Richard J. Cass is the author of the Elder Darrow jazz mystery series—In Solo Time, Solo Act, Burton’s Solo, Last Call at the Esposito, Sweetie Bogan’s Sorrow, Mickey’s Mayhem, and the newest published by Encircle in October, Closing Time.
Solo Act was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award in Crime Fiction, and In Solo Time won that award. Mickey’s Mayhem was a finalist for the Nancy Pearl Award, given by the Pacific NW Writers Association.
Cass is also the author of The Last Altruist, which won the Nancy Pearl Librarian’s Prize for Genre Fiction and was shortlisted for the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction.
Cass graduated from Colby College in Maine, earned an MA in Writing from the University of New Hampshire, and studied with Thomas Williams, Jr. and Joseph Monninger. He has also studied with Ernest Hebert, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Molly Gloss. He has been an Individual Artist’s Fellow for the State of New Hampshire, a Fellow at the Fishtrap Writers’ Conference in Oregon, and served on the board of Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.
His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Playboy, Gray’s Sporting Journal, ZZYZVA, Best Short Stories of the American West, Tough, and Shotgun Honey. His short fiction has won prizes from Redbook, Writers’ Digest, and Playboy. He lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.