Kevin O'Brien is the youngest of six children. He grew up on Chicago’s North Shore, and studied Journalism at Marquette University in Milwaukee. For eighteen years, he worked as a railroad inspector during the day, and wrote at night. His first novel, ACTORS (1987) was translated into three languages. His second book, ONLY SON (1997) was optioned for film rights by M-G-M, thanks to interest from Tom Hanks. ONLY SON was also chosen by Readers Digest for their Select Editions. His third book, THE NEXT TO DIE (2001), praised by Publishers Weekly for its “taut psychological suspense,” climbed up the USA Today bestseller charts. Another USA Today bestseller followed with MAKE THEM CRY (2002). WATCH THEM DIE (2003) was a runner up for the Friends of Mystery Spotted Owl Award. LEFT FOR DEAD (2004), which “offers up a relentless dose of suspense and chills,” [The New Mystery Reader], was also a runner up for the Spotted Owl Award. With the New York Times bestselling THE LAST VICTIM (2005), O’Brien won The Spotted Owl for Best Pacific Northwest Mystery. Another New York Times Bestseller followed with KILLING SPREE (2007). His New York Times Bestselling streak continued with ONE LAST SCREAM (2008), “an electrifying thriller,” according to The Mystery Gazette, who added: “enthralled audience[s] will read this psychological whodunit in one sitting.” 

Kevin O’Brien’s new thriller, FINAL BREATH, is about Sydney Jordan, a primetime TV news-correspondent, whose marriage to a Chicago cop has abruptly ended. Sydney tries to start a new life in Seattle with her teenage son. But she doesn’t know someone needs to settle an old score. One by one, the subjects of Sydney’s human interest stories become human carnage.  Only Sydney sees the connection to all the gruesome deaths. Only Sidney realizes she’s a pawn in a deadly twisted game—a game that won’t be over until she has taken her final breath.

Kevin O'Brien's next heart-pounding thriller, VICIOUS, will be available in May, 2010. A huge Hitchcock fan, Kevin O'Brien lives in Seattle and is working like a fiend on his twelfth book.

SOME FUN – AND PRETTY SERIOUS – FACTS ABOUT KEVIN O’BRIEN:

On the night of November 22, 1963, eight-year-old, Kevin O’Brien watched a police car and another automobile pull into his family’s driveway. The O’Brien’s had moved into the house only a few weeks before. The police – along with someone who may have been FBI – wanted to get in touch with the home’s previous owner, Milton Klein of Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago. This was the store where ‘A. Hidell’ (later identified as Lee Harvey Oswald) had sent away for the Italian carbine rifle used to kill the President.

Kevin O’Brien graduated from New Trier East High School in Winnetka, Illinois, which is noted for some famous alumni, including Ann Margret, Rock Hudson, Charlton Heston, Scott Turrow, Lili Taylor, Virginia Madson, Bruce Dern, Senator Charles Percy, Ralph Bellamy and Liz Phair, among others. “Ann Margret and I had the same music teacher,” says O’Brien

A huge Hitchcock fan, O’Brien never missed a TV broadcast of Psycho or North by Northwest back in those pre-VCR/DVD days when he was growing up. His first creative writing teacher, at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was an author, Anne Powers. She was also a writing colleague of Robert Bloch, who wrote PSYCHO (based on the notorious Ed Gein case, also in Wisconsin).  “Ms. Powers was very encouraging, and gave me a lot of wonderful feedback about my horror stories,” says O’Brien.  “She was a great teacher.”

In college, Kevin O’Brien wrote his first screenplay, and found a New York agent to represent it.  The story never sold, but O’Brien made a vow to himself to get published by the time he was thirty. He moved to Seattle in 1980, and sold his first book, ACTORS, on his thirtieth birthday.

Kevin is not the only NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author in his family.  His brother-in-law, Mike Leonard, of NBC’s Today Show, wrote the touching, witty, bestselling memoir, THE RIDE OF OUR LIVES (2006).

O’Brien worked as a railroad inspector from 1980 until 1997.  In the last five years of the job, his focus was the inspection of hazardous material rail cars and emergency response work.  He was offered a buyout the same year he sold ONLY SON to Reader’s Digest. He has been earning a living as a writer ever since.

Photo Captions – From the top, a great Marc Von Borstel shot (2008); The O’Brien family Christmas card: Adele, Mary Lou, Cathy, Bill, Joan and moi (1958); Me at Christmastime (1960); New Trier High School (which should look familiar to anyone who has seen 16 Candles) and my graduation portrait (1974); Psycho, a big influence on my writing; Marquette University; A family snapshot (1979) a year before I moved to Seattle;  the paperback version of my first novel, ACTORS (1986), which is no longer in print, and the ACTORS author photo; that’s me in the back row, praying for a bestseller while Hazardous Material Emergency Response training for the railroads (about 1993);  at a book-signing for THE NEXT TO DIE (2001); another shot of the O’Brien clan (2008).