VJ Books Presents Author John Lescroart!
 John Lescroart (pronounced "less-kwah") is the author of 30 books, 19 of which have been New York Times bestsellers. Libraries Unlimited has named him among “The 100 Most Popular Thriller and Suspense Authors.” With sales of over twelve million copies, his books have been translated into twenty-two languages in more than seventy-five countries, and his short stories appear in many anthologies.
In 2020, Lescroart teamed up with Suspense Magazine and other suspense heavy-weights to contribute to the nail-biting anthology Nothing Good Happens After Midnight. He speaks about this thrilling collection consisting of thirteen original short stories representing the genres of suspense/thriller, mystery, sci-fi/fantasy, and more with Modern Signed Books podcast host Roger Nichols. You can listen to the entire podcast episode here.
Lescroart wrote his first novel in college and the second one a year after he graduated from Cal Berkeley in 1970. His first novel, Sunburn, won the San Francisco Foundation’s Joseph Henry Jackson Award for best novel by a California author; Dead Irish, The 13th Juror and The Keeper were nominees for the Shamus, Anthony and Silver Falchion Best Mystery/Crime Novel, respectively; The 13th Juror is included in the ITW publication “100 Must-Read Thrillers Of All Time.” Hard Evidence appears in “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Ultimate Reading List.” Guilt was a Reader's Digest Select Edition choice. The Motive was an Audie Finalist of the Audio Publishers Association. The Mercy Rule, Nothing but the Truth, The Suspect, and The Fall have been major market Book Club selections. The Suspect was also the 2007 One Book Sacramento choice, and the American Author’s Association chose it as its Book of the Year. The Ophelia Cut, Betrayal, and A Plague of Secrets were each Top Five selections of Strand Magazine’s “Books of the Year.”
His latest novel, The Missing Piece, is the 19th in his critically acclaimed Dismas Hardy series that follows master attorney Dismas Hardy as he helps San Francisco DA Wes Farrell represent a defendant after a prisoner that Farrell put away turns up murdered not long after being released. When they bring in PI Abe Glitsky to help track down the potentially lethal defendant, the search takes Glitsky through an investigative hall of mirrors populated by wounded parents, crooked cops, cheating spouses, and single-minded vigilantes. As Glitsky embraces and then discards one enticing theory of the crime after another, the truth seems to recede ever farther.
Prior to pursuing writing professionally, he was Johnny Capo of Johnny Capo and His Real Good Band. After the publication of Sunburn, Lescroart continued writing but received many rejection letters. He enrolled in a Masters Program in Creative Writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and ended up working for a time for a coal transportation consulting firm.
But after a year and a half, even a lucrative day job had become a burden. Nothing would do for John by now but to write, but he had little time for writing with his high-paying, career-oriented job. Lisa suggested taking a look at some of the old manuscripts and submitting them she remembered reading and liking Son of Homes. How about that one? There was one 14-year-old yellowed and brittle copy of the manuscript left in the world in the basement of their best man, Don Matheson's, apartment. Six weeks later, John had his first hardcover book deal.
Over the next seven years, back in Los Angeles again, John and Lisa were finally ready to start their family. During this time, John wrote several screenplays and published three more books while he held down a job as a word processing supervisor at a downtown law firm.
Finally he was publishing, but he wasn't making a living. And then in 1989, at the age of forty-one, he took a break to go body-surfing at Seal Beach. The next day, he lay in a Pasadena hospital. From the contaminated sea water where he'd been surfing, he'd contracted spinal meningitis. Doctors gave him two hours to live.
John now looks back on his 11-day battle with death as the turning point in his career. He quit the last of his day jobs to move back to Northern California and to write full-time, with intense focus and a renewed dedication. The resulting books, richer in terms of theme and story, found a devoted readership and propelled him into the elite circle of bestselling authors, only twenty years to overnight success!
You can find a signed copy of The Missing Piece and a collection of other John Lescroart signed books below.
Modern Signed Books Interview:
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John Lescroart Bibliography
Auguste Lupa Series
- Son of Holmes - 1986
- Rasputin's Revenge - 1987
Dismas Hardy Series
- Dead Irish - 1989
- The Vig - 1990
- Hard Evidence - 1993
- The 13th Juror - 1994
- The Mercy Rule - 1998
- Nothing But the Truth - 1999
- The Oath - 2002
- The First Law - 2003
- The Second Chair - 2004
- The Motive - 2004
- The Suspect - 2007
- Betrayal - 2008
- A Plague of Secrets - 2009
- The Ophelia Cut - 2013
- The Keeper - 2014
- The Fall - May 2015
- Poison - 2018
- The Rule of Law - January 2019
- The Missing Piece - 2022
John Lescroart Collection: The Hearing, the Oath, and the First Law - omnibus - 2004
Abe Glitsky Series
- A Certain Justice - 1995
- Guilt - 1996
- The Hearing - 1999
- Damage - 2011
Wyatt Hunt Series
- The Hunt Club - 2006
- Treasure Hunt - 2010
- The Hunter - 2012
Standalone Books
John Lescroart wards
2007 - American Author Medal for The Suspect
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