Standalone Novels In Publication Order
- In the Heat of the Summer (1982)
- The Traveler (1987)
- Day of Reckoning (1989)
- Just Cause (1992)
- The Shadow Man (1995)
- State of Mind (1997)
- Hart’s War (1999)
- The Analyst (2002)
- The Madman’s Tale (2004)
- The Wrong Man (2006)
- Red 1-2-3 (2012)
- What Comes Next (2012)
- The Dead Student (2015)
Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order
- First Born: The Death of Arnold Zeleznik, Age Nine (1984)
Anthologies In Publication Order
- Natural Suspect (2001)
Standalone Novels Book Covers
Non-Fiction Book Covers
Anthologies Book Covers
John Katzenbach Books Overview
The Traveler
A man, a woman, a car, and a camera on a sentimental journey through the past. He kills, he photographs, she writes about it or she dies, too. Detective Mercedes Barren has a reason to give chase: her niece was a victim. So does psychiatrist Martin Jeffers, a specialist in sex offenders and a more than passing acquaintance of the killer.
Day of Reckoning
Megan and Duncan Richards have come a long way from 1968 and their radical past. He’s a banker; she’s in real estate. They have two teenage daughters and a young son. But the past has not forgotten them. From her prison cell, the beautiful and cold blooded terrorist Tanya, with whom the Richards were involved in 1968, plots her revenge on the couple she blames for her capture. Soon she will be released from jail. Then she will start to pay them back beginning with their son…
Just Cause
‘Powerful…
Compelling…
Katzenbach is a skilled storyteller who knows how to set up the kind of big and small questions that make one want to keep turning the pages’CHICAGO TRIBUNENow a Warner Bros. Motion Picture starring Sean Connery. At first report Matt Cowart doesn’t believe the claims of innocence from Robert Earl Ferguson, Death Row inmate. But the more Coward digs into his case, the more he believes that, as a black man, Ferguson is a victim of hate and prejudice, and that the wrong man is going to be executed. Cowart lets fly a series of hard hitting investigative articles that ultimately frees Ferguson and gets Cowart a Pulitzer Prize. He’s a hero, a celebrity, a big hearted guy who has unwittingly set in motion a scenario of horror and death…
.
The Shadow Man
‘CHILLING…
TAUT SUSPENSE. The Boston GlobeBerlin, 1943. Few saw his face; none knew his name. In whispered circles he was known only as Der Schattenmann, a merciless catcher for the Na*zis who was always there, smiling, when the trains took you away to Auschwitz…
.’A FIRST CLASS THRILLER…
A MASTERPIECE OF DETECTIVE SUSPENSE.’ The Toronto StarMiami Beach, present day. Retired homicide detective Simon Winter’s lonely life takes an urgent turn when his terrified neighbor appears at his door. She has seen a ghost in the flesh, a demon from her past Der Schattenmann. The next morning, Sophie is found strangled, her eyes locked open in terror.’GRIPPING…
CHILLINGLY FRIGHTENING…
HARD TO PUT DOWN.’ The Miami HeraldThe police think it’s just another homicide. But Winter knows the horrifying truth: an elusive killer is stalking Holocaust survivors in Miami. Now, after years of retirement, Winter must match wits with a sad*istically smooth expert on death who lives for the thrill of the hunt, tortures for the rush of power, and murders to keep himself, and his history, hidden forever…
. AN ALTERNATE SELECTION OF THE BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB
State of Mind
Twenty five years ago, Jeffrey and Susan Clayton fled their tyrannical father a man who was later suspected in the heinous murder of a young student. Though the father was never charged, he committed suicide or so it seemed. For someone has sent Susan a cryptic note. Once deciphered, it carries a terrifying message: I have found you.
