Michael Kurland


Michael Joseph Kurland is an American author, best known for his works of science fiction and detective fiction. Kurland lives in San Luis Obispo, California.

Writing career

Kurland's early career was devoted to works of science fiction. His first published novel was Ten Years to Doomsday in 1964. Other notable works include Tomorrow Knight, Pluribus, Perchance, and The Unicorn Girl. The Unicorn Girl was the middle volume of the Greenwich Village Trilogy by three different authors, the other two being Chester Anderson and T.A. Waters..
Kurland has also written two novels, Ten Little Wizards and A Study in Sorcery, set in the world of Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy, prefiguring his later success as a mystery writer.
Following the success of The Infernal Device, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, Kurland turned his attention to detective fiction. Several of his subsequent novels have been sequels to The Infernal Device, and feature Sherlock Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty. In this series, Professor Moriarty is an antihero who resignedly tolerates Holmes's obsessively exaggerated opinion of his criminal empire, and is often brought into reluctant alliance with his nemesis in order to counter menaces ranging from threats to their associates to threats to the nation.
He has edited three themed anthologies of Sherlock Holmes short stories, My Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years and Sherlock Holmes: the American Years.
He is also the author of numerous non-fiction works, including How to Solve a Murder: the Forensic Handbook and How to Try a Murder: the Handbook for Armchair Lawyers.

Selected works

Professor Moriarty series