Élmer Mendoza (Culiacán, Mexico, 1949) is Professor of Literature at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa, and a member of both the Mexican Academy of Language and the College of Sinaloa. He belongs to the National Network of Artists. He began his literary career in 1978, and in 1999 his first novel, Un asesino solitario, made him, according to the Mexican critic Federico Campbell, "the first author to correctly capture the effects of the drug trafficking culture in our country". With El amante de Janis Joplin, he won the 17th José Fuentes Mares National Prize for Literature and with Efecto tequila (2005) he was shortlisted for the Dashiell Hammett Prize. In 2006, his fourth novel Cóbraselo caro was published, and in 2008, Silver Bullets was awarded the 3rd Tusquets Novel Prize, which established him as a leading writer of detective fiction in the Hispanic world. After The Acid Test (2010) and Name of the Dog (2012), both featuring the detective Edgar “Lefty” Mendieta, Kiss the Detective continues this saga. Mendoza once again portrays a particular moment and a country through a unique detective whose stories have crossed many borders and are read in almost a dozen languages.