Daniel Mallory (born 1979) is an American author who writes crime fiction under the name A. J. Finn. His 2018 novel The Woman in the Window was a strong commercial success, which enjoyed positive reviews. The novel has been translated into more than 40 languages, and has sold millions of copies worldwide. It debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list and the Times (UK) list. The Woman in the Window was adapted into a feature film of the same name, directed by Joe Wright and featuring Amy Adams, Julianne Moore and Gary Oldman. It also served as an inspiration for the 2022 Netflix series The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window featuring Kristen Bell. Mallory is openly gay and has spoken about his struggles with bipolar depressive disorder. Mallory's much-anticipated second novel, End of Story, will be published in February 2024. It is a thriller set in San Francisco about a young woman writing the biography of a celebrated crime writer.
Early life and education
Mallory was born in New York and moved with his family to Charlotte, North Carolina, where he attended Charlotte Latin School. He went on to attend Duke University, where he majored in English and acted. He studied at Oxford University during his junior year and returned to Oxford after college for graduate work.
Career
Before becoming a novelist, Mallory worked in publishing in New York and London for several years, including at Little, Brown and Company and William Morrow and Company, a division of HarperCollins. He is represented by Jennifer Joel of CAA in the United States and Felicity Blunt of Curtis Brown in the United Kingdom.
Mallory wrote The Woman in the Window, his first novel, in 2015 while living in New York. The novel debuted in January 2018 at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. The novel was subsequently adapted into a feature film directed by Joe Wright with a screenplay by Tracy Letts.
Mallory's much-anticipated second novel, End of Story, will be released in February 2024. It has been described as a thriller set in San Francisco about a young woman writing the biography of a celebrated crime writer.
Since the success of The Woman in the Window, Mallory has been an in-demand speaker at literary festivals, including Iceland Noir, Hamptons Whodunit, Sharjah International Book Fair, Jaipur Literature Festival, Christchurch, and others.
The Woman in the Window (novel) The Woman in the Window follows the life of Dr. Anna Fox who suffers from agoraphobia and lives a reclusive life at her large home in New York City, where she one day witnesses a murder across the street. The novel deals with themes of loneliness, isolation, guilt, grief, and resilience. In a review in the New Yorker, Joyce Carrol Oates called it "superior" and "highly successful." The Globe and Mail called it "an intelligent novel of psychological suspense." Janet Maslin in the New York Times said, "A book that's as devious as this novel will delight anyone who's been disappointed too often... For hard-core aficionados of classic logical mysteries, this book includes some special delights." The book was shortlisted for the 2019 British Book Awards in the "Crime & Thriller" category. See Woman in the Window (novel).
A feature film starring Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Anthony Mackie, Fred Hechinger, Wyatt Russell, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Julianne Moore, and directed by Joe Wright, with a screenplay by Tracy Letts was adapted from the book. The film was originally set for a theatrical release on May 15, 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic was sold to Netflix, which began streaming it on May 14, 2021. Time called it a "coolly tasteful psychological thriller." The Hollywood Reporter described the film as a "neo-Gothic diversion with a strong central performance" whose "homebound protagonist has become that much more understandable to audiences."
End of Story (novel)
End of Story, A.J. Finn's second novel, is slated for release on February 20, 2024. Set in San Francisco, it is a thriller about a young woman writing the biography of a celebrated crime writer.
According to publisher HarperCollins, End of Story is "part Knives Out, part Agatha Christie . . . yet utterly unlike anything you've ever read." The cover art, released in July 2023, features the tag line "the past isn't gone, it's just waiting."