"Lister's hard-edged prose ranks with the best of contemporary noir fiction."*
Walk the mean streets of wartime Panama City with Jimmy "Soldier" Riley, a wounded, woman-haunted knight errant in Michael Lister's resonant new series.
"Stylish, retro, and highly entertaining. Michael Lister's PI Jimmy "Soldier" Riley is a compelling new noir hero." Jason Starr
"A seductive mix of sudden violence and raw emotion, Michael Lister's THE BIG GOODBYE is a much-welcome contribution to the hardboiled, P.I. tradition. Cool stuff." Victor Gischler
"1940s Panama City, Florida . . . tough and violent with snappy dialogue and great atmosphere, beautiful women with hidden agendas, and a long lost world that we mostly know through ancient postcards and faded photographs. Get ready for a suspenseful, romantic and historic ride." Ace Atkins
*The Big Goodbye receives a Starred Review in Publisher's Weekly
Lister (The Body and the Blood) kicks off a promising private detective series set in 1940s Florida with a tantalizing opening line--"I had not yet recovered from shooting Stanley Somerset when I saw her"--and rapidly establishes the intriguing persona of narrator Jimmy Riley. Riley, who lost an arm while on the police force, now works as a PI partnered with a former Pinkerton agent. Obsessed with ex-lover Lauren Lewis, he's taken aback when she re-enters his life. Lewis, whose husband is running for mayor of Panama City, appears at his office to ask whether Riley is the person who's been tailing her. While she believes his denial, she declines his offer to help. Unsurprisingly, Riley decides to look into the matter anyway, and soon finds himself squarely in the crosshairs of the police when bodies start piling up. Lister's hard-edged prose ranks with the best of contemporary noir fiction.
The Big Goodbye Trailer
Burnt Offerings
Coming April 2012 - Passover
ISBN: 978-1-888146-89-9 Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-888146-90-5 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-888146-91-2 Ebook
“If you like crime writing with depth, suspense, and sterling prose, you should be reading Michael Lister. BUNRT OFFERINGS is a compelling blend of fascinating forensics, sinister twists, full-blooded characters, and beautiful writing. Beneath it all is a core that offers far more than thrills—a meditation on faith, psychology, and the human struggle.” Michael Koryta
The scratch of a single match—spark, heat, chemical reaction, fire being born—and an intense thriller begins.
Terror reigns over the North Florida National Forest, the coastal town of Bayshore, and the barrier island of Pine Key—a fiery terror whose flame threatens to consume the whole world.
An exacting and methodical killer whose weapon is fire is working on his masterpiece, and only a wounded and scarred FDLE agent and a retired ritual crimes expert hiding from the world in a cabin in the woods have any hope of stopping him.
Rich and textured, yet fast-paced and pulse-pounding, BURNT OFFERINGS will leave you breathless right up until its heart-stopping conclusion.
"Deep, edgy, and smart, BURNT OFFERINGS is a searing page-turner. With evocative prose, sharp procedural detail, and break-neck pacing, Michael Lister takes his readers on a journey into the darkest reaches of Florida -- and into the human heart. Don't miss this stellar outing from a truly fine writer." Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of DIE FOR YOU
The Meaning of
Life in Movies
Coming March 2012
ISBN: 978-1-888146-86-8 Hard Cover
ISBN: 978-1-888146-87-5 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-888146-88-2 Ebook
“'The Meaning of Life in Movies' is a Rashomon ride. Michael Lister's
perceptions of film and the life it captures are guaranteed to be unique and intriguing. He sees things you just don't see and leaves you scratching your head as to why you didn't. Read this book and you won't be disappointed.” -Michael Connelly
Finding the Way Again
"In Finding the Way Again, Michael Lister will rock religious walls raw to the nerve. His words may anger or inspire - perhaps, both in the same moment but one thing is for certain, his portrait of Jesus as a man with a true message will not be soon forgotten or overlooked." – River Jordan
It’s not too late to discover the lost gospel of Jesus and begin to live by it, to change our direction, to once again become people of the way. We could, with humility, embody compassion and justice. We could so completely trust God that we dare to share what we have with those in need, love those who hate us, bless those who curse us.
What’s been lost can be found again. Do we dare? Can we hear the call clearly and be so moved we must respond? If we sense that something profound and precious has been lost, we can do something about it. It’s like a treasure that’s been lost, long since buried in a field. All we have to do is go and sell all we have and buy the field.
My goal with this intentionally simple, slim volume (based on scholarship, but not bogged down by notes and references) is to attempt to remove that which has obscured, hidden, and even replaced Jesus and his radical revolution, extricating him from the stiflingly narrow religious context that all but silences him, so his message can reverberate around us, resonate within us.
There is hope. This can happen.
If Jesus teaches us anything, it is that which was once dead can live again, that which was lost can be found.
