William Bernhardt – författare

Suffering from courtroom burnout, attorney Ben Kincaid heads to the picturesque Pacific Northwest for some much-needed R and R. But Ben''s blissful getaway becomes a busman''s holiday in the small town of Magic Valley, where a pitched battle between the local logging industry and crusading conservationists has led to brutal murder.Years earlier, professional activist George Zakin was successfully defended against a charge of murder by a fledgling attorney named Ben Kincaid. Now, accused of viciously killing a lumberjack, Zakin is counting on Ben to duplicate that long-ago courtroom coup. With the odds stacked against him, Ben walks into a war zone in the courtroom . . . and a potential killing field in Magic Valley, an explosive place where allies and enemies are hard to tell apart--and digging for the truth is as good as digging your grave.From the Paperback edition.

"A thoroughly entertaining page-turner."--Phillip MargolinLeeman Hayes, a black teenager in Tulsa, is accused of brutally murdering a young woman. As attorney Ben Kincaid struggles to pull together a defense, a young boy is falling into the clutches of a child molester. Ten-year-old Abie Rutherford, lonely and desperate for approval, thinks the handsome, smiling stranger in the baseball cap might be that friend he has longed for. When Abie Rutherford vanishes without a trace one hot summer day, Ben Kincaid, like everyone else in Tulsa, fears the worst. Then a bone-chilling discovery compels Ben to forge a link between the missing boy and the seemingly hopeless case of Leeman Hayes--thereby igniting the fuse for the most explosive courtroom case of Ben's career."An enthralling murder mystery . . . The ending is both surprising and explosive."--The Sunday Oklahoman

In the glamorous world of professional golf, one match is synonymous with excellence, tradition, and prestige. The Masters is played on the sweeping fairways of Georgia’s exclusive Augusta National Golf Club, drawing its annual pilgrimage of Lear-jetting international superstars, the spotlight of the media, and throngs of fans. But this year, the tournament has attracted something else. A killer is coming to play a deadly game of his own.For Connor Cross and John McCree, two pros who share a long friendship and a passion for golf, the April competition is a chance to catch up on old times, joke around, make some ill-advised bets, and generally calm each other’s nerves before the play turns serious. But while John has always been able to get a grip on his game by tee time, Connor has never quite figured out how to throw the switch and focus. Then a killer strikes–and for the reigning bad boy of the PGA tour, everything changes in a hurry. The victim’s wife begs Connor to try to find a murderer who threatens not only to kill again, but to destroy the Masters. And as Connor is drawn into the intrigue, a most remarkable phenomenon occurs. This maverick player shoots a sizzling round of golf. Suddenly, Connor is conquering a vicious slice, cleaning up his short game, and even listening to his caddie as he uncovers some jaw-dropping personal secrets of his fellow pros.But as Connor–in the company of an alluring female cop–unravels a mystery of murder and uncovers the mystery of his inner game of golf, he also faces the greatest hazard of all. For with one round left to play, and the body count rising while his scores drop, Connor Cross is the next in line to die.A gripping thriller set against the elite world of pro golf–the way it looks when the cameras aren’t turned on–Final Round is the ultimate novel for anyone who has ever suspected that while golf may be the greatest game ever invented, playing it well can be murder.From the Hardcover edition.

