Joseph R. Paglino

Joseph R. Paglino is a longtime American homicide and criminal investigator and co-author, with Mauro V. Corvasce, of two Writer's Digest Howdunit titles that have become essential references for crime and mystery writers: Modus Operandi: A Writer's Guide to How Criminals Work (1995) and Murder One: A Writer's Guide to Homicide (1997). He holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice from St. John's University and an M.A. in Forensic Psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

His investigative career spans the death investigation, prosecution, and crime scene sides of major-case work. He has been a Confidential Investigator for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York City, a Detective for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, and a Detective with the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office in Freehold, New Jersey. Across that career he personally investigated thousands of homicide, suicide, and suspicious death scenes, plus kidnappings, robberies, burglaries, and undercover sting operations against stolen property and counterfeit goods rings. He received extensive training from the FBI and from the New York and New Jersey State Police and other federal, state, and county law enforcement agencies.

Modus Operandi gives novelists the working detail behind major crime types: armed robbery, arson, smuggling, safecracking, white-collar crime, organized crime, and the patterns and signatures investigators actually use to identify offenders. Murder One covers homicide investigation from scene through trial, including familial murder, gang and contract killing, business and financial murder, organized crime hits, vehicular murder, crimes of passion, and bizarre and unusual homicides drawn from real cases.

Paglino has appeared on CNN Showbiz Today, Fox News, Good Day New York, the BBC, NPR's All Things Considered, and WWDB Philadelphia, and his work has been covered in The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Orlando Sun-Sentinel, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, American Writer, and the Asbury Park Press. He has lectured at writers conferences including Bouchercon, Sisters in Crime, Romance Writers of America, Santa Barbara Writers' Conference, Book Passage Mystery Conference, Novelists Inc., and the California Writers Club, and has worked as an advisor to The Discovery Channel on mystery-related production. He runs the writing-craft and forensics blog killerendings.com.