Hart’s War
Year after year the novels of John Katzenbach have earned acclaim from across the country. ‘Mesmerizing’ announces The New York Times…
‘gripping’ trumpets The Washington Post Book World…
‘compelling’ raves the San Francisco Chronicle. Now, Katzenbach has written his most powerful novel yet an unforgettable courtroom drama of heroism and sacrifice, honor and betrayal that ignites within the explosive confines of a World War II prisoner of war camp. Life isn’t easy when you should have died, recalls Second Lieutenant Tommy Hart, the navigator of a B 25 who was shot out of the sky in 1942. Hart burdened with guilt as the only surviving member of his crew becomes just another kriegie ‘war captured’ at the fiercely guarded Stalag Luft 13 in Bavaria. But routine comes to a halt with the arrival of a new prisoner: First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott, an African American Tuskegee airman who instantly becomes the target of contempt from his fellow soldiers. His most notable adversary is Vincent Bedford, a decorated bomber captain from Mississippi. The hatred between the two men as volatile as a grenade ready to be detonated. When a prisoner is brutally murdered, and all the blood soaked evidence points to Scott, Hart is tapped to defend the soldier, who steadfastly claims his innocence. Yet from the start, Hart senses he has been chosen merely to make a show of defending the accused, in what is presumed to be an open and shut case. In a trial rife with racial tension and raw conflict, where the lines between ally and enemy blur, there are those with their own secret motives and a burning passion for a rush to judgment, no matter the cost.A compellingly authentic portrait of a German prisoner of war camp. Richly layered characters from both sides of the line facing profound questions of conscience and duty. An epic courtroom showdown and stunning twists of plot. From these dramatic elements, Katzenbach creates the most distinguished and riveting novel of his extraordinary career.
The Analyst
Happy 53rd birthday, Doctor. Welcome to the first day of your death. When a mysterious letter bearing these threatening words is delivered to Dr. Frederick Starks, his predictable life is thrown into chaos. Suddenly, the psychoanalyst is plunged into a horrific game designed by a man who calls himself Rumplestiltskin. The rules: in two weeks Starks must guess Rumplestiltskin’s identity and the source of his fury. If he succeeds, he goes free. If he fails, one by one, Rumplestiltskin will destroy fifty two of Dr. Starks loved ones friends, relatives, children unless the good doctor agrees to kill himself. You ruined my life. And now I fully intend to ruin yours. Ignoring the threat is not an option. When one of his patients dies under the wheels of a subway train and a detective investigating the case is struck by a hit and run driver, Starks knows his tormentor means business. And then there are the messengers sent to guide Starks on his descent, from the seductive woman in a trench coat who calls herself Virgil to a lawyer named Merlin weaving a spell of havoc and lies. His bank account rifled, his credit ruined, and his reputation dragged through the mud, Starks must rouse himself from the cocoon of his life, unlock the secret of Rumplestiltskin, and find a way to stop the madman before he himself is driven mad. One thing of which you can be absolutely certain: My anger knows no limits. A mesmerizing thriller that gives a wicked new twist to the doctor patient relationship, The Analyst s Last Days weaves a blistering race against time with a tale of identities shattered and chosen, disguises taken and discarded. With his trademark style, breathless plots, and brilliantly realized characters, John Katzenbach proves once again why both critics and fans alike have crowned him the master of suspense.
The Madman’s Tale
It’s been twenty years since Western State Hospital was closed down and the last of its inmates reintegrated into society. Francis Petrel was barely out of his teens when his family committed him to the asylum, after his erratic behavior culminated in a terrifying outburst. Now middle aged, he leads an aimless, solitary life housed in a cheap apartment, periodically tended to by his sisters, and perpetually medicated to quiet the chorus of voices in his head. But a reunion on the grounds of the shuttered institution stirs something deep in Francis s troubled mind: dark memories he thought he had laid to rest, about the grisly events that led to Western State Hospital s demise. It begins in 1979, when twenty one year old Petrel descends into the state run purgatory of an overcrowded, understaffed Massachusetts mental hospital. Surrounded by inmates roaming the halls like drugged zombies and raving behind locked doors, well meaning orderlies, jaded nurses, and patronizing doctors, Francis finds friendship with a motley assortment of fellow patients: a would be Napoleon, a wise ex firefighter, and a man obsessed with battling imagined devils. But there s nothing imaginary about the young nurse found sexually assaulted and brutally murdered late one night after lights out. The police suspect an inmate, while patients whisper about visions of a white shrouded angel. But the striking and mysterious prosecuting attorney who arrives to investigate has her own chilling theory about the grim, telltale signature left on the victim s body, a string of unsolved sex killings, and a very real devil who, by chance or design, has come to turn a madhouse into a slaughterhouse. Now, with the past creeping back to haunt his thoughts, and nothing but a pencil and the bare walls of his bleak apartment, Francis surrenders to the overwhelming need to tell the story of those nightmarish days. But because the crime was never solved, it s a story doomed to remain unfinished. Until, like Francis s long buried recollections, the killer resurfaces…
with a vengeance.A tour de force narrative journey through the eerily unpredictable mind of an utterly unusual hero, The Madman s Tale will keep even the most astute thriller reader uncertain, unnerved, and unable to resist the tantalizing twists and turns of this fiendishly suspenseful shadow show. From the Hardcover edition.
