Maureen Jennings

Maureen Jennings (born 23 April 1939) is a British Canadian writer, most well known for the Detective Murdoch Series, the basis for the television series Murdoch Mysteries. She is credited as a creative consultant and occasionally writer for the show.

Biography
Maureen Jennings was born and grew up in Birmingham, England. She attended Saltley Grammar School. Jennings grew up knowing little of her father, who was killed in action during World War II. Jennings emigrated to Canada with her mother when she was seventeen. She studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Windsor and earned an MA in English Literature at the University of Toronto. Jennings initially taught at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute and later practised as a psychotherapist. Her first successful writing was stage plays.

Jennings is best known as the author of the Detective Murdoch Series, which has been turned into a television series. As of 2019, her most recent novel, Heat Wave, introduces Murdoch's son as a police detective in 1936.

The television drama Bomb Girls was based on a concept Jennings developed.

Jennings was awarded the Grant Allen Award in 2011 as a pioneer in crime fiction.

She lives in Toronto.

Detective Murdoch Series
John Wilson Murray, who was appointed as Ontario's first government detective in 1875, "was an important inspiration" for Jennings and led to the development of the character William Murdoch.


 * 1) Except the Dying (1997)
 * 2) Under the Dragon's Tail (1998)
 * 3) Poor Tom Is Cold (2001)
 * 4) Let Loose the Dogs (2003)
 * 5) Night's Child (2005)
 * 6) Vices of My Blood (2006)
 * 7) A Journeyman to Grief (2007)
 * 8) Let Darkness Bury the Dead (2017)

Christine Morris Series

 * 1) Does Your Mother Know? (2006)
 * 2) The K Handshape (2008)

Detective Inspector Tom Tyler Series

 * 1) Season of Darkness (2011)
 * 2) Beware This Boy (2012)
 * 3) No Known Grave (2014)
 * 4) Dead Ground in Between (2016)

Paradise Café Series

 * 1) Heat Wave (2019)
 * 2) November Rain (2020)
 * 3) Cold Snap (2022)

Non-fiction

 * 1) The Map of Your Mind: Journeys Into Creative Expression (2001)