Lawrence L. Lynch

Writing as Lawrence L. Lynch, Emily "Emma" Medora Murdock Van Deventer was an American mystery novelist born in Oswego, Illinois, in 1853. She adopted the name from her first husband, Lawrence L. Lynch, and used it as the byline for nearly two dozen detective novels that found readers in both the United States and England.

Her fiction often centered on crime, investigation, and suspense, with many stories set in Chicago. One of her better-known novels, Against Odds, uses the 1893 Chicago World's Fair as its setting. Alongside male investigators such as Francis Ferrars, she also created notably capable women characters, including the detective Madeline Payne.

Van Deventer published steadily from the late 1870s into the early 1910s, with titles including The Diamond Coterie, Dangerous Ground, Out of a Labyrinth, and The Last Stroke. She died in Oswego in 1914, but her books still stand as lively examples of early American detective fiction.