Jane Dentinger was born and raised in Rochester, New York. She
graduated magna cum laude from Ithaca College with a BFA in
theatre, then moved to Manhattan, where she still resides. After
making her stage debut in Joe Papp’s production
of Pericles at the Delacorte Theatre, she acted
off Broadway in All My Sons at the Roundabout
Theatre and in Jack Heifner’s Vanities for
ages.
By the time Vanities finally closed, there were a
lot of people she wanted to kill, and hence, she wrote her debut
mystery, Murder on Cue, on a grant of sorts from the
New York State Department of Labor. It was the first of six novels
featuring actress Jocelyn O’Roarke, whom the New
Yorker dubbed “an artsy Philip Marlowe.”
While writing her novels, Dentinger managed Murder Ink, a
preeminent mystery bookstore in New York City, for eight years. In
October of 1999, Dentinger became senior editor of the Mystery
Guild Book Club. In 2005, she was made editor in chief, a position
she held until December, 2013.