Kim Hays is a dual citizen (Swiss/American) who has made her home in Bern since she married a Swiss. Before that, she lived in San Juan, Vancouver, and Stockholm, as well as the US, her birthplace. Since the age of seventeen, she has worked at a wide variety of jobs, from factory forewoman to director of a small nonprofit and, in Switzerland, from sociology lecturer to cross-cultural trainer. She began writing mysteries when her son left for college. PESTICIDE (2022), the first book in her Polizei Bern series, was shortlisted for the 2020 Debut Dagger award by the Crime Writers’ Association; and mystery writer Deborah Crombie called it “a stand-out debut for 2022.” The second book in the series, SONS AND BROTHERS, was published in April 2023.

Hays has a BA in English history and literature from Harvard and a PhD in cultural sociology from UC-Berkeley.