My crime thriller author timeline

Edgar Allan Poe AwardsSome of you have been asking about when I began my crime writing career.
I started writing my first book, the one that eventually became Motion to Kill, my first Lou Mason thriller, in 1992 while I was still a practicing lawyer. It was eventually published in 2002. The Last Witness, the second in my Lou Mason series, was published a year later in 2003, and nominated for an Edgar award.

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, AKA the Edgars, are named after Edgar Allan Poe and presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. They honor the very best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theatre and I’m proud they’ve recognised my crime fiction novels.

In 2004 Cold Truth, the third in my Lou Mason series, was published, and I experienced the first symptoms of my movement disorder, tics, while in trial in San Francisco. 2005 saw Deadlocked published, and nominated for the Shamus award, given annually by the Private Eye Writers of America for the best detective fiction novels and short stories, recognizing outstanding achievement in crime fiction. Deadlocked also won a Thorpe Menn award for the best book by a Kansas City author.

I finally retired from practicing law in 2006, and served on the Mystery Writers of America national board of directors for a three year term ending in 2009. Shakedown , my first Jack Davis crime novel, was published in 2008 and in 2009 The Dead Man, Jack’s second book, took its place on the shelves. The same year, I wrote a short story titled Knife Fight, which was published in a Mystery Writers of America anthology titled Prosecution Rests.

In 2006 I wrote the last in my Lou Mason series of crime thriller books, Final Judgement, which my publishers finally released in March this year. No Way Out, the third in my Jack Davis series of crime thrillers, was released in 2010. And in 2011 I began the next chapter in my writing career by combining self-publishing with traditional publishing, releasing my Lou Mason and Jack Davis novels as ebooks and Print On Demand (POD).

I also joined with eleven other authors to form the Top Suspense Group in 2011. We released our first self-published anthology of mystery/thriller short stories titled Top Suspense, including my short story Fire In the Sky.

2012 has been busy so far. Final Judgment became the last of my books to be published by Kensington Publishing. Freaks Must Die, a novella in William Rabkin & Lee Goldberg’s The Dead Man series (not to be confused with my Jack Davis thriller, The Dead Man) was published by 47th North, an Amazon Digital Publishing imprint. And the Top Suspense Group released its second self-published anthology titled Favorite Kills, including my short story, Knife Fight.

Right now I’m working on a new book titled Stone Cold, introducing public defender Alex Stone, a renegade lawyer with her own system of justice. Look out for it before the end of the year.

What would you like to see happening to Jack Davis next? I’m always interested to hear my readers’ ideas.