Early life and education
Granger was born in Portsmouth, England, on 12 July 1939, to Eugene Granger, a Royal Navy officer, and Norah née Davey. She attended the Northern Grammar School for Girls, and had thoughts about becoming a veterinarian, but discovered women were not accepted into vet schools because they were not believed to be strong enough. Instead she earned a Modern Languages degree at the University of London, where she first developed a desire to become a writer.
Career as a writer
After returning to England, Granger turned her hand to writing, using a version of her married name, Ann Hulme, and produced the historical romance A Poor Relation in 1979. Between 1982 and 1991, Granger produced several more historical romances.
Mitchell & Markby
In 1991, Granger made the decision to switch to crime novels, saying, "Basically, there is only one plot in love stories: You can describe it in different ways, but you always come back to the subject of man and woman. Crime fiction opens up a world of possibilities for the writer. It lets you tackle deep and difficult issues." Her first crime novel, Say it with Poison, centred on protagonists Meredith Mitchell, a consular officer, and police officer Alan Markby. The book proved popular and Granger wrote 14 more Mitchell & Markby novels between 1991 and 2004.
During the series, Mitchell and Markby became romantically involved, but Granger resisted marrying them, believing that Meredith Mitchell could only work best as an independent woman. She finally married them in the final novel of the series, That Way Murder Lies (2004). A young police officer, Jessica Campbell, made an appearance in this novel — Granger would make her the protagonist of a new series four years later.
In 2022, Granger added one more Mitchell & Markby novel, set in 2005 and featuring the now near-retirement couple, Deadly Company.
Fran Varady
In 1997, Granger began her second detective series with Asking for Trouble, featuring a very different protagonist, Fran Varady, an out-of-work and temporarily homeless actor. Granger explained, "I wanted to write about someone who is in a completely different situation than Meredith Mitchell: Meredith has a great job, a house, a car, a nice boyfriend, etc. – Fran has nothing. She is totally unattached." Over the next ten years, Granger wrote seven Fran Varady novels.
Lizzie Martin & Ben Ross
In 2006, as Granger was winding down the Fran Varady series, she wrote A Rare Interest in Corpses, set in Victorian England in the 1860s and featuring Lizzie Martin, a companion to a wealthy widow, and Ben Ross, a police inspector. Although Granger had resisted marrying Mitchell and Markby in her first crime series, she had Martin and Ross marry very early in this series, reasoning that "Due to the restrictions on single women at the time, Lizzie wouldn't have had the freedom to be a detective in a whole series of books. Likewise, she and Ben shouldn't be allowed to spend much time together unsupervised." From 2008 to 2023, Granger added eight more novels to the series.
Campbell & Carter
In 2009, Granger returned to the modern world with Mud, Muck and Dead Things, a novel set in the Cotswolds and featuring Detective Inspector Jessica "Jess" Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter; Campbell appeared in the Mitchell and Markby series also. In the sixth installment, An Unfinished Murder, the retired couple Mitchell & Markby play a prominent role. By 2025, Granger had written seven novels in the series.
Short stories
In 2021, in recognition of thirty years of crime novels, Granger released a collection of eighteen short stories, Mystery in the Making.
