Burke was born August 1, 1953, in Houston, Texas,[1] but has lived in Southern California most of her life. She attended California State University, Long Beach, and graduated with a degree in history. She is a distinguished alumna of CSULB.
She worked as a researcher on an oral history project interviewing "Rosie the Riveters." Later she became the manager of a manufacturing plant for a large corporation.
She completed her first novel, Goodnight, Irene, in the evenings after work. It was sold unagented and unsolicited to Simon & Schuster. She received a surprising boost from a new fan when, during his first White House interview after taking office, PresidentBill Clinton said he was reading Goodnight, Irene.
Her books have been on bestseller lists of TheNew York Times, USA Today and other publications. They have been published internationally and have been optioned for film and television.
Burke became active in raising awareness of the problems facing crime labs and the need to obtain better funding for forensic science, at one point founding a nonprofit to do so. She has also been an advocate for the improvement of medicolegal death investigation in the U.S. and for requiring the reporting of unidentified remains to NamUs. Working with missing persons advocates, she helped to get legislation passed in New York State, the first state to require Namus reporting by all coroners and medical examiners. Other states have followed this model. She has been a speaker at meetings of the National Institute of Justice, the American Society of Crime Lab Directors, the California Association of Criminalists, the California Association of Crime Lab Directors, and other forensic science organizations. She has served on the honorary board of the California Forensic Science Institute.
Burke has been the Guest of Honor at several mystery fan conventions, including Malice Domestic, Left Coast Crime, and Mayhem in the Midwest.
Illness in her family has taken her away from writing in recent years.
Contributions
Burke edited the first edition of Breaking and Entering, a Sisters in Crime's guide to getting published.[2] She served as an Associate Editor on Writing Mysteries: A Handbook by the Mystery Writers of America, edited by Sue Grafton.[3] She has served on the national boards of Mystery Writers of America (MWA) and the American Crime Writers League. She is a past president of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America.[citation needed]
Burke's novel Bloodlines appears in the television series Bones: Season 1, Ep. 17 - "The Skull in the Desert. It is used as a prop on a table at minute 15:05.[citation needed]
