Jonathan Sturak Books in Order

Jonathan Sturak grew up in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, a setting far removed from the desert city that later became central to much of his fiction. The move to Las Vegas gave him a new backdrop: heat, crowds, bright lights, and plenty of people carrying secrets.

He studied computer science and film at Penn State University. It’s an interesting combination for a novelist, and it shows in stories that often mix visual scenes, technology-minded details, and characters whose carefully planned lives start coming apart.

Sturak also wrote an essay, The Place Called Home, about Eastern European heritage and life in northeastern Pennsylvania. Place and identity keep turning up in his work, whether he is writing about a hometown, a vacation, or a city that can make anyone feel anonymous.

His first novel, Clouded Rainbow, was published in December 2009. It follows investment manager Roger Belkin after a car accident shatters the life he has built with his wife, Lois, bringing romance, loss, and danger into the same story.

That was the start of a varied run of fiction.

He followed it with the story collection From Vegas with Blood and the psychological thriller A Smudge of Gray. In the latter, Detective Brian Boise hunts businessman and hit man Trevor Malloy, while the pressure of the case reaches into both men’s family lives. Vegas Was Her Name returns to Las Vegas, where a wealthy businessman’s secret affair puts his family, company, and future at risk.

Las Vegas appears often in Sturak’s fiction, but not just as a backdrop for casinos and spectacle. Geek vs Vegas turns one young Los Angeles office worker’s wild night into a darkly comic chase involving Russian spies. His First, Her Last moves to the Philippines, following engaged couple Jason and Hazel as travel, family, cultural differences, temptation, and an accident put their relationship under real strain.

Then came a big genre shift. In Global Burning, set in 2045, extreme heat has driven humanity underground, and a small group races to stop the last survivors from losing their oxygen supply.

His shorter work changes gears, too. A Brush of Love centers on a woman remembering a life-changing romance, while Feed Me! follows the unsettling path of a mysterious bird. Don't Kill The Camel brings a comic problem to a special-operations mission. Sturak has also worked as a managing editor for Noir Nation, helping bring together international crime-fiction issues.

He works in library technology in Las Vegas, alongside his writing and editorial work. Across the books, he returns to love, risk, family pressure, travel, and the trouble that begins when people believe they can keep one part of their lives hidden from another.