Dorothy Cannell is an English-American writer. She writes mysteries featuring Ellie Haskell, interior decorator and Ben Haskell, writer and chef, and Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell, a pair of dotty sisters and owners of the Flowers Detection Agency. Her first Ellie Haskell novel, The Thin Woman, was selected as one of the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Twentieth Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

Dorothy Cannell was born in London, England. She moved to the USA in 1963 at the age of 20. She married Julian Cannell in 1964 and they lived in Peoria, Illinois

Peoria, Illinois

Peoria is the largest city on the Illinois River and the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, in the United States. It is named after the Peoria tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city was the seventh-most populated in Illinois, with a population of 115,007, and is the third-most populated...

 for many years. They moved to Belfast, Maine

Belfast, Maine

Belfast is a city in Waldo County, Maine, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 6,668. Located at the mouth of the Passagassawakeag River on Penobscot Bay, Belfast is the county seat of Waldo County...

. She is a mother of four, grandmother of ten, and owner of a King Charles Spaniel.

Ellie Haskell Series

• The Thin Woman (1984)
• The Widow's Club (1988)
• Mum's the Word (1990)
• Femmes Fatal (1992)
• How to Murder Your Mother-In-Law (1994)
• How to Murder the Man of Your Dreams (1995)
• The Spring Cleaning Murders (1998)
• The Trouble with Harriet (1999)
• Bridesmaids Revisited (2000)
• The Importance of Being Ernestine (2002)
• Withering Heights (2007)
• Goodbye, Ms. Chips (2008)
• She Shoots to Conquer (2009)

Novels & Collections

• Down the Garden Path (1985)
• God Save the Queen (1997)
• Naked Came The Farmer (1998)
• The Sunken Sailor (2004)
• The Family Jewels and Other Stories (2001)

She has contributed short stories to many compendia and collections.