Announced today was the death of Carolyn Hougan, 63, on February 25th. She was a highly praised thriller writer under her own name as well as “John Case,” a pen name she and her husband Jim shared together.

   The books she and/or her husband wrote were filled to the brim with contemporary terrorists, rogue CIA agents, high-tech science, voodoo magic, deadly viruses and secret conspiracies – the entire gamut of huge-stakes danger and the possible ways in which the world could be destroyed in a moment, or at least be brought to its knees.

    Of special note, Ghost Dancer, the couple’s most recent novel, has been nominated for this year’s Dashiell Hammett Award for Best Literary Crime Novel by the International Association of Crime Writers. (For the complete list of nominees, go here.)

Ghost

  BIBLIOGRAPHY: [Based in part on her entry in Allen J. Hubin’s Crime Fiction IV.]

   Best known in combo with her husband as –

CASE, JOHN F.; pseudonym of Carolyn Hougan & Jim Hougan
   * The Genesis Code (Columbine, 1997, hc)
   * The First Horseman (Columbine, 1998, hc)
   * The Syndrome (Ballantine, 2001, hc)
   * The Eighth Day (Ballantine, 2002, hc)
   * The Murder Artist (Ballantine, 2004, hc)
   * Ghost Dancer (Ballantine, 2006, hc)

   On her own –

HOUGAN, CAROLYN (A.) (1943-2007)
   * Shooting in the Dark (Simon & Schuster, 1984, hc). Trade paperback, Felony & Mayhem, 2006.
   * The Romeo Flag (Simon & Schuster, 1989, hc). Trade paperback, Felony & Mayhem, 2005.
   * Blood Relative (Columbine, 1992, hc)

Shooting

   And on her own under yet another pen name –

BELL, MALCOLM; pseudonym of Carolyn Hougan.
   * The Last Goodbye (St. Martin’s, 1999, hc)

   Thanks to J. Kingston Pierce of The Rap Sheet for the link to her obituary on the Washington Post website.