Karen Campbell (born 1967, Paisley, Scotland) is a Scottish writer of contemporary fiction. Her first four novels, while billed as police procedurals, form a quartet set in Glasgow which goes behind the uniform, to examine the lives of people who just happen to be police officers, and feature Sgt. Anna Cameron and Cath and Jamie Worth. Her fifth novel, published in 2013, breaks away from the world of the police.^[1] It tells the story of Abdi, a Somali asylum-seeker newly arrived in Glasgow with his young daughter, and of recently widowed Deborah, who has been assigned as mentor to help them settle in. The novel was selected as the BBC Radio Four Book at Bedtime in April 2013. Now published by Canongate, Campbell has written eight novels, the most recent being Paper Cup, which follows the journey of homeless woman Kelly.

Karen Campbell was born in Paisley and brought up in Glasgow. Both her mother and father worked in City of Glasgow Police, and following a degree at Glasgow University, she also joined the police, where she met her husband.

Karen studied for the Creative Writing master's degree at Glasgow University. She is a vegetarian^[2] and lives in Galloway with her husband and two daughters.

• The Twilight Time (2008)
• After The Fire (2009)
• Shadowplay (2010)
• Proof of Life (2011)
• This is Where I Am (2013)
• Rise (2015)
• The Sound of the Hours (2019)
• Paper Cup (2022)

• Karen Campbell's homepage
• Reviews at Euro Crime
• Radio interview, 2009^{[permanent dead link]}
• The Creative Writing programme at the University of Glasgow
• Sunday Mail article about Karen's time in the police
• Review of Proof of Life