Susan Conant graduated from Radcliffe College and has a doctorate in human development from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The author of twenty mystery novels and two short stories featuring Holly Winter and her Alaskan malamutes, Conant is an eight-time winner of the Dog Writers Association of America Maxwell Medallion. Conant's dog mysteries have been legally translated into German, Swedish, Finnish, and Japanese, as well as pirated by a Russian publisher. She has published one mystery for cat lovers, Scratch the Surface; two nonfiction books; and has collaborated with her daughter, Jessica Conant-Park, on the Gourmet Girl culinary mysteries. Conant and her husband live near Boston with their Chartreux cats and their Shetland sheepdog.