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Johnny Shaw

Biography

Johnny Shaw

Johnny Shaw was born and raised on the Calexico/Mexicali border, the setting for his novels DOVE SEASON, BIG MARIA and PLASTER CITY. He has won both the Spotted Owl Award and the Anthony Award.

His shorter work has appeared in Plots With Guns, Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory and numerous anthologies.

Johnny also acts as the editor-in-chief and is a frequent contributor for the online fiction quarterly BLOOD & TACOS, a loving homage to the men’s adventure paperbacks of the 1970s and 1980s.

Johnny received his MFA in Screenwriting from UCLA and over the course of his writing career has seen his screenplays optioned, sold and produced. As a playwright, his stage collaborations with actor Jaime Arze, NATURAL ACTS and A GOOD KIND OF CRAZY, have been performed throughout Los Angeles.

For the last dozen years, Johnny has taught screenwriting.  He has lectured at both Santa Barbara City College and UC Santa Barbara.

He is the owner of Johnny’s Used Books, formerly a brick-and-mortar bookstore in Los Angeles, now entirely online.

Johnny lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, artist Roxanne Patruznick (the painter of the author’s portrait above).

Johnny Shaw

Books by Johnny Shaw

by Johnny Shaw - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jimmy Veeder has finally settled down, completing his dramatic transformation from hell-raiser to family man. But the night after his wedding, childhood friend Tomás Morales, the current crime lord of Mexicali, turns up on his doorstep offering information about the whereabouts of his son’s grandfather, for whom Jimmy has been searching for years. Jimmy and Angie head to Mexico accompanied by old pals Bobby Maves and Griselda. The trip immediately careens into chaos when they find themselves shadowed by thugs, shot at by cartel soldiers, and forced into a confrontation with a violent, volatile drug lord. The fight spreads from Sinaloa back to Jimmy’s doorstep, putting everything Jimmy cares about directly in the crosshairs.

by Johnny Shaw - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

After discovering explosive information that reveals corruption within the highest levels of the police department, Andy Destra is kicked off the force, framed and disgraced, left to wage a lonely one-man crusade against conspiracies he can’t prove. Andy’s investigation plunges him into a blackly comic maelstrom of one-armed gang members, slick pickpockets, criminal syndicates, hired mercenaries, escaped convicts, sewer dwellers and one sinister ice cream truck. At the same time, he must contend with a mystery closer to home: the true identity of his parents.

by Johnny Shaw - Adventure, Fiction, Humor

Jimmy Veeder and Bobby Maves are back at it, two years after the events of DOVE SEASON. When Bobby’s teenage daughter goes missing, he and Jimmy take off on a misadventure that starts out as merely unfortunate and escalates to downright calamitous. Bobby won’t hesitate to kick a hornets’ nest to get the girl to safety, but when the rescue mission goes riotously sideways, the duo’s grit --- and loyalty to each other --- is put to the test.

by Johnny Shaw - Mystery, Thriller

There’s gold in them thar hills --- or more precisely, in Arizona’s Chocolate Mountains, where one hundred years ago a miner stashed a king’s ransom of the stuff. But times have changed. The world has changed. And now the Chocolate Mountains are the home of the largest military artillery range in the world.