Michael Lister’s Award-Winning Novel, DOUBLE EXPOSURE, Headed for Big Screen
In association with The Garden, Bruce Dawson, Jason Hreno, and Amy Moore-Benson are excited to announce their option of the exclusive film rights to MICHAEL LISTER's explosive novel DOUBLE EXPOSURE.
Published in September 2009 by Tyrus Books, DOUBLE EXPOSURE is the story of a wildlife photographer who, after unwittingly capturing a murder with his camera traps deep in the swamp of North Florida’s Apalachicola River Basin, must fight and find his way out of the woods with the evidence while being pursued by a dangerous sociopath and his pack of soulless killers.
The novel immediately grabbed the attention of readers and reviewers alike, being described as “A Hitchcockian thriller and spellbinding page-turner” by Booklist, and praised for its “Lyrical, evocative prose, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy‘s 'The Road” by the Panama City News Herald.
The thrilling story has also being championed by bestselling author, Michael Connelly (THE LINCOLN LAWYER), who said, “With elegiac prose, insightful characterization and a wonderfully ingenious plot, Michael Lister has squeezed every ounce of terror and thrills out of a dark night in the woods.”
The novel won a prestigious Florida Book Award in 2010, and was produced as a stage play by Jason Hedden with Gulf Coast Community College.
The author, who Ellerry Queen Magazine called “one of the most individual and talented newer writers on the crime-fiction scene, with vivid style, ready wit, and a marriage of plot and theme,” grew up in North Florida near the Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola River, in a town world famous for tupelo honey.
Truly a regional writer, Lister’s canvas is North Florida’s small towns (THUNDER BEACH), river swamps (DOUBLE EXPOSURE), massive state prisons (THE BODY AND THE BLOOD). In the early 90s, Lister became the youngest chaplain within the Florida Department of Corrections, where he served until he began writing full-time in 2000.
Lister will co-write the script based on his novel with Jason Hreno, who will also direct.
Hreno is a trilingual (English, French and Spanish) Canadian writer-director, who following the international acclaim of his short film WANDERING EYES, began to direct commercials and music videos, and later emerged as a prolific cable feature director. As well as being attached to direct several features, he also has a series in development with The Nightingale Company.
The deal was arranged by Amy Moore-Benson, of AMB Literary Management, a former editor and elite literary agent and manager, who is also serving as the film’s co-producer.
The dark, pulse-pounding, art house thriller aims to go into production in the fall 2011.
John Jordan Comes to Kindle, Nook, and iPad
Pulpwood Press is pleased to announce the release of Michael Lister’s first 3 John Jordan mysteries in eBook formats. POWER IN THE BLOOD, BLOOD OF THE LAMB, and FLESH AND BLOOD are now all available in the most popular eBooks formats (including The Kindle, The Nook, The iPad and others) for just $2.99 each.
THE BODY AND THE BLOOD receives Starred Review
“A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality.”
Publishers Weekly The Body and the Blood: A John Jordan Mystery
Michael Lister, Five Star, $25.95 (330p) ISBN 978-1-59414-893-4
In Lister's superior fourth book featuring cop-turned-prison chaplain John Jordan (after 2006's story collection Flesh and Blood), recovering alcoholic Jordan, who's begun to reconcile with his estranged wife, Susan, meets Susan's father, Tom Daniels, who's inspector general of the Florida Department of Corrections and a fellow recovering alcoholic, at Potter Correctional Institute, where a prisoner charged with raping Daniels's wife is incarcerated. When inmate Justin Menge, a key witness against the accused rapist, is stabbed to death, both Jordan and Daniels can attest that no one entered or left Menge's locked cell, making howdunit crucial to determining whodunit. Moreover, Menge's death came shortly after his sister, Paula, visited him and learned that he was claiming to have been the victim of a frame. Suspects range from inmates and prison staff to Paula, who was her brother's heir.
A plausible resolution concludes this first-rate locked-room mystery.
DOUBLE EXPOSURE Wins Florida Book Award
North Florida Author Michael Lister’s “Double Exposure” won a Bronze Medal for General Fiction in the 2009 Florida Book Awards.
The Florida Book Awards –the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program– was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year.
In his introduction to “Double Exposure,” #1 New York Times Besteslling Author, Michael Connelly, calls the book “Elegiac, like a two-hundred page poem, with words that skip on the waters of the imagination like well-polished stones.”
THE BIG GOODBYE 
Burnt Offerings
The Meaning of 
In association with The Garden, Bruce Dawson, Jason Hreno, and Amy Moore-Benson are excited to announce their option of the exclusive film rights to MICHAEL LISTER's explosive novel DOUBLE EXPOSURE. 
Pulpwood Press is pleased to announce the release of Michael Lister’s first 3 John Jordan mysteries in eBook formats. POWER IN THE BLOOD, BLOOD OF THE LAMB, and FLESH AND BLOOD are now all available in the most popular eBooks formats (including The Kindle, The Nook, The iPad and others) for just $2.99 each. 
“A starred review indicates a book of outstanding quality.” 