Joseph Hansen (July 19, 1923 – November 24, 2004) was an American crime writer and poet, best known for a series of novels featuring private eye Dave Brandstetter.

In 1965, Hansen wrote his first novel Strange Marriage, published under the pseudonym "James Colton".

He also briefly sang as a part of a folk music group, hosted a radio show called Homosexuality Today, and helped organize the first Gay Pride Parade in Hollywood.

Hansen published eleven further books featuring Brandstetter, ending with A Country of Old Men in 1991.

Hansen created a second private investigator character, Hack Bohannon, a former deputy sheriff who quits the force after fourteen years because of his disapproval of a whitewashed homicide inquiry and runs a horse farm.

In 1993, Hansen won another Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction for Living Upstairs (1993).