Rich Zahradnik is the author of the thriller The Bone Records and the four critically acclaimed Coleridge Taylor mysteries, including Lights Out Summer, winner of the Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America.

Lights Out Summer won the 2018 Shamus Award for Best Paperback Private Eye Novel. The first three books in the series collected awards in the three major competitions for books published by independent presses. A Black Sail was named best mystery in the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Drop Dead Punk received the gold medal for mystery ebook in the 2016 IPPY Awards, while Last Words won the bronze medal for mystery ebook in the 2015 IPPYs and honorable mention for mystery in the Foreword Reviews competition.

“Taylor, who lives for the big story, makes an appealingly single-minded hero,” Publishers Weekly wrote of Drop Dead Punk.

Zahradnik was a journalist for 27 years, working as a reporter and editor in several different media, including online, newspaper, broadcast, magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News, AOL and The Hollywood Reporter.

Zahradnik was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and received his B.A. in journalism and political science from George Washington University. He lives with his wife Sheri in Pelham, New York, where he writes fiction and teaches kids around the New York area how to publish newspapers. He is providing guidance to the Pelham Examiner, the first community newspaper in New York State managed, edited, reported, and written by people under the age of eighteen.