Michael Joseph Kurland (born 1938) is an American author, best known for his works of (in chronological order) science fiction and detective fiction.

Kurland's early career was devoted to works of science fiction. His first published novel was Ten Years to Doomsday (written with Chester Anderson ) in 1964. Other notable works include Tomorrow Knight, Pluribus, Perchance, and The Unicorn Girl. The Unicorn Girl, which was nominated for a Hugo Award, was the middle volume of trilogy by three different authors, the other two being Chester Anderson and T. A. Waters . Kurland has also written two novels, Ten Little Wizards and A Study in Sorcery, set in the world of Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy, prefiguring his later success as a mystery writer.

Following the success of The Infernal Device, which was nominated for an Edgar Award, Kurland turned his attention to detective fiction. Several of his subsequent novels have been sequels to The Infernal Device, and feature Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty.

He has edited two themed anthologies of Sherlock Holmes short stories, My Sherlock Holmes (stories narrated by characters other than Watson or Holmes) and Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years (stories set during the period in which Holmes was supposed to be dead).

He is also the author of numerous non-fiction works, including How to Solve a Murder: the Forensic Handbook and How to Try a Murder: the Handbook for Armchair Lawyers.

Michael Kurland lives in Petaluma, California.

Bibliography

(very incomplete)

• Professor Moriarty series
  • The Infernal Device (1978)
  • Death by Gaslight (1982)
  • "The Paradol Paradox" (in The Infernal Device and others, 2001)
  • The Great Game (2001)
  • "Years Ago and in a Different Place" (in My Sherlock Holmes, 2003)
  • "Reichenbach" (in Sherlock Holmes: The Hidden Years, 2004)
  • The Empress of India (forthcoming)

• Alexander Brass series
  • Too Soon Dead
  • The Girls in the High-Heeled Shoes
  • "He Couldn't Fly" (in The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits)