Lillian O’Donnell (1926-2005) was an Italian-American crime novelist who helped change the face of mystery fiction by putting women at the center of police procedurals. Her most famous creation, Detective Norah Mulcahaney, was one of the first female NYPD detectives in fiction. The character debuted in the early 1970s and appeared in over a dozen novels.
O’Donnell also wrote the Gwenn Ramadge series about a Manhattan private investigator and the Mici Anhalt books about a crime victim advocate. Over a career spanning several decades, she published more than 30 mystery novels and earned a reputation as a writer who took her female protagonists seriously long before it was common to do so.