Jim Lehrer Books in Order

This origin story follows One-Eyed Mack from a childhood accident that costs him an eye to the odd path that lands him in Oklahoma politics. It is funny, offbeat, and full of the accidents that shape a life.

Back in office as Oklahoma's lieutenant governor, One-Eyed Mack gets swept into a broad comic battle over state pride, political schemes, and a plan to crown the capitol. It is small-state politics turned cheerfully absurd.

A commencement speech and an eager young would-be spy pull One-Eyed Mack into an unlikely intelligence case in Oklahoma. Before long, defectors, false identities, and Mack's own circle are tangled in the mess.

When a powerful Oklahoma lawmaker disappears, One-Eyed Mack goes looking and finds a mystery that stretches from local politics to France. A deadly bus crash running alongside the case gives the novel an extra shadow.

Lehrer remembers his lifelong love of buses alongside Marine service, newsroom years, JFK, and life in public television. It is an easygoing memoir about work, risk, family, and the things that stayed with him.

A fluke moment at a national convention puts One-Eyed Mack on the vice-presidential short list and drops him into the glare of national politics. The result is a funny look at image-making, ambition, and accidental fame.

Two former CIA men, Charlie Henderson and Bruce Conn Clark, share a secret mission from the days after JFK's assassination. When the past resurfaces, their old tradecraft and old loyalties are tested in a quiet, tense spy story.

Oklahoma lawmakers start turning up dead, and One-Eyed Mack is pulled into a murder case tied to power, money, and an education bill. Beneath the comic surface, the novel keeps asking where principle ends and compromise begins.

On the eve of a presidential debate, reporters uncover explosive information about a leading candidate. Lehrer's political thriller asks what journalists owe the public when the truth could change an election.

Jack T. Oliver, a Texas bus driver proud of his route and routine, becomes obsessed with a mysterious woman passenger. What starts as longing slowly pulls his steady life toward jealousy, bad choices, and tragedy.

Joshua Bennett should coast into the CIA director's job, but Washington has other plans. Retired spies in West Virginia rally around him, and a nomination fight turns into a sly battle over secrets, leverage, and power.

Fifty years after surviving a brutal Japanese prison camp, Bishop John Quincy Watson spots the officer he believes tortured him. The encounter revives old rage and forces him to confront vengeance, war guilt, and forgiveness.

An archaeologist at Antietam uncovers the grave of a Union officer who seems to have been murdered, and misidentified. His search for the dead man's name opens a Civil War mystery with painful consequences in the present.

When police find an old man hidden inside Kansas City's Union Station, Lieutenant Randy Benton starts pulling at a strange story that reaches back to an asylum, a friendship, and buried violence in America's past.

A Benjamin Franklin scholar inherits a startling secret from his late mentor, a coded manuscript that could shatter Franklin's reputation. As he investigates, blackmail and academic rivalry turn historical research into a dangerous chase for the truth.

After buying a dead Marine's medal online, Hugo Marder begins pretending to be the hero he never was. The lie brings admiration, attention, and guilt, until his borrowed identity becomes harder to control.

Otis Halstead, a careful Kansas insurance executive nearing sixty, suddenly starts buying the toys he never got as a boy. His escape from sensible living becomes a comic road trip and a surprisingly tender midlife reckoning.

One-Eyed Mack is pushed toward a run for governor just as a medical blunder knocks him off course. What follows is a funny, sharp political scramble involving talk radio, a lawsuit, and Oklahoma chaos.

Johnny Wrigley dreams of baseball, then heads to war as a Marine in 1944. A brief romance in Wichita sustains him through Peleliu and Okinawa, and sends him searching for love and a future when he comes home.

In 1956, a strange mix of stars, strivers, and desperate travelers boards the Super Chief, including Clark Gable and Harry Truman. As the train rolls west, deadly secrets turn the glamorous trip into a tense mystery.

Lehrer looks back on the presidential and vice-presidential debates he moderated, from Kennedy and Nixon forward. It is part memoir, part political history, and full of backstage moments, tactical mistakes, and the pressure of asking the next question.

A Dallas reporter and a haunted Secret Service agent become bound by one decision on November 22, 1963. Years later, a risky reenactment tests whether the bubble top on JFK's limousine might have changed everything.