When a priest with radical ideas and a parish council with traditional values lock horns over the beliefs they hold most sacred, there’s bound to be controversy—and consequences. But murder crosses the line between committing a sin and committing a crime, turning a battle over faith into a battle for justice. And smack in the middle of the explosive case is Tulsa attorney Ben Kincaid.Kincaid rescued Father Daniel Beale once before. When the priest’s renegade views and violent temper nearly cost him his position as rector of St. Benedict’s Church, Ben intervened and saved the day. Now Beale is the prime suspect in the brutal murder of a female parishioner—though lack of evidence has left the case unsolved. But as Father Beale struggles to escape the shadow of suspicion, another woman is savagely slaughtered. And this time, Ben himself discovers Beale literally red-handed . . . with the blood of the victim.As Father Beale declares his innocence, Ben and his team feverishly work to build a defense that will deliver the man of God from a date with the death chamber. But each new revelation that emerges in the packed courtroom only serves to tilt the scales increasingly in the prosecution’s favor. And Father Beale’s own shocking testimony ignites a firestorm of controversy that could doom his last best hope for acquittal. In his heart and in his gut, Ben knows Father Beale is innocent. But proving it means taking a leap of faith that will plunge Ben into the whirlpool of dark secrets and dangerous intentions that surround St. Benedict’s. And ultimately, it will force the idealistic attorney to confront the chilling face of evil in the most unexpected of places.Criminal Intent proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the author of Murder One has earned his critical reputation as the master of the courtroom drama whose novels of legal suspense consistently offer a one-of-a-kind reading experience.From the Hardcover edition.

William Bernhardt’s powerful series of legal thrillers featuring crusading attorney Ben Kincaid have won him a die-hard following and widespread critical acclaim as a “master of the courtroom drama” (Library Journal). Now, on the heels of his national bestseller Criminal Intent, William Bernhardt returns with his most electrifying novel to date.Oklahoma attorney Ben Kincaid put his reputation on the line when he represented Ray Goldman. The seemingly mild-mannered industrial chemist was charged with a staggeringly brutal crime: the torture and massacre of an entire suburban Tulsa family. But in spite of the grisly, tabloid-ready details of the sensational case, Ben’s deft defense against a lack of hard evidence and improper police procedure made an acquittal all but certain. Until the prosecution’s star witness—the lone survivor of the slaughter—took the stand . . . and sealed Ray Goldman’s fate.Seven years later, Goldman’s date with the death chamber is at hand. But seconds before the lethal injection, an eleventh-hour reprieve halts the execution—and launches Ben on a race against time to overturn Ray Goldman’s conviction. Erin Faulkner, the young woman who narrowly escaped the carnage that claimed her family, has abruptly recanted her testimony, after years of silence desperate to keep an innocent man from dying. Just as suddenly, this near-miraculous turn of events turns tragic: Erin is discovered dead, an apparent suicide. And Ben Kincaid is the only witness to her stunning confession. Ben is certain Erin didn’t commit suicide. She was a victim of murder— silenced by the same killer who butchered her family. All Ben has to do is prove it. But his unseen enemy is determined to cover his tracks once and for all . . . with blood.In Death Row, William Bernhardt ratchets up the suspense quotient to near-heartstopping new levels—and challenges even the most jaded thriller readers to keep up with the twists and turns. Crime will never pay. But crime fiction—served up with the wit, grit, and sheer virtuosity of Bernhardt—always pays off.

Bestselling author William Bernhardt is an unsurpassed master at blending psychological suspense with gripping, surprise-filled legal action. Now, Bernhardt and his crusading attorney Ben Kincaid return in a thrilling story of love, hate, and the power of a courtroom to separate deception from the truth.In Tulsa, Ben Kincaid has built a national reputation as a stalwart defense attorney who will fight tirelessly for his clients. In Evanston, Illinois, Johnny Christensen has built a national reputation as a sadistic bigot who beat and stabbed a gay man and left him to die. When Johnny’s mother comes to Ben and begs him to defend her son, he has one secret reason for saying no.But while Ben turns down the case, his younger, beautiful partner, Christina McCall, does not. Traveling to Chicago and facing an explosion of controversy and deadly violence surrounding the trial, Christina steps into a case that is already nearly lost. Her client’s only defense is his claim that he left his victim bludgeoned but alive. To prove that someone else committed the actual murder, Christina needs a little bit of evidence—and a good motive to go with it.When unforeseen circumstances force Ben Kincaid to enter the trial, the defense attorney sees only one way to prove Johnny’s innocence. But Ben’s plan means luring a killer out of the woodwork—even though he may kill again. . . .A novel of gut-wrenching twists and surprises, this thriller brilliantly explores the passions between lovers—and the passions behind society’s most heinous crimes. Once again, the remarkable William Bernhardt makes us challenge every assumption, second-guess every judgment, and feel the terror of the truth.From the Hardcover edition.

