Donald Harstad
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
Carl Houseman Series
Other novels
- Three Octobers (2005) Rugged Land ISBN 1590710398, 9781590710395
References
- "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
- Random House: publisher's page on Harstad. Limited: it fails to list some of the books for which they produce digital media.