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DON’T MISS RIVER READINGS Spring 2024
THE BRAND NEW JOHN JORDAN MYSTERY THRILLER: A RUSH OF BLOOD!
Ten years ago, second grader Soren Rogers disappeared from his school's fall festival. And though he's never been seen again, the Potter County Sheriff's Office is finally ready to make an arrest. But they want John Jordan to review the case first.
The primary suspect is his stepmom, who never seemed to like Soren and blamed him for most of her problems, including those in her marriage to his father. But she's not the only suspect. There's the gang of bullies who terrorized the school. There's the creepy janitor, the pompous principal, the librarian who lost her own son the year before. In addition to these suspects, John uncovers others with hidden motives and evil agendas.
When another child vanishes, John must race the clock to solve the case or be responsible for the death of not one but two children. Can he unravel the case in time? It would help if he were sleeping and didn't have to try to save Olivia Nelson, a troubled school counselor being stalked, and protect his loved ones from dangerous forces aligning against them.
Start the thrilling new mystery from acclaimed author Michael Lister today!
“Brilliantly conceived and executed. An impressive blend of procedural and fair-play whodunit. Lister expertly balances emotion and detection while doling out logical, gut-wrenching twists.” Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
“Michael Lister is a master storyteller.” Michael Connelly
NEW ALBUM from Michael Lister — STORYTELLER — Coming Soon! .
CLICK HERE to watch the Michael Connelly and Michael Lister interview.
New Article: Bloody Work If You Can Find It
Author Michael Lister at his Wewahitchka home. For 25 years, he has been pumping out titles in his “Blood” series in which investigator John Jordan is the recurring main character. In Out for Blood, Lister’s 27th book, Jordan works to identify suspects in the beating of two teenage girls.
Emerald Coast Magazine Article by Wynn Parks. Photo by Mike Fender
Michael Lister is not just a writer; he’s an enterprise! This Wewahitchka boy’s milieu, as a mystery-crime novelist in Northwest Florida, features the folks next door, characters from beach to bayou to piney woods.
Over the past 25 years, Lister has created two series of crime novels and recently has undertaken a third.
But wait, there’s more: a “Meanings” series of his own reflections on life, plus — fingers crossed — Lister has optioned the film script for his book Double Exposure to writer-director Jason Hreno. Lister also heads Michael Lister Charities and, if one cares to look, can be viewed performing original songs on YouTube.
Lister was born in Tallahassee in 1968 to a mom who taught grade school and a dad who was part entrepreneur and part hardware store owner. He grew up playing Little League baseball, but in high school switched to basketball.
“I’m only 6 feet tall, but I still get down on the court with my kids and grandkids,” he said. “I’ve got a killer mid-range jump shot!”
After high school, Lister earned two degrees in theology, instinctively specializing in myth and narrative, and served for a decade as a prison chaplain. Then, in 2000, Lister departed ministering and took up writing.
If Michael Lister books were films, they’d lean toward docudrama. His “Blood” series of 28 novels (Power in the Blood, Blood of the Lamb, et al) seems to reflect Michael’s sojourn spent spiritualizing with inmates at three different state prisons.
Whether Lister’s fascination with dark tales from the American criminal justice system was induced by those 10 clerical years or his fascination with the works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, cold cases and serial killers inhabit his “Blood” fiction world, presented through the eyes of John Jordon, a kind of Gulf Coast “Father Brown.”
The prolific Michael Lister developed a love for language and Southern storytelling at a young age. Before becoming a full-time novelist in 2000, he taught high school, worked as a college professor and inspirational speaker, owned and operated a bookstore, wrote a popular syndicated column, served as a newspaper editor, operated a community theater, wrote plays and screenplays, and worked for a production company. Photo by Mike Fender
Blood Work, the 12th book in the “Blood” series, opens with a prologue that traces serial killer Ted Bundy’s rampage through Florida from 1978 until 1989 when he was executed in Florida’s electric chair.
In Blood Work, some 40 years after Bundy’s murder spree, the reader encounters John Jordon, the chaplain for the Gulf Correctional Institution and consultant-investigator for the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department, in bed with Anna, his lady love.
A phone call interrupts the couple’s precious spiritual rites with a plea from a local publican — one to which Jordon reluctantly responds and which takes him to a local watering hole where he removes his drunken brother Jake from the premises.
