For Rochelle Krich, noted by L.A. Times reviewer Charles Champlin for her "superior crime fiction," becoming a published writer was a fantasy. "It was something I dreamed about," she says, "something that happened to other people." That fantasy became reality in 1990 when Krich wrote Where’s Mommy Now?, which won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original and was filmed as "Perfect Alibi," starring Teri Garr, Hector Elizondo, and Kathleen Quinlan.

Since then Krich has published seven other novels, all critically acclaimed, as well as several short stories. In addition to her stand alone novels, she has written three Jessie Drake mysteries, two of which were nominated for the Agatha Award. The fourth, Dead Air, will be out this March. Her works have been published in Britain, Iceland, Japan, France, Germany, and Holland.

The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Krich was born in Germany and lived in New Jersey and in New York before moving with her family to Los Angeles in 1960. With a master’s degree in English from U.C.L.A., she taught high school English for eighteen years, chairing the English department at Yeshiva University of Los Angeles High Schools, and received the Milken Families Foundation Award for Distinguished Educator of the Year and the Samuel Belkin Memorial Award for professional achievement. Past editor of the national Sisters in Crime newsletter and a former director of the National Board of Directors of the Mystery Writers of America, Krich remains active in both organizations and is a member of the American Crime Writers League.

Krich was still teaching and raising six children when she began her writing career. "The juggling was difficult," she admits, "and I’ve made my share of mistakes. At one point the hems of my daughters’ uniform skirts were being held up by over a dozen safety pins, and I served way too much macaroni and cheese! But somehow we all managed, and my husband and children are wonderfully supportive."

And her mysteries are attracting a growing number of readers and receiving praise from reviewers who note Krich’s fully realized characters, careful plotting, page-turning suspense, and the seamless way she weaves her Orthodox Judaism and contemporary social problems into many of her works. "Krich," observes Kirkus, "doesn't shrink from big issues."

How much of Rochelle Krich is in her characters?

"In college I considered pursuing a career in law or medicine," Krich says, "so I suppose I’m living those lives vicariously through my heroines--attorneys, doctors, homicide detectives. They’re all braver than I am, though, and younger." Many of her heroines practice Orthodox Judaism or find themselves drawn to it--like Jessie Drake, Krich’s series detective, who discovered only recently that she is Jewish.

Unlike Jessie, Krich has never held a gun, and while Jessie’s life is complicated by lingering feelings for her ex-husband and a difficult relationship with her abusive mother and emotionally needy sister, Krich, a proud grandmother of four, has been married for twenty-nine years to the father of their six children and cherishes her closeness to her widowed father, and to her brother and his family.

She credits her family for encouraging her to realize her dreams and helping her remember what’s truly important. "I tend to become obsessive about my writing," she confesses. "They keep me grounded."