Lou Berney – författare

WINNER OF THE 2020 CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER AWARD WINNER OF THE 2018 HAMMETT PRIZE‘A great read, combining brutal action with a moving love story; gorgeous writing, too’ Ian Rankin‘Exceptional’ Stephen KingA poignant and evocative crime novel – a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances. Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out… A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead. Suspecting he’s next, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas. When he spots a beautiful housewife and her two young daughters stranded on the side of the road, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his trail.The two strangers share the open road west – and find each other on the way. But Guidry’s relentless hunters are closing in on him, and now he doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love. And it might get them both killed.

*WINNER OF THE IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER AWARD 2025*From the award-winning author of November Road comes a masterful thriller where an unlikely hero goes up against a deadly crime boss 'Thrilling and heartbreaking but ultimately life affirming.' S.A. Cosby 'DARK RIDE effortlessly grabs you and does not let you go until the final page.' Don Winslow ‘Stunning. Moving. Thrilling … I loved it.’ Chris Whitaker Sometimes the person you least expect is just the hero you need Twenty-one-year-old Hardy “Hardly” Reed—good-natured, easygoing, usually stoned—is drifting through life. A minimum-wage scare actor at an amusement park, he avoids unnecessary effort and unrealistic ambitions.Then one day he notices two children, around six or seven, sitting all alone on a bench. Hardly checks if they’re okay and sees injuries on both children. Someone is hurting these kids.He reports the incident to Child Protective Service.That should be the end of it. After all, Hardly's not even good at looking out for himself so the last thing he wants to do is look out for anyone else. But he's haunted by the two kids, his heart breaking for them. And the more research he does the less he trusts that Child Protective Services —understaffed and overworked—will do anything about it.That leaves…Hardly. He is probably the last person you’d ever want to count on. But those two kids have nobody else but him. Hardly has to do what's right and help them.Gradually, with assistance from unexpected allies, he develops investigative skills and discovers he’s smarter and more capable than he ever imagined.But Hardly also discovers that the situation is more dangerous than he ever expected. The abusive father who has been hurting these children isn’t just a lawyer—he also runs a violent drug-dealing operation. The mother claims she wants to escape with the kids—but Hardly isn't sure he can trust her.Faced with a different version of himself than he has ever known, Hardly refuses to give up. But his commitment to saving these kids from further harm might end up getting the kids, and Hardly himself, killed.

“Lou Berney’s novel is so energetic, so droll, and so wheezingly funny that it accomplished what no book ever has before: it made me forget to eat lunch.”—Stephen Harrigan, New York Times bestselling author of Challenger ParkA fast and funny crime comedy in the tradition of Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, and the Coen Brothers, Gutshot Straight brings a fresh new talent into the crime fiction fold: Louis Berney. He’s already won raves for his short fiction collection The Road to Bobby Joe and Other Stories (“Rivals the work of contemporary hotshots T.C. Boyle and Ralph Lombreglia” —Chicago Tribune). With Gutshot Straight, Berney is “all in”—sure to win a fervent following with the story of “Shake” Bouchon, a skilled getaway driver fresh out of prison and on the straight and narrow path…after maybe just one last job.

“Like Carl Hiaasen, Berney delights in the cartoonish. Like Elmore Leonard, he can drive a plot. What sets him apart is how well he evokes love, making the romance…as compelling as the mystery.”—Boston GlobeLou Berney immediately earned a seat of honor at the mystery masters’ table with his crackling caper novel, Gutshot Straight—a lightning-fast, fiendishly clever humorous thriller that screamed for a sequel. And here it is. Former professional wheel man Charles “Shake” Bouchon is back, living in the Caribbean paradise of Belize with his lawless past far behind him—until a gunshot tears through his beachside restaurant and he’s on the run again. This twisting tale of crime fiction, filled with lawmen, con men, and  hit men; a beautiful but deadly FBI agent; and a murderous thug named Baby Jesus, Whiplash River recalls the best of the off-the-wall crime fiction impresarios—Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiaasen, James W. Hall, Robert Ferrigno, Tim Dorsey—while establishing its own unique orbit in the noir universe.

WINNER OF THE EDGAR AWARD, THE MACAVITY AWARD, THE ANTHONY AWARD, AND THE BARRY AWARD FOR BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOMINATED FOR THE 2015 LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE With the compelling narrative tension and psychological complexity of the works of Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, Kate Atkinson, and Michael Connelly, Edgar Award-nominee Lou Berney's The Long and Faraway Gone is a smart, fiercely compassionate crime story that explores the mysteries of memory and the impact of violence on survivors-and the lengths they will go to find the painful truth of the events that scarred their lives. In the summer of 1986, two tragedies rocked Oklahoma City. Six movie-theater employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual State Fair. Neither crime was ever solved. Twenty-five years later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through survivors' lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt's latest inquiry takes him back to a past he's tried to escape-and drags him deeper into the harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left six of his friends dead.Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the past-with the day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared. When Julianna discovers that one of the original suspects has resurfaced, she'll stop at nothing to find answers. As Wyatt's case becomes more complicated and dangerous, and Julianna seeks answers from a ghost, their obsessive quests not only stir memories of youth and first love, but also begin to illuminate dark secrets of the past. But will their shared passion and obsession heal them, or push them closer to the edge? Even if they find the truth, will it help them understand what happened, that long and faraway gone summer? Will it set them free-or ultimately destroy them?

