Photo: Mark Coggins San Francisco, CA / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Robert Crais is the kind of craftsman I quietly champion. He cut his teeth writing for Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, then translated that televisual sense of pacing into detective novels that move like film. You can trace his lineage straight back to Chandler, Hammett and Hemingway, but he metabolized those influences into a voice of his own. The shelf of honors, Anthony, Shamus, the Grand Master nod, isn't decoration; it's evidence of a writer who kept getting sharper. What impresses me is the discipline behind the cool prose. I'll always have time for a storyteller who respects both the genre and the reader.
Overview
Robert Crais (pronounced ; born June 20, 1953) is an American author of detective fiction and former screenwriter. Crais began his career writing scripts for television shows such as Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Quincy, Miami Vice and L.A. Law. His writing is influenced by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Ernest Hemingway, Robert B. Parker and John Steinbeck.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Robert Crais
- Name (Japanese)
- ロバート・クレイス
- Reading
- ろばーと・くれいす
- Born
- June 20, 1953 (age 72)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Gemini / Snake
- Origin
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- screenwriter / writer / novelist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Louisiana State University
Awards & achievements
- 1988 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original
- 1997 Shamus Award
- 2008 Gumshoe Awards
- 2000 Dilys Award
- 2008 Barry Award for Best Thriller
- 2014 The Grand Master
- 2013 Shamus Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Screenwriter — see all → · Writer — see all → · More people from United States →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.