The Wrong Man
Scott Freeman is a man of reason a college professor grounded in the rational and practical. But he becomes uneasy after finding an anonymous love letter hidden in his daughter’s room: No one could ever love you like I do. No one ever will. We will be together forever. One way or another. But the reality of Ashley s plight far exceeds Scott s worst suspicions. One drink too many had led Ashley, a beautiful, bright art student, into what she thought was just a fling with a blue collar bad boy. But now, no amount of pleading or reasoning can discourage his phone calls, ardent e mails, and constant, watchful gaze. Michael O Connell is but a malignant shadow of a man. His brash, handsome features conceal a black and empty soul. Control is his religion. Cunning and criminal skill are his stock in trade. Rage is his language. The harder Ashley tries to break free, the deeper Michael burrows into every aspect of her life, so she turns in desperation to her divorced parents and her mother s new partner three people still locked in a coldly civilized triangle of resentment. But their fierce devotion to Ashley is the common bond that will draw them together to face down a predator. For Ashley s family, it is a test of primal love that will drive them to the extreme edge and beyond in a battle of wills that escalates into a life or death war to protect their own. From the bestselling master of suspense, John Katzenbach, The Wrong Man is an elegantly crafted and breathtakingly intense read that asks the question, How far would you go to save the child you love? From the Hardcover edition.
Natural Suspect
What Carl Hiaasen and a host of South Florida’s finest authors did for Sunshine State crime capers in the New York Times bestseller Naked Came the Manatee, William Bernhardt now does for legal thrillers with the help of a ‘Dream Team’ of today s hottest suspense writers. Like a literary game of telephone, Natural Suspect begins with a chapter from Bernhardt. Then each writer contributes a chapter and pas*ses it along to the next. The result is a completely inventive, brilliantly plotted novel of suspense with more twists than a schizophrenic’s train of thought. Can you guess who wrote which chapter?Natural SuspectArthur Hightower made a name for himself and a vast fortune in the oil business. But when the volatile tycoon decides to disinherit his spoiled children and cheating wife, he makes the biggest mistake of his life and the last. After declaring his intentions, Hightower turns up on Thanksgiving Day…
clubbed to death and stuffed in a meat locker, clutching a frozen asset his wife s precious pearl necklace. Now Julia Hightower stands charged with the cold as ice crime of murdering for millions. While the sensational trial has New York in a frenzy, a curious cast of characters face off in and out of the courtroom. Devin McGee, a small time lawyer about to hit the big time defending Julia Hightower if her intimate encounter with the prosecutor doesn t catch up with her…
Trent Ballard, the quirky assistant D.A., who owns a huge pet rabbit and thinks his tryst with Devin will help him get a conviction…
Patrick Roswell, a wannabe reporter sitting on a scoop that could turn the trial upside down, unless a scalpel wielding clown decides to kill the story and Patrick…
Sissy Hightower, Julia’s sex crazed, air headed daughter in law, who has a suitcase full of secrets…
Robert S. Rutledge, a powerful Wall Street warrior with a lot riding on the Hightower verdict and a lot to learn about messing with the wrong people…
and Cordelia, the mystery woman that everyone seems to know. All are in for the trial of their lives but who among them is the true Natural Suspect?All author royalties will be donated to The Nature Conservancy. From the Hardcover edition.
Related Authors