Candy from Strangers (August Riordan)

Every little girl knows, you can't take Candy From Strangers. It's the big girls who have a problem with the rule. Big girls with webcams and screen names and Amazon wishlists. August Riordan doesn't know the first thing about camgirls. But he's been a PI long enough to know that lustful longing doesn't always do a body good.

Born in New Mexico in 1957, Mark Coggins earned two degrees and a Phi Beta Kappa key from Stanford University. He has worked for a number of Silicon Valley computer and venture capital firms, including Netscape Communications, VeriSign, Hewlett Packard Company and three (other) software start-ups.

While at Stanford, he studied creative writing with Tobias Wolff and Ron Hansen and wrote the first story featuring his series character August Riordan in a class taught by Hansen. This story, "There's No Such Thing as Private Eyes," was later published in The New Black Mask, vol. 4, Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich.

His first novel, The Immortal Game, was nominated for three mystery book awards and was selected for a number of respected "best of the year" lists, including those put together by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Detroit Free Press and mystery maven Otto Penzler. His second novel, Vulture Capital, was recognized as a defining portrayal of the dark side of Silicon Valley. CNBC said of the book, "a truer picture of Silicon Valley can't be found," and Salon.com, "Vulture Capital gives us Northern California in the 21st century, as noir as it ever was."

His third novel, Candy from Strangers, was published in the Fall of 2006 by Bleak House Books. Coggins has published other short fiction in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and is the author of several nonfiction articles, including a profile of photographer Mark Citret in View Camera magazine.

He's been the keynote speaker at computer software conferences and an invited instructor at writers' conferences, including The Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. He's appeared on television and radio to discuss his work as well as the real world events and issues that inform it, such as Silicon Valley culture and venture capital.

He lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda and their cat Taki, and is currently at work on his fourth August Riordan novel, Runoff.