Out of work since his father “Sheriff Jack” lost re-election, Jake has become his dad’s keeper-in-misery. Jack is haunted by the disappearance, on “his watch,” of a local high-school belle, Janet Leigh Lester, who’d gone missing on her prom night. No body was found, only blood scattered on the inside of her car. At the time, because of a contemporary string of murders from Tallahassee to Pensacola and the girl’s victim profile, John Jordon’s old man, Sheriff Jack, had concluded that Janet Leigh Lester had met with foul play at the hands of one Ted Bundy.
Years later, the unresolved case still hangs like a dark cloud over the whole community, while protagonist John Jordon witnesses his father lost in an empty retirement, agonizing over whether his conclusion about Janet Leigh Lester’s fate had been too easy.
The old man’s sense of failure over time has led him to alcohol, and his relationship with his sons John and Jake has grown problematic. Thereby hangs not only a murder mystery, but the tale of how John Jordon, special investigator and dutiful son, revives the cold case of Janet Leigh Lester’s disappearance and comes to the aid of a father from whom he’s become estranged.
Essentially, Lister’s Blood Work is a tale with a Southern touch that unearths old mysteries, reveals generational secrets and that, at its best, reveres the notion of the circle being unbroken between generations.
Lister is unbelievably prolific. The New York Times puts him on their list as a best-selling crime-mystery author. His insights into the criminal psyche are often spot-on. Not exactly what the Beatles’ lyrics had in mind in Paperback Writer. Lister’s already made it there, in spades.
Latest Releases
The New John Jordan — BLOOD RECKONING!
The New Burke and Blade — ALL NIGHT LONG
Panama City / Panama City Beach Featured in Bestselling Author’s New Mystery Series
Two of the main characters in Michael Lister’s new crime series are not just private investigators Burke and Blade, but Panama City and Panama City Beach.
“I really like the main characters of this series,” Lister said. “I find them compelling and entertaining, but it’s almost like Burke and Blade aren’t the only main characters. It’s like Panama City and Panama City Beach are too.”
The main characters of Lister’s new mystery series, Lucas Burke and Alix “Blade” Baker, were orphaned when they were young and raised in children’s homes and foster care. They are Panama City private investigators specializing in missing persons cases—work they were led to by their own foster sister’s disappearance.
Growing up in foster care and children’s homes has made them tough, savvy, and streetwise. It has also given them a network of foster brothers and sisters who can aid them in their toughest cases.
“I love Panama City and Panama City Beach,” Lister said. “And I love writing about them. The last time I set a mystery series here it was in the 1940s and that was a lot of fun, but being able to actually visit the places I’m writing about and to feature the places I enjoy the most has been a fantastic experience.”
The Burke and Blade series began with last year’s “The Night Of” and continues with the new release, “The Night in Question.”
When asked about the inspiration for his new series Lister said, “Everything in my life is inspiration for my novels, but in terms of the specific inspirations for these books, I’ve been inspired by actual true crime cases of missing persons. “The Night Of” was inspired by the Brandon Lawson case and “The Night in Question” was inspired by the Asha Degree case. I’m a true crime junkie and I find that the most fascinating unsolved cases eventually work their way into my books.”
Brandon Lawson, a 26-year-old man from Texas, went missing on August 9, 2013, despite being in contact with his brother, Kyle, during the ordeal.
Asha Degree, a nine-year-old, went missing from her home in Shelby, North Carolina in the early morning hours of February 14, 2000, during a brutal storm.
In Lister’s “The Night in Question,” in the early morning hours of October 10, 2000, a young girl left her home in the middle of a stormy night with only a backpack and was never seen again. What happened to ten-year-old Leah Harrison?
At sometime between midnight and two a.m., Leah Harrison snuck out of her family’s condo on Panama City Beach and ventured out into a severe tropical storm and vanished forever.
Why did this young girl who was frightened of storms get up in the middle of the night and go out into such a deadly one? What was so important that it couldn’t wait until morning? And what happened to her once she got out there?
Investigators Lucas Burke and Alix Baker have been hired to find out. They’ve found missing persons before but this time the case may be too cold even for them. And whoever’s behind Leah’s disappearance may be willing to kill to keep it a secret. Besides, Burke and Blade have problems of their own. Burke is dealing with a complicated, taboo love life and the threat of returning to prison, while Blade is finding being a minority in more ways than one makes everything more difficult.
Can Burke and Blade keep it all together and do what no one else has been able to for 12 long years and find Leah Harrison?
A funny, entertaining, compelling whodunnit, “The Night in Question” is an intelligent mystery thriller with heart and attitude.”
This year marks Lister’s 25 anniversary as a novelist and international bestselling author Michael Connelly said, “Michael Lister has become a mastery storyteller in his first 25 years and he’s only getting started.”
