Petra Hammesfahr (born 10 May 1951 in Titz, North Rhine-Westphalia) is an acclaimed German crime writer, winner of several awards including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and Rhineland Literary Prize.[1][2] She published her first novel at the age of 17, and has earned comparisons to Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, and Stephen King (as a reflection of her bestseller-status in her native Germany). Her novel The Sinner was recently published to wide acclaim in English by the Bitter Lemon Press, translated from the original by John Brownjohn.[3] A second novel, The Lie, is also published by the same press. Hammesfahr lives in Cologne.