Carolyn Hougan was a highly praised thriller writer under her own name as well as "John Case," a pen name she and her husband Jim shared together.

The books she and/or her husband wrote were filled to the brim with contemporary terrorists, rogue CIA agents, high-tech science, voodoo magic, deadly viruses and secret conspiracies - the entire gamut of huge-stakes danger and the possible ways in which the world could be destroyed in a moment, or at least be brought to its knees.

Of special note, Ghost Dancer, the couple's most recent novel, has been nominated for this year's Dashiell Hammett Award for Best Literary Crime Novel by the International Association of Crime Writers.