Biography
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Media biography |
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P. J. Parrish (sisters Kelly Nichols and Kris Montee) is author of the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling Louis Kincaid series. Their books have been Edgar, Shamus, Thriller and Anthony award finalists. ISLAND OF BONES was named a top book of 2004 by Publishers Weekly and Oline Cogdill. AN UNQUIET GRAVE was named a Michigan Notable Book for 2006. Their latest, A THOUSAND BONES, (Pocket Books, July 2007) marks the debut of a new series starring Michigan police woman Joe Frye. Their short stories have appeared in Mystery Writers of America’s anthology, DEATH DO US PART, edited by Harlan Coben; DETROIT NOIR, the acclaimed series published by Akashic Books; THESE GUNS FOR HIRE, edited by J.A. Konrath, and in Ellery Queen Magazine. Both sisters, born in Detroit, Mich., were writers as kids, albeit with different styles: Kelly's first attempt at fiction was at age 11 titled "The Kill." Kristy's at 13 was "The Cat Who Understood." Not much has changed: Kelly now tends to handle the gory stuff and Kristy the character development. But the collaboration is a smooth one, thanks to lots of ego suppression, good wine, and America Online. |
he New York Times bestselling author and Edgar-nominee P.J. Parrish is actually two sisters, Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols. Parrish is the author of the critically-acclaimed and commercially successful Louis Kincaid series of mystery novels. The seventh and latest in the series, AN UNQUIET GRAVE, was published in February, 2006. In July 2007, Parrish will debut a new series featuring Joe Frye, a female police officer.
Publishers weekly gave AN UNQUIET GRAVE a starred review, saying: "Bestseller Parrish's gripping and atmospheric new Louis Kincaid novel will remind many of Dennis Lehane. Parrish has created a fresh plot through her gift at creating sympathetic main and secondary characters and through her skill at creating suspense and sustaining a mood. Parrish's ability to raise goose bumps puts her in the front rank of thriller writers."
The protagonist in the first series is the multi-dimensional Kincaid, a young bi-racial detective who was raised by white foster parents. The first book in the series was set in 1982 and each subsequent book has taken place one year later. Kincaid is 29 years old in AN UNQUIET GRAVE. In addition to Kincaid, each book has featured, according to reviewers and fans alike, strong and well-developed secondary characters - including his lover Joe Frye, who first appeared in A KILLING RAIN and was so popular with readers that she was spun off into her own series.
Both sisters, born in Detroit, Mich., were writers as kids, albeit with different styles: Kelly's first attempt at fiction was at age 11 titled "The Kill." Kristy's at 13 was "The Cat Who Understood." Not much has changed: Kelly now tends to handle the gory stuff and Kristy the character development. But the collaboration is a smooth one, thanks to lots of ego suppression, good wine, and America Online.
The books in the Louis Kincaid series have been on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists and have been nominated for a total of ten major mystery novel writing awards including the Edgar, Shamus, Anthony and Thriller Award. The books have been published in Japan, Sweden, Thailand and Canada, and the UK in addition to the U.S.
The sisters recently began turning their talents to short stories. Their first, "One Shot," appeared in Mystery Writers of America's anthology, DEATH DO US PART, edited by Harlan Coben. Their story, "Gutter Snipes" was included in THESE GUNS FOR HIRE and their work has appeared in Ellery Queen Magazine. Their most recent story, "Pride," is included in DETROIT NOIR, the latest in Akashic Books acclaimed series of urban noir anthologies.
My Writing Life, by Kris Montee
I have been writing since I was old enough to pick up a crayon. My first professional effort was "The Parkwood Banner," a newspaper about the street where I lived when I was in fourth grade. I sold it for 3 cents an issue and made enough to keep me in Good Humor bars. Later, in eighth grade, I turned to fiction, writing a short story called "The Cat Who Understood." My teacher, Miss Gentry, was the first person who told me I could write. I believed her.
Much later, armed with a useless teaching degree, I got a job on a suburban Detroit weekly as the Women's Editor (That's what they called feature sections in my salad days). I won an award and in 1972 landed a job at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale where I was named women's editor, fired, rehired, and went on to do everything from police reporter to ballet critic to Sunday editor. One day, I looked up and was Assistant. Managing Editor and the only thing I was writing was personnel evaluations. So I tried to write a romance novel at night. It ended up getting plucked out of a slush pile and published. I wrote three more “contemporary women’s fiction” novels, (i.e. family sagas with sex scenes), got caught in a coup d’etat at the publishing house and was "released."
I moped for a year and my husband told me to start writing again or get a job. I found an agent who wisely told me to ditch romance novels and switch to mystery novels. Turns out that was a good idea, because there are a lot more ways to kill people than there are to have sex. I teamed up with my sister Kelly Nichols and we created our biracial cop-hero Louis Kincaid. Louis has helped us get on the New York Times bestseller list and get nominated for an Edgar, Shamus and Anthony. I love him, my husband Daniel, my dog Bailey and my cat Lucy. As for free time, I don’t have much (in addition to the novels, I just completed a two year term as president of the South Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America). If I did, I would be hiking in Europe, reading, writing more short stories, or playing my new baby grand. Hope springs eternal...
My Writing Life, by Kelly Nichols
My first literary effort was to kill off all the Beatles in a thriller that took place in about four pages and ended with arrest of their manager as the villain. Since I was ten, the only editor and reader was my father, who dutifully wrote Good Job! on the cover page. That was enough to keep me going, and by junior high, I was writing stories in spiral notebooks (well, actually the same story with the same characters who had endless high school exploits, complete with gang fights, knife slashes and an occasional dead body.) My feedback during this phase was "How can you write this stuff..Ewww!"
My life turn took a real life turn of its own when I married and spent the next twenty years raising children and learning the casino business from the blackjack table to Employee Relations. But the urge to create a very different and far more exciting fictional world never really let go. By the time the kids were in all in school, I was back to the spiral notebooks, and eventually progressed to a $99 typewriter, where I literally pounded out a two-finger southern romance and inundated my mother with ideas, characters and aspirations until the wee hours of the Arizona mornings. Feedback here was close to "Dear Author, your manuscript does not fit our needs at this time."
When I found myself single, and living in a town rich with a criminal history of its own, and all my children out of the house, I tried again, giving birth to our current character (and our bread and butter) Louis Kincaid. This period coincided with Kristy’s husband telling her to either write again or go get a real job. Faced with that, we teamed up and finished our first novel together, titled “Dark of the Moon.” I don’t have to tell you what the feedback here was, since we have now published seven Louis Kincaid novels. It has been an interesting journey, ending up right back I started. Writing endless adventures with the same character and showing it first to a member of the family.