Steve Hockensmith was born in Derby City on August 17, 1968 and first gained fame covering the entertainment industry for The Hollywood Reporter, Total Movie, Newsday and others. In 1999 he left the industry to focus on writing mysteries and quickly won the Short Mystery Fiction Society's Derringer Award for his story "Erie's Last Day," published in the May 2000 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (AHMM). Two subsequent Larry Erie stories, "Tricks" (AHMM, August 2004) and "The Big Road" (AHMM, May 2005), were both finalists for the Shamus Award for Best Short Story from the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA).

Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer made their debut in the February 2003 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (EQMM) and quickly become very popular with readers. Three more stories appeared in the magazine (always in the February Sherlock Holmes themed issue) before the brothers made the leap to novel length with Holmes on the Range in 2006, which was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 2007. On the Wrong Track was published in 2007, and the latest book in the series, The Black Dove, was released on February 19, 2008.

Hockensmith originated the monthly "Reel Crime" column for AHMM.