Sometimes her eyes seduce. Sometimes they stare straight at the kind of sights most people turn away from. But in the blazing neon and searing sun of Las Vegas, she can’t see the man who is watching her and thinking to himself: She is the one. . . .From the mountain views beyond the Strip to the dingy dens of forbidden pleasure, Susan Pulaski loves Las Vegas. A woman who wears a gun at her side and her heart on a sleeve, Pulaski is the perfect fit for her city and her job: unraveling the minds of deviant personalities. Until a killer begins decorating Sin City with the horribly disfigured bodies of once beautiful young women. . . . and Pulaski’s own demons go on a binge.Eight months after her cop husband’s death, her life is spinning out of control–just as her detective colleagues start searching for a serial killer who methodically stalks his female victims and plunges them into an orgy of terror. When a violent incident earns Pulaski a pink slip from the LVPD and a trip to detox, she’s out of the hunt altogether, so she begins to desperately try to regain her job, her reputation, and custody of the niece she’s been raising on her own. It seems hopeless–until Pulaski meets the one person who can lead her into the mind of a madman no one else can understand. Darcy O’Bannon is a twenty-five-year-old autistic savant whose relationship with the world around him is so unusual that it forces Pulaski to view the crimes from a bizarre–but ultimately insightful–perspective.White-knuckling her way to the center of the case, she becomes the key player in a desperate hunt for a killer who believes he has found divine inspiration in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. But even with the assistance of Darcy’s astonishing skills, Pulaski is in even more danger than she knows. For the man she seeks is watching her, seduced by her frailties and strengths, her beauty and boldness. To finish his masterwork of horror, he needs her.In a blistering novel that brings together glitz and goth, human weakness and human genius, and a murderous psychopath who is all too chillingly real, master storyteller William Bernhardt has created an unparalleled literary Las Vegas thrill ride that will leave readers breathless until the final, stunning page.From the Hardcover edition.

William Bernhardt’s bestselling novels featuring Oklahoma defense attorney Ben Kincaid capture the bare-knuckles reality of high-stakes criminal defense, as lofty ideals of justice clash with power, corruption, and wealth. In Capitol Murder, Bernhardt’s hard-charging hero takes on his most shocking, headline-making case yet.Kincaid’s legal success has earned him a dubious reward: a journey through the looking glass into the Beltway. Here, in the heart of the nation’s capital, a powerful U.S. senator has been caught first in a sordid sex scandal, then in a case of murder.Senate aide Veronica Cooper was found in a secret Senate office beneath the Capitol building, on Senator Todd Glancy’s favorite couch, blood pouring from the knife wound in her throat. The young woman’s death comes on the heels of the release of a sordid videotape depicting her and Senator Glancy in compromising positions. With the senator’s reputation in tatters, the evidence against him–as a sexual predator and possibly a killer–mounts. By the time a nationally televised murder trial begins, Kincaid and his team know they’re facing the challenge of a lifetime. According to public opinion, and even in Kincaid’s most private thoughts, Glancy is one more politician who cannot admit his own culpability.But while a dramatic trial unfolds in the courtroom–loaded with pitfalls, traps, and an astounding betrayal–another trial is taking place on the mean streets of D.C., as Kincaid’s investigator pursues a young woman who was a friend of Veronica Cooper’s, plunging Kincaid into a bizarre world of Goths, sadomasochists, and a community of self-proclaimed vampires. Somewhere in this violent underworld lies the secret behind Veronica Cooper’s demise . . . and the crux of Senator Glancy’s innocence or guilt.In a case that pits Kincaid and his freewheeling partner Christina McCall against the brutal machinery of Washington politics, the answers they seek are hidden in a murderous maze of lies and hidden motives. And in William Bernhardt’s best novel yet, getting to the truth is an unparalleled experience in pure, satisfying suspense.From the Hardcover edition.

