American detective story writer, born in Detroit, Michigan, in a family with great literary interests. She wrote her first book – published by herself in three copies – as a twelve-year-old. She grew up in Birmingham in Michigan, studied at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and gained a B.A. in English in 1966, and later an M.A. in Journalism in 1971. She married Frederick T. Gilson in 1967 and moved to San Francisco; the marriage ended in divorce in 1981. She was a member of the editorial group for the magazine Sunset 1967–69, and after that had various jobs and positions before, in 1979, together with her author colleague Julie Smith founding a firm for editorial services, Invisible Ink, which they ran until 1983. Since then, Muller has been a full-time author, and in 1992 she married again, her second husband being a professional colleague William ‘Bill’ Pronzini.