William Lashner – författare

A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, and a pile of unpaid traffic tickets, Victor skates on the razor''s edge of legal ethics in search of the easy buck. But the one absolute in Victor''s life is loyalty, especially to a client -- even if he happens to be dead. Like Joey Cheaps, a no-account who takes a knife to the throat down on the waterfront, but not before he shares with his lawyer his part in a terrible crime.

With his client murdered, Victor must search for a killer. But solving the crime means investigating the darkest spot in Joey Cheap''s misspent youth, sending Victor on a twisting journey that leads to a missing suitcase stuffed with money, photographs of a mysterious naked woman, and a Supreme Court justice with a secret to hide. And most dangerous of all, Victor steps into the crosshairs of a vengeful enemy with a past full of pain and a taste for blood.

As thrilling as it is darkly evocative, Past Due is a superb tale of crime and justice that takes the intrepid Victor Carl into brilliant new territory and confirms William Lashner''s place among the top suspense writers of our time.

The acclaimed author of Hostile Witness and Veritas is back with the legal thriller of the season—a sizzling tale of murder, innocence, and justice. . . . “William Lashner is . . . remarkable.”—Nelson DeMille

“Lust will make a fool of any man, but it is only love that can truly ruin him.” So believes Victor Carl, the antithesis of the classic sharp-eyed, cool, and dispassionate lawyer. Late one night Victor gets a panicked phone call from an old law school buddy. Guy Forrest claims he’s just found the body of his fiancee in the house they shared. The victim is the entracing Hailey Prouix, a woman with numerous charms who had mesmerized Victor—and every other man she ever met.

Though Victor is convinced Guy is guilty, he agrees to represent him, silently vowing to see justice done. To build his case, the determined attorney embarks on a quest that will take him cross-country and back—and lead him to the horrifying discovery that nothing is as simple as it seems. Now time is running out and all too soon the wheels of justice Guy set into motion will fall with unmerciful force on his own head.

Hard-luck Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl is just itching for the opportunity to sell out. Then good fortune comes knocking at his door in the guise of William Prescott III, a blue-blood attorney from one of the city''s most prestigious firms. Prescott wants Victor to represent a councilman''s aide who is on trial, along with his boss, for extortion, arson, and murder. It''s the juiciest, highest-profile courtroom extravaganza in years -- and all Carl has to do is show up, shut up, and follow Prescott''s lead.

But it soon becomes clear that somene''s setting him and his client up to take a long, hard fall. Victor Carl may be desperate and unethical but he''s no one''s patsy. And to survive in this legal snake pit of secrets, lies, and lethal double-crosses, he''s going to play the game his way.

""I suppose every hundred million dollars has its own sordid story and the hundred million I am chasing is no exception..."" So begins Veritas, William Lashner''s riveting follow-up to his bestselling debut novel, Hostile Witness. Victor Carl -- lawyer, loser, hapless hero of Hostile Witness, and a Philadelphian way out of his element -- has come to the sweat-drenched jungles of Belize to chase his fortune. Finding it is something else entirely.

Coerced into defending an unpleasant parade of mob enforcers, two-bit hoods, and other Philadelphian riffraff, Carl wants out of his shabby, squalid life more than ever. So when a terrified young woman offers Carl an unusual -- but substantial -- proposition, he leaps at the opportunity to trade in his grubby existence for a life of wealthy excess.

The job -- proving that the recent suicide of wealthy Philadelphian heiress Jacqueline Shaw was not a suicide at all but murder -- plunges Carl into an eerie shadow world, where events buried deep in the past exert an awful weight in the present, a world of overturned gravesites, gruesome secrets, and a haunted, lonely estate that houses the broken and dying heirs of a once-powerful family.

Simultaneously caught up in an exploding mob war and the machinations of an avaricious cult, Carl realizes too late that he''s in way over his head, as he races against time to collect his fee and get out alive. As Carl edges closer to the truth, a truth that is concealed in the mists of a bygone era and now awaits him in the rainforests of Belize, he learns firsthand that the most terrifying darkness crouches not in the heart of the jungle surrounding him but in the deepest yearnings of the human soul.

New York Times bestselling author William Lashner returns with a brilliantly twisty tale that probes the dark side of the law -- and man

Unlike the rest of you, I cheerfully admit to my own utter selfishness. I am self-made, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-referential, even self-deprecating, in a charming sort of way. In short, I am all the selfs except selfless. Yet every so often, I run across a force of nature that shakes my sublime self-centeredness to its very roots. Something that tears through the landscape like a tornado, leaving nothing but ruin and reexamination in its wake. Something like Bob. --Victor Carl

A beautiful young woman is dead, her husband convicted of the murder. In seeking a new trial for the husband, defense attorney Victor Carl must confront not only a determined prosecutor and a police detective who might have set up his client, but also a strange little busybody named Bob.