When Oklahoma attorney Ben Kincaid came to Washington, D.C., to defend a senator caught in a red-hot sex scandal turned murder case, he never dreamed he’d end up trading the courtroom for the senate chamber. And after his not-so-distinguished client stepped down, Ben found himself appointed to complete the sullied senator’s term. Now, having barely gotten his political sea legs, he must rise to yet another challenge: advising the president’s next Supreme Court nominee during the sometimes thorny confirmation process. Luckily, Judge Thaddeus Roush’s popularity on both sides of the aisle looks to make him a shoo-in. Until he decides to out himself on national television–igniting a Beltway uproar and setting the stage for a bare-knuckle partisan brawl. Forced to scramble for spin control, Ben hastily calls a press conference for the now controversial candidate. But the photo op becomes a tabloid nightmare when, on live TV, a brutally murdered woman is discovered in the judge’s backyard. For the political forces out to torpedo the nomination of a gay Supreme Court Justice, the shocking turn of events is pure gold.With the secret backing of the president and a made-to-order new candidate waiting in the wings, the cagey senate majority leader and his most ruthless allies mount a smear campaign that would put Joe McCarthy to shame. But Team Kincaid isn’t about to let the best man for the job get derailed. While Ben uses his best courtroom strategies to wage a war of words, his crack private eye, Loving, hits the capital streets to fight a much more hands-on battle–with hustlers, hit men, and homicidal hoods–as he digs for dirt in places even Deep Throat would avoid. It’s soon clear that this game is anything but politics as usual.In Capitol Threat, William Bernhardt serves up a resounding one-two punch of political intrigue and legal suspense peppered with a volley of his trademark plot twists, sly wit, and persistent thrills.From the Hardcover edition.

She likes the sudden seconds of sheer terror. The neon dreams fit perfectly with the dreams that wake her up at night: about the man she loved and lost, about the constant temptations in her life, and about the odds that inevitably she’ll be in the right place at the right time to look naked, human madness in the eye.Welcome to the world of Susan Pulaski, an unconventional and unusually subversive Las Vegas police behaviorist who’s already been canned once and has never been needed more. In the Sin City, someone is ritually murdering handpicked victims, each with dirty secrets in their past. The killer’s gimmick: Not only does he leave behind parts of the victims’ bodies, he also writes obscure mathematical formulas–in their blood. Pulaski doesn’t have a clue what the codes mean. But she knows someone who will.Darcy O’Bannon is a twenty-six-year-old whose autistic savant skills are perfect for unraveling such mysteries as how many rivets are in the Eiffel Tower and how many Elvis impersonators there will be in the year 2020. As it turns out, innocent Darcy can also think along the arcane lines of Vegas’s most savage serial killer, peering into a numerological mystery that stretches back hundreds of years. With her own life one spark away from going off the rails, her department turned against her, and the lives of those she cares most about in jeopardy, Pulaski hunts for dangerous prey in the shadow of the Strip–with herself as the perfect bait. And the closer she gets, the more terrifying and intriguing the case becomes, for the person she’s tracking possesses truly ingenious powers–and a heart full of hate.The incomparable William Bernhardt brings to life America’s most fascinating city and the people who police it, while he invites the reader to join one woman’s fight to stay sane, stay alive, and keep a killer from making the most shocking score of all.From the Hardcover edition.

