Jeffery Deaver has written numerous novels of mystery and suspense. He has also worked as an attorney, and his first foray into book-length publication was 1984's The Complete Law School Companion, which he published under the name Jeff Deaver. This volume proved successful enough to be reprinted in 1992 with the added subtitle, How to Excel at America's Most Demanding Post-Graduate Curriculum. Deaver's well-received and popular works of fiction include Manhattan Is My Beat, Hard News, The Lesson of Her Death, Praying for Sleep, A Maiden's Grave, and The Bone Collector.

In Manhattan Is My Beat, which garnered him a nomination for the mystery genre's Edgar Allan Poe Award, Deaver introduces a young woman named Rune whose last name is never given. Rune is also featured in Death of a Blue Movie Star and 1991's Hard News. Joan G. Kotker, reviewing Hard News in Armchair Detective, reported that Rune...