Multi-award winning and USA Today bestselling crime writer Lou Berney returns to his critically acclaimed thriller series starring former mob wheelman Shake Bouchon, who finds himself dragged into a high-stakes hostage rescue, among the mighty temples and shadowy underground of Cambodia.During his years as a wheelman for the Armenian mob in Los Angeles, Shake Bouchon didn’t think of himself as the settling-down type. But now he’s happily married to Gina, the love of his life—and former adversary—in Indiana, of all places.The great thing about Bloomington, for two people with checkered pasts, is that everyone is nice and no one knows them. Until the day a brutal Armenian thug who has always hated Shake shows up in his backyard. He demands that Shake help him find his missing mob boss, the pakhan—the dangerous and beautiful Alexandra “Lexy” Ilandryan, who also happens to be Shake’s ex-girlfriend.Shake’s got a lot of history with Lexy, so he reluctantly agrees to travel to Siem Reap, Cambodia, where she was last seen. Once there, he finds himself tangled in an underworld of Cambodian gangsters, mob politics, and opportunistic expats, where the stakes aren’t clear and everyone is looking to score. With only the help of a clairvoyant hippie and the Armenian thug, Shake becomes involved in a high-stakes negotiation for Lexy—a kidnapping and ransom plot that might cost him his own life.But perhaps most threatening of all is Gina’s wrath when she arrives in Cambodia intent on saving Shake from himself—and from all the people trying to kill him.With Lou Berney’s trademark wit, flawless plotting, vibrant locale, and memorable characters, Double Barrel Bluff is another unputdownable action thriller and globe-trotting adventure.

"Lou Berney's Crooks stands with some of the finest crime novels ever written." — Don Winslow, #1 Internationally bestselling author"A panoramic, cross-generational look at a unique family pursuing their individual visions of the American dream.” — Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling authorFrom award-winning author Lou Berney comes an electrifying new novel that follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades.You’ve never met a family like the Mercurios.They say the American dream is going farther in life than your parents ever did. But how does that work if your parents are criminals?For Buddy, a low-level mob wise guy, and Lillian, a charming pickpocket, the criminal underworld is the only life they’ve ever known. When they’re forced to flee the glittering Babylon of Las Vegas, they end up opening a club in Oklahoma City—a town that quickly feels like a gold mine of fresh marks and easy new money. Along for the ride are their five children, all of them raised into the family business of crime—until the day comes when they each have a chance to make their own way in the world, even if they can never completely escape the family’s long, dark shadow.Jeremy, the family’s Golden Boy, will throw himself into the glittering excesses of a drug-fueled Hollywood in the roaring 1980s.Tallulah, the daredevil, will find herself in the deadly Wild West of post-communist Moscow.Ray, the dope, the dumb muscle since he was a kid, wants nothing more than to put down his gun, but following orders is all he’s ever known.Alice, the genius who renounced her life of crime long ago, now sees her white-shoe law firm being blackmailed and must tap into old skills to save both the company and her own life.And Piggy, a civilian always on the outside looking in on his crime family, desperate to be part of the gang.Crooks is an epic novel about a truly unforgettable family—each Mercurio has to grapple, in their own way, with the family’s powerful criminal legacy.

"Lou Berney's Crooks stands with some of the finest crime novels ever written." — Don Winslow, #1 Internationally bestselling author"A panoramic, cross-generational look at a unique family pursuing their individual visions of the American dream.” — Joseph Finder, New York Times bestselling authorFrom award-winning author Lou Berney comes an electrifying new novel that follows a uniquely American crime family on an unforgettable journey across four decades.You’ve never met a family like the Mercurios.They say the American dream is going farther in life than your parents ever did. But how does that work if your parents are criminals?For Buddy, a low-level mob wise guy, and Lillian, a charming pickpocket, the criminal underworld is the only life they’ve ever known. When they’re forced to flee the glittering Babylon of Las Vegas, they end up opening a club in Oklahoma City—a town that quickly feels like a gold mine of fresh marks and easy new money. Along for the ride are their five children, all of them raised into the family business of crime—until the day comes when they each have a chance to make their own way in the world, even if they can never completely escape the family’s long, dark shadow.Jeremy, the family’s Golden Boy, will throw himself into the glittering excesses of a drug-fueled Hollywood in the roaring 1980s.Tallulah, the daredevil, will find herself in the deadly Wild West of post-communist Moscow.Ray, the dope, the dumb muscle since he was a kid, wants nothing more than to put down his gun, but following orders is all he’s ever known.Alice, the genius who renounced her life of crime long ago, now sees her white-shoe law firm being blackmailed and must tap into old skills to save both the company and her own life.And Piggy, a civilian always on the outside looking in on his crime family, desperate to be part of the gang.Crooks is an epic novel about a truly unforgettable family—each Mercurio has to grapple, in their own way, with the family’s powerful criminal legacy.