Ayelet Waldman (born 1964) is an American writer of fiction, born in Jerusalem, and raised in Montreal and New Jersey.

She is the author of five novels about the "part-time sleuth and full-time mother": Juliet Applebaum: Nursery Crimes (2000), The Big Nap (2001), A Playdate with Death (2002), Death Gets a Time-Out (2003), and Murder Plays House (2004). The collective title of the series is The Mommy-Track Mysteries. Waldman has also published one novel of general interest, Daughter's Keeper (2003).

Waldman spent three years working as a Federal Public Defender in the Southern District of California, and in all her fiction she has drawn extensively on her education (Harvard Law School, Class of '91) and career as an attorney. Her work unites a powerful sense of outrage and social injustice with a playful and self-deprecating sense of humor. She is married to the novelist Michael Chabon, and lives with him and their four children in Berkeley, California.