Kim Hays, a citizen of Switzerland and the United States, has written four Polizei Bern books featuring Swiss homicide detectives Linder and Donatelli. She moved to Bern, her Swiss husband's hometown, thirty-seven years ago, after growing up in San Juan and Vancouver and studying at Harvard and Berkeley. In Switzerland, she worked as a cross-cultural coach for multinational companies before becoming a mystery writer. The first Linder and Donatelli book, Pesticide (2022), was a finalist for the Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger Award and the Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery. It was followed by Sons and Brothers (2023), A Fondness for Truth (2024), which was a BookLife Editor's Pick, and now, Splintered Justice.