MM Desch

MM Desch spent over thirty years as a psychiatrist — which means she spent decades studying human nature, untangling complicated motivations, reading crime fiction and thinking, ‘Real life is stranger.’ Turns out: that’s an excellent foundation for writing it.

Now a full-time crime fiction author, MM channels her psychiatric expertise into the Portland Murders Series — stories where the psychology is real, the stakes are high, and no one’s inner life is quite as tidy as they’d like you to believe. The series was born with Tangled Darkness (Rowan Prose Publishing, 2025), a Chanticleer Clue Awards shortlist honoree and 2025 Readers’ Favorite Finalist. The Portland Murders universe expands with novellas If I Go Quiet and the newly released Lethal Loyalty, with full-length novels to follow in 2026 and 2027.

MM holds an MD from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and completed her psychiatric residency at the University of Minnesota, where she served as Chief Resident — a credential that sounds impressively distinguished until you realize she now deploys it to construct fictional murder plots. She’s an active member of Sisters in Crime and the Willamette Writers community in Portland, Oregon, where she lives with her wife and a miniature schnauzer who has never once been accused of murder. (Yet.)

When she’s not plotting someone’s fictional demise, MM can be found hiking Portland’s trails, sampling food carts, cheering on the WNBA, and pretending she isn’t already outlining the next book.