Hammesfahr is an acclaimed German crime writer, winner of several awards including the Crime Prize of Wiesbaden and Rhineland Literary Prize. She published her first novel at the age of 17, and has earned comparisons to Patricia Highsmith, Ruth Rendell, and Stephen King (as a reflection of her bestseller-status in her native Germany). Her novel The Sinner was recently published to wide acclaim in English by the Bitter Lemon Press, translated from the original by John Brownjohn. Hammesfahr lives in Cologne.