Bob has the aspiration, one could even say compulsion, to help those around him. And it usually works out well for all concerned, except when it ends in blood. But Victor doesn’t know that . . . yet.

Thanks to Bob, Victor is suddenly dressing better, dating a stunning woman, and both his economic prospects and his teeth are gleaming. It’s all good, until Victor finds a troubling connection between Bob and the murdered wife. Is Bob a kind of saint or is this obsessive Good Samaritan, in reality, a murderer?

Filled with the keen wit, deep poignancy, twisting suspense, and dark realism that has entranced readers, impressed reviewers, and made William Lashner’s previous novels bestsellers, Falls the Shadow is a riveting novel sure to leave readers eager for more.

The acclaimed author of Hostile Witness and Veritas is back with the legal thriller of the season—a sizzling tale of murder, innocence, and justice. . . . “William Lashner is . . . remarkable.”—Nelson DeMille

“Lust will make a fool of any man, but it is only love that can truly ruin him.” So believes Victor Carl, the antithesis of the classic sharp-eyed, cool, and dispassionate lawyer. Late one night Victor gets a panicked phone call from an old law school buddy. Guy Forrest claims he’s just found the body of his fiancee in the house they shared. The victim is the entracing Hailey Prouix, a woman with numerous charms who had mesmerized Victor—and every other man she ever met.

Though Victor is convinced Guy is guilty, he agrees to represent him, silently vowing to see justice done. To build his case, the determined attorney embarks on a quest that will take him cross-country and back—and lead him to the horrifying discovery that nothing is as simple as it seems. Now time is running out and all too soon the wheels of justice Guy set into motion will fall with unmerciful force on his own head.

"You want to know what deceit tastes like?It''s sweet. Like honey."

Over the course of his shady legal career, Victor Carl has made a host of bad decisions, but letting his ex-fiancée, Julia, fall back into his life and into his bed might be the worst. Julia''s husband has just been murdered, her fingerprints are all over the crime scene, and $1.7 million in cash has inexplicably vanished. If Victor didn''t know better, he might think Julia was setting him up.

But Julia is drop-dead gorgeous and lust trumps reason 24/7 in Victor Carl''s world. Victor wants to believe the Beatles were right, that all you need is love. But why are the cops accusing Victor of murder? And what is the murder weapon doing in his bedroom? And who is the dead woman in the freezer?

Suddenly, the wary lawyer is no longer fighting to rekindle a lost love . . . he''s fighting to save himself.

Hard-luck Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl is just itching for the opportunity to sell out. Then good fortune comes knocking at his door in the guise of William Prescott III, a blue-blood attorney from one of the city''s most prestigious firms. Prescott wants Victor to represent a councilman''s aide who is on trial, along with his boss, for extortion, arson, and murder. It''s the juiciest, highest-profile courtroom extravaganza in years -- and all Carl has to do is show up, shut up, and follow Prescott''s lead.

But it soon becomes clear that somene''s setting him and his client up to take a long, hard fall. Victor Carl may be desperate and unethical but he''s no one''s patsy. And to survive in this legal snake pit of secrets, lies, and lethal double-crosses, he''s going to play the game his way.

It must have been a hell of a night. One of those long, dangerous nights where the world shifts and doors open. A night of bad judgment and wrong turns, of weariness and hilarity and a hard sexual charge that both frightens and compels. A night where your life changes irrevocably, for better or for worse, but who the hell cares, so long as it changes.

It must have been a night just like that, yeah, if only I could remember it.

All Victor Carl knows is that he’s just woken up with his suit in tatters, his socks missing, and a stinging pain in his chest thanks to a new tattoo he doesn’t remember getting: a heart inscribed with the name Chantal Adair.

My apartment is trashed, my partnership is cracking up, I’m drinking too much, flirting with reporters, sleeping with Realtors. Frankly, I’m in desperate need of something hard and clean in my life, and finding Chantal is all I have.

Is Chantal Adair the love of Victor’s life or a terrible drunken mistake? Victor intends to find out, but right now he’s got bigger concerns. His client, a wanted man, needs to come in out of the cold, and he’s got a stolen painting for Victor to use as leverage.

But someone is not happy that the painting has surfaced. Or that the client is threatening to tell all. Or that Victor is sniffing around for information about Chantal Adair. The closer Victor comes to figuring it all out, the deeper into danger he falls, as the ghosts of the past return to claim what’s theirs.

It means something to be a client. It means he gets my loyalty, whether he deserves it or not. It means he gets my absolute best for the price of an hourly fee. It means in a world where every person has turned against him there is one person who will fight by his side for as long as there is a battle to be fought.—Victor Carl

Author of the acclaimed novels Fatal Flaw, Bitter Truth, and Hostile Witness, bestselling writer William Lashner crafts dark, witty, engrossing tales of suspense involving one of the most intriguing characters of modern popular fiction: Victor Carl.

