-7 [5]
- The Big Thaw (2001) Bantam ISBN 0-553-58303-4
- Code 61 (2003) Bantam ISBN 0-553-58098-1
- A Long December (2003) Rugged Land ISBN 1-59071-013-4 [6]
- November Rain (2015) Crooked Lane Books ISBN 161129049X
Other novels
edit- Three Octobers (2005) Rugged Land ISBN 1590710398, 9781590710395[1]
Anthologies and collections
edit| Anthology or Collection | Contents | Publication
Date |
Publisher | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| An Apple for the Creature[7] | Academy Field Trip | Oct 2012 | Ace
Penguin Group Jo Fletcher Books Wheeler Publishing Brilliance Audio |
ISBN 0425256804, 9780425256800 |
References
edit- ^ "Donald Harstad Author Bookshelf – Random House – Books – Audiobooks – Ebooks". Random House. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
- ^ Communication with Don Harstad.
- ^ "Donald Harstad". LibraryThing. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
- ^ "An Interview with Iowa Author Donald Harstad". Jody Ewing. 2002-09-19. Archived from the original on 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
- ^ New York Times book review, August 9, 1999, "Known Dead" by Donald Harstad, reviewed by Richard Bernstein
- ^ "Media & Publicity – Digital Content for Marketing". randomhouse.biz. Retrieved 2012-02-16.
- ^ "An Apple for a Creature". Archived from the original on 2012-05-03.
External links
edit- Random House: publisher's page on Harstad. Limited: it fails to list some of the books for which they produce digital media.