Oklahoma defense attorney Ben Kincaid has found himself smack in the middle of more than a few controversies and deadly predicaments–and the unexpected leap from his modest Tulsa law offices to Washington, D.C.’s Senate chamber hasn’t taken the edge off Ben’s knack for stepping into the line of fire. Now the idealistic junior senator is plunged into the thick of lethal intrigue when a shocking campaign of terror against key government officials rocks the nation’s capital.The nightmare begins with the abduction and murder of the director of Homeland Security; escalates with the killing of the Senate minority leader, who is felled in his office by an envelope laced with weaponized poison; and comes to a shattering climax at the site of the Oklahoma City Memorial, where a fusillade of sniper fire meant for the president claims unintended victims. In all, twelve people perish in the melee, while Ben himself narrowly escapes a car-bomb blast that leaves his best friend, Tulsa cop Mike Morelli, comatose. But the smoke has barely cleared when the stunned nation is sent reeling yet again by the president’s impassioned call to amend the U.S. Constitution with an antiterrorism law that would drastically curtail civil liberties.It’s a hot-button issue guaranteed to bitterly divide the Beltway and the country. The chief executive has handpicked Ben to help harvest the support that will make the amendment a reality. Shaken by the carnage, Ben embraces the president’s radical cause, and alongside unlikely new political allies he takes the battle for the controversial bill to the Senate floor. But he can’t ignore his growing suspicion that what’s haunting Capitol Hill isn’t the specter of foreign terrorism but something much closer to home. Now, with his ever-resourceful chief of staff–his wife, Christina–and along with his support team backing his play, Ben sets squares off against what could be the most dangerous Goliath he’s ever challenged.Capitol Conspiracy is a bravura William Bernhardt performance–bursting into action on the very first page, and crackling with breathless suspense, sharp wit, crafty twists, and timely thrills clear through to the last.From the Hardcover edition.

In his bestselling legal thrillers, William Bernhardt has explored the dark side of contemporary politics, power, and the law. Now Bernhardt turns back the clock to the city of Cleveland, Ohio, in the fall of 1935. Based on true events and new discoveries about Eliot Ness, Nemesis is a brilliantly told story featuring this legendary lawman’s fateful duel with a terrifyingly new kind of criminal: America’s first serial killer.In Chicago, Eliot Ness had created “the Untouchables,” the fabled team of federal agents who were beyond corruption and who finally put Al Capone behind bars. Now the headline-grabbing Ness has been moved to Cleveland, where a new mayor desperately needs some positive publicity. The heroic, squeaky-clean Fed is the perfect man to become the city’s director of public safety, but by the time Ness starts his new job, a killer has started a career of his own. And this man is as obsessed with blood and mayhem as Eliot Ness is obsessed with justice.One by one, bodies are found, each one decapitated and uniquely dissected with a doctor’s skill and a madman’s bent. The police are baffled, the population is terrorized, and newspaper headlines blare about the so-called “Torso Killer.” Though it’s not his turf, Ness is forced to cross bureaucratic boundaries and take over the case, working with a dogged, street-smart detective and making enemies every step of the way. The more energy Ness pours into the investigation, the more it takes over his life, his marriage, even his untouchable reputation. Because in Cleveland, there is only one true untouchable: a killer who has the perfect hiding place and the perfect plan for destroying Eliot Ness.From the first primitive use of forensic psychology to a portrait of America battling the Great Depression and a man battling his own demons, Nemesis is a masterwork of mystery, murder, and vivid, dynamic historical suspense.From the Hardcover edition.

Insane with grief, Professor Dennis Thomas blames Detective Christopher Sentz for the death of his wife and wants to kill him. In fact, Thomas shares his revenge plans with Ben Kincaid. Then someone fires seven bullets into the police officer. Against all advice and going on instinct, Kincaid decides to represent the troubled professor, who faces a charge of capital murder. Meanwhile, Kincaid’s personal private detective, Loving, starts prying loose pieces of a shocking secret. Working in the shadows of the law, Loving risks his life to construct an entirely new narrative about Detective Sentz, Joslyn Thomas, and madness in another guise: the kind that every citizen should fear and no one will recognize—until it is too late.

Lawyer and former senator Ben Kincaid is meeting with the president when Washington suddenly explodes into chaos. A fanatical foreign dictator has hacked into the U.S. nuclear defense system and now has a finger on the trigger of America’s most dangerous weapons. Kincaid is whisked, along with the president and his advisors, to an underground bunker, but the president seems to be falling apart under the pressure—and the vice president wants to strip him of his powers. While Kincaid scrambles to defend the president, CIA agent Seamus McKay races through Washington, searching for a hidden command center that now controls U.S. ballistic missiles. As McKay and Kincaid move closer to uncovering a world-shattering plot, the ultimate act of betrayal is launched from the heart of the American capitol itself.