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William Lashner

Biography

William Lashner

William Lashner is the New York Times bestselling creator of Victor Carl, who has been called by Booklist one of the mystery novel’s “most compelling, most morally ambiguous characters.” The Victor Carl novels, which have been translated into more than a dozen foreign languages and have been sold all across the globe, include BAGMEN, KILLER’S KISS, FALLS THE SHADOW, FATAL FLAW and HOSTILE WITNESS. He is also the author of GUARANTEED HEROES, THE BARKEEP, which was an Edgar Award nominee and a Digital Book World Number One Bestseller, THE ACCOUNTING and BLOOD AND BONE.

Writing under the pseudonym of Tyler Knox, Lashner is also the author of KOCKROACH, described as “roaringly entertaining,” by Publishers Weekly, and “an energetic tour de force,” by USA Today. As Tyler Knox he has written a number of book reviews for the Washington Post Book World.

Lashner was a criminal prosecutor with the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. before quitting the law to write fulltime. A graduate of the New York University School of Law, as well as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he lives with his wife and three children outside Philadelphia.

William Lashner

Books by William Lashner

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Oliver Cross is fresh out of jail. When he finds out that his granddaughter, a wild child who reminds him of his late wife, has vanished, Oliver jumps parole. With a sketchy teen and an abandoned dog, he hits the blacktop to find her. On the road and on the run from a vengeful Russian drug dealer, Oliver finds himself on a trip across America and into his own past, fueled by fumes from a Ford F-250 and a reason to live. But from an exclusive club in Chicago to a seedy commune in the Rockies, a series of disastrous choices sends Oliver spiraling further from his goal and deeper into danger. It’s a journey that could all end in redemption or a hail of bullets. And either is okay by him.

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A lifetime ago, brutally efficient fixer Phil Kubiak coldly cleaned up the messes of shady clients from Miami to Las Vegas by any means necessary --- short of murder. Now he’s one eye and one working leg short of the man he used to be, scarred beyond recognition, and with the feds and criminal organizations in hot pursuit. Throwing back sour beer in a dingy bar, Phil recounts the long story of his bitter life to the only person left to listen. Across the splintery table, a journalist in pursuit of a career-making interview seeks not only an award-winning profile but also something more…something darker. Will what she sees in Phil’s empty gaze spur her toward forgiveness --- or vengeance?

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

J.D. Scrbacek has just won the biggest trial of his career, but even as he crows to the press, his entire life blows sky-high. Was the bomb meant for him, or for his mobster client? In this seaside casino town where the tables run hot and the tensions run high, the odds say the attorney is a marked man. Alone and on the run, Scrbacek flees into the city’s forgotten underbelly, a ruined corridor called Crapstown, where he is forced to confront the ghosts of his past, his present and his future. Somewhere in the sordid stream of his own existence lie the answers he needs. But in order to emerge from the depths of Crapstown, Scrbacek must argue for his life before a jury of the forgotten and the damned.

by William Lashner - Dystopian, Fiction, Science Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

In a nation still recovering from the nuclear tragedies of 40 years earlier, Clyde is working a dead-end guaranteed job at a diner, and Moonis is incarcerated in a Labor Camp for the Malcontented. But when Moonis’ sister, Cecily, goes missing, the old friends escape their prisons to search for her in post-fallout America. Moonis and Clyde follow Cecily’s trail until it leads them into the atomic-ravaged heart of the Midwest, an outlaw territory of dark legends and darker truths where Cecily is being held captive by a brutal gang lord.

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

At a low point in his lowly career, Victor Carl finds himself skulking through the streets of Philadelphia carrying a bag full of money for an ambitious politician. It is a rotten job on the wrong side of anyone’s line, but with bag in hand, Victor is suddenly hobnobbing with the city’s elite, filling his bank account and having sex with the politician’s gorgeous and deranged sister. But just when Victor begins to think he has a future in the political game, one of his payoffs ends up in the pocket of a dead woman, and Victor goes from bagman to fall guy.

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Six years ago, Justin Chase’s life was ripped apart when he discovered his mother’s bludgeoned corpse in the foyer of the family home. Now Justin’s father is serving a life sentence, and Justin, after a stint in an asylum, drowns his emotions in a pool of inner peace. But when Birdie Grackle claims to be the hit man who murdered Justin’s mother for the money, Justin is hurled back to the emotions, the past, and, most frightening of all, the father he tried to leave behind.

by William Lashner - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Jon Willing was just a teenager when he and his pals Augie and Ben stole a fortune in drug money. Twenty-five years later, Jon’s marriage is on the rocks, his kids are virtual strangers, and the recession has taken his job and decimated his finances. Worst of all, when he finds Augie murdered in Vegas, he knows the past has risen from its grave to grab him by the throat. The battle that ensues will force Jon to confront the demons of his past.

by William Lashner - Fiction, Thriller

A decade after SERPENT OF MOSES, Jack is married to Espy and back teaching at Evanston University. Life is comfortable. But that all changes when the CIA, while combing through the papers of the late Gordon Reese, uncovers the secret of Elisha's bones. Jack's world is then turned upside down by an urgent call from his old friend Duckey, who's been alerted to the CIA's probing by one of his former contacts. Jack and his family escape from their home just ahead of the CIA, and he decides to do what he should have done long ago: recover the bones and destroy them. Except the bones aren't where he left them.