Liz Lazarus Books in Order

If you want to read from the beginning: Free of Malice → Plea for Justice → Shades of Silence
If you like legal suspense tied to real-world questions: Free of Malice → Plea for Justice
If you want a case-driven mystery with an emotional core: Plea for Justice
If you prefer secrets, grief, and shifting trust: Shades of Silence

Liz Lazarus grew up in Valdosta, Georgia, near the Florida line, and she was writing long before she published a novel. In high school she edited the school newspaper and graduated as salutatorian. She later took a path that does not look much like the usual novelist story, earning an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management.

For years, her career was in business, not books. She worked as an executive in General Electric's healthcare division, later became a managing director at a consulting firm, and built a life that was analytical, busy, and far removed from the image most people have of a thriller writer.

Still, the urge to write never really went away.

Before fiction took over, Lazarus spent time chasing other goals. She lived in Paris for several years and learned French, got her pilot's license, and even produced a music CD. It is an unusual list, but it helps explain the practical curiosity that runs through her books.

The turning point came from a traumatic event in her own life. Lazarus has said that Free of Malice grew out of a real attack she survived in her home. Writing became a way to process what happened, and the novel turned that experience into a legal thriller about trauma, self-defense, and the gaps between what feels just and what the law may allow.

She did not plan on a writing career at first.

Free of Malice, published in 2016, introduced many of the things readers now expect from her work: women under pressure, emotional fallout that feels lived in, and plots that keep tightening as new facts surface. She followed it with Plea for Justice in 2018, another Atlanta-set thriller, this time about a paralegal pulled back into the case of an old boyfriend who says he is innocent. That book leans harder into criminal procedure, digital evidence, and the uneasy feeling that help and manipulation can look a lot alike.

Shades of Silence, released in 2021, shifts the frame a bit but keeps the same interest in people whose lives are upended in an instant. It follows a woman whose husband disappears in a plane incident and whose search for answers opens into murder, buried history, and shifting loyalties. Across these books, Lazarus returns to trauma, self-protection, trust, and the way ordinary people get pushed into doing detective work of their own.

Her fiction stays grounded in contemporary Southern settings and in real-world systems, including the courts, therapy, law enforcement, and the media. Readers who like thrillers with a strong emotional center often connect with that mix. The books move quickly, but they also make room for fear, doubt, resilience, and the messy practical choices people make when life suddenly turns dangerous.

Lazarus still seems to keep one foot in the working world outside publishing. Recent author bios describe her as a consultant, business owner, and operations leader in healthcare, and say she splits her time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Bozeman, Montana.