Craig McDonald Books in Order

Twenty crime writers discuss their work in recorded interviews presented without subsequent author revision. Conversations with figures including James Ellroy, Dan Brown, and Michael Connelly examine the craft and personalities behind contemporary mystery and thriller fiction.

Crime writer Hector Lassiter possesses Pancho Villa’s stolen skull and attracts competing groups determined to seize it. Mexican bandits, secretive fraternities, and American agents pursue him across a borderland adventure where the historical relic becomes a dangerous prize.

Hector Lassiter encounters a killer staging murders after works of surrealist art. Beginning amid the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane, the pursuit stretches through war and political upheaval, entangling the crime writer with an increasingly audacious artistic adversary.

Sixteen interviews explore fiction, screenwriting, and songwriting through conversations with authors including Elmore Leonard, James Crumley, and James Sallis. The collection examines writing across media alongside the experiences and working lives of distinctive practitioners of narrative craft.

Hector Lassiter attends a Hemingway conference in Idaho amid rumors of lost writings and questions surrounding his friend’s death. A scholar and an FBI veteran pursue their own agendas, drawing Hemingway’s widow into a contest over literary history.

Three lawmen try to maintain order in an Ohio town divided by immigration tensions. The rape and murder of a Mexican-American woman set off shifting alliances and escalating violence, testing families, friendships, careers, and competing ideas of justice.

Literary magazine editors are being murdered in 1924 Paris, prompting Gertrude Stein to gather crime writers to investigate. Hector Lassiter and Brinke Devlin pursue the killings with Ernest Hemingway as suspicions turn toward a strange writers’ cult.

Chris Lyon pursues a series of mutilation murders in late-1980s Columbus with help from bedridden Irish policeman Jimmy Hanrahan. Hanrahan’s experience investigating Cleveland’s earlier torso killings connects the contemporary hunt to an unresolved chapter of Ohio’s criminal history.

Chris Lyon and Hector Lassiter join forces against an ancient murderous cult and the Scottish knights opposing it. Caught between rival organizations, the writers seek to turn the struggle to their advantage across Scotland and wintry Chicago.

The third Chris Lyon thriller connects notorious crimes across history, from Victorian London to revolutionary Russia. Jack the Ripper and Rasputin figure in a fictional account of hidden forces behind serial murder, expanding the conspiracy running through Lyon's world.

Former journalist Chris Lyon helps Salome Arnaud search for her missing father, drawing him into traveling carnivals and her disturbing family history. Their growing attraction becomes dangerous when an ancient conspiracy of killers targets them both.

Hector Lassiter travels to 1925 Key West to reunite with writer Brinke Devlin, only to encounter suspicious fires and violent developers. A grieving mother asks him to investigate her daughter’s murder, neglected by the local sheriff.

During World War II, Hector Lassiter works with an OSS operative and an intelligence officer to rescue a Jewish orphan from occupied France. Their mission unfolds within a prolonged, dangerous struggle against a Nazi filmmaker across continents.

Hector Lassiter and Orson Welles seek the Spear of Destiny, a relic promising power at a terrible cost. German occultists, Nazi interests, a voodoo priestess, and J. Edgar Hoover complicate a pursuit spanning their uneasy friendship.

Stranded in a 1950 Ohio blizzard, Hector Lassiter and Jimmy Hanrahan answer a child’s plea for help. Protecting women fleeing a mob boss becomes a dangerous journey toward congressional testimony, with gangsters and corrupt officials in pursuit.

Hector Lassiter accompanies Ian Fleming to Japan and Istanbul, apparently for literary research and film work. Fleming’s concealed effort to resolve an old intelligence failure draws both former spies into a hunt involving a devastating biological weapon.

In snowbound 1958 Nashville, Hector Lassiter investigates a country singer’s death that implicates the man’s former wife. The case draws him toward white supremacists and danger connected to a hydrogen bomb lost off the South Carolina coast.

In 1957, novelist Hector Lassiter acquires Pancho Villa's skull and races across the Southwest to sell it. This graphic novel follows him and his companions as criminals, soldiers, and corrupt officials pursue a relic worth killing for.

Teenage Hector Lassiter lies about his age to join the American expedition pursuing Pancho Villa into Mexico. Subsequent service in France’s trenches exposes the aspiring writer to another war and encounters with John Dos Passos and Ernest Hemingway.

Hector Lassiter’s life unfolds across the twentieth century and into the digital age in this concluding collection. Crime, politics, romance, and literary creation intersect through episodes involving familiar companions, including Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles, and fellow pulp writers.

Pulp writers Lester Dent and Walter Gibson discover that imagined characters can take physical form. When a monstrous creation from Dent’s childhood threatens the world, their creative legacy becomes a source of terrifying danger.

Zana O’Savin and Iain narrowly escape the collapse of the Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant. Their investigation draws them toward mysterious lights, men in black, and the winged creature whose appearances seem to herald disaster.

Powerful technology entrepreneurs pursue immortality through artificial intelligence and quantum science. When their ambitions place Zana O’Savin’s team in their sights, a conflict involving the mysterious Shade threatens to turn New York into a battlefield.

A suicidal cult in Paris threatens the approaching Summer Olympics, drawing Zana O’Savin into a new confrontation. Behind the apparent fanaticism stands a more dangerous enemy whose ability to control minds makes the struggle deeply personal.

Zana O’Savin and her allies face a war on three fronts involving a hidden people and the Scarlet Duchess. As a campaign for Russian domination unfolds, the team must untangle threats that may reach the highest levels of power.