A defense attorney who lives his life in shades of gray, Victor Carl fights all the right fights for all the wrong reasons. With a failing legal practice, a dead-end love life, a pile of unpaid traffic tickets, and a talent for mixing it up in tough working-class bars and sparring with obstinate cops, Victor skates on the razor''s edge of legal ethics in search of the easy buck. But the one absolute in Victor''s life is loyalty, especially to a client—even if he happens to be dead. Like Joey Cheaps, a no-account who takes a knife to the throat down on the waterfront, but not before he shares with his lawyer his part in a terrible crime.

With his client murdered, Victor must search for a killer. But solving the crime means investigating the darkest spot in Joey Cheaps''s misspent youth, sending Victor on a twisting journey that leads to a missing suitcase stuffed with money, photographs of a mysterious naked woman, and a Supreme Court justice with a secret to hide. And most dangerous of all, Victor steps into the crosshairs of a vengeful enemy with a past full of pain and a taste for blood.

As thrilling as it is darkly evocative, Past Due is a superb tale of crime and justice that takes the intrepid Victor Carl into brilliant new territory and confirms William Lashner''s place among the top suspense writers of our time.

“Lashner keeps the reader spellbound.”

—Harlan Coben

New York Times bestselling author William Lashner takes a brief hiatus from his popular series character, lawyer Victor Carl (Hostile Witness, Fatal Flaw, A Killer’s Kiss et al), and electrifies with Blood and Bone—a relentlessly exciting standalone thriller. A gripping story of a hard-luck slacker pulled into a deadly conspiracy surrounding the late father he barely knew, it enthralls and surprises on every page. The Washington Post raves: “Lashner is as impressive as anyone writing thrillers today.” Blood and Bone is the proof.

A stained legal career spent defending mob enforcers, two-bit hoods, and other dregs of humanity has left Philadelphia lawyer Victor Carl jaded and resentful -- until a new client appears to offer him an escape and a big payday. Caroline Shaw, the desperate scion of a prominent Main Line dynasty, wants him to prove that her sister Jacqueline''s recent suicide was, in fact, murder before Caroline suffers a similar fate.

It is a case that propels Carl out of his courtroom element and into a murky world of fabulous wealth, bloody family legacies, and dark secrets. Victor Carl would love nothing more than to collect his substantial fee and get out alive. But a bitter truth is dragging him in dangerously over his head, and ever closer to the shattering revelation that the most terrifying darkness of all lies not in the heart of a Central American jungle...but in the twisted soul of man.

Jon Willing was just a teenager when he and his pals Augie and Ben stole a fortune in drug money. Brazen with youth and stoned out of their gourds, they thought they had the perfect plan for getting away with it.

They were wrong.

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 send Jon skittering across a landscape wracked by the Great Recession to confront the demons of his past: the grade-school bully who has terrorized him for decades, the grandfather that betrayed him, the girl that got away. And in the middle of a fight to death, with his daughter’s life hanging in the balance, Jon Willing learns the most brutal of truths:

The piper always gets paid, and sometimes he gets paid in blood.

Edgar Award Nominee

Justin Chase is the perfect barkeep, tending bar as he lives his life, in a state of Zen serenity. At least until Birdie Grackle, a yellow-haired, foul-mouthed alcoholic from Texas, walks into his bar, orders a Mojito, and makes a startling confession.

Six years ago Justin’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.

Who hired Birdie Grackle to kill Justin’s mother? Was it Annie Overmeyer, the sexy young woman with whom Justin’s father had been having an affair? Was it Justin’s brother, who took advantage of his father’s conviction to take control of the family business? Was it someone from his mother’s secret life, the shocking details of which Justin is only learning now? Or was it maybe his imprisoned father, to whom Justin is suddenly growing dangerously close? For all of Justin’s efforts to banish emotion and attachment from his life, this searing journey into his past affects him in ways he could never have anticipated.

As Justin pieces together the truth, a merciless killing machine begins stalking him, leaving a trail of dead in his wake. Someone wants to bury the truth, and maybe Justin, too. As the terror closes in, Justin had better find some answers quick, because the stakes have been raised—his life is on the line and murder is just not Zen.

Victor Carl is back, and back in trouble. At a low point in his lowly career, Victor 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’s got 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. Now Victor’s only way out might lie with a brotherhood of shady characters with sacks full of cash, bad fedoras, and their own twisted set of rules. Will Victor’s new friends help him find a killer or bury him deep?

In a nation still recovering from the nuclear tragedies of forty 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’s 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.

But along with menace and death, this poisoned wasteland contains the possibility of a freedom beyond imagination—if only Moonis and Clyde, and the misfits who join their quest, can find the heroism to grab hold of it.

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. Is he lawyer enough to save his own skin?

From the bestselling author of The Barkeep comes a raucous tale of reckoning, racketeering, and revenge.