https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/vincent-zandri-credit-jessica-painter300.jpg
Photo credit: Jessica Painter
Thrillers / Mysteries / Psychological Suspense
Award-winning author of over 40 thriller novels and novellas
Vincent Zandri is the New York Times bestselling, ITW Thriller Award and Shamus Award-winning author of more than 40 novels and novellas. He has also been a finalist for a Derringer Award for Best Novelette. His domestic publishers include Dell, Delacorte, Thomas & Mercer, Blackstone Audio, Oceanview Publishing, Down & Out, and others. He’s also been translated into Dutch, Japanese, Italian, Russian, French, and more.
Zandri has appeared on the Fox News Network and Bloomberg TV, and been written about in the New York Times, Business Insider, The Columbia Journalism Review, and many other outlets. An avid traveler, adventurer, and freelance foreign correspondent, he created the blog The Vincent Zandri Vox. For more information about Zandri, visit his website.
Read our review of his novel, The Girl Who Wasn’t There.
https://booktrib.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/vincent-zandri-books2.jpg
BOOKS:
Series
The Handyman Series (Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3) (2017-2020)
Chase Baker Thrillers / Chase Baker and the Lost Ark of God / Young Chase Baker Thrillers (2013-2020)
The Tanya Teal Corporate War Chronicles: Primary Termination (2019)
Ava “Spike” Harrison Thrillers: The Concrete Pearl (2019)
Steve Jobz PI Thrillers (2017-2019)
P.I. Jack Marconi Thrillers (1999-2019)
Sam Savage Sky Marshall Thrillers (2018)
Dick Moonlight P.I. Thrillers / Moonlight Mafia / Moonlight Breaks Bad (2009-2017)
The Rebecca Underhill Series: The Remains (2012) The Ashes (2014)
Standalones
Paradox Lake (2021)
The Girl Who Wasn’t There (2020)
The Caretaker’s Wife (2019)
The Detonator (2018)
When Shadows Come (2016)
Orchard Grove (2016)
Everything Burns (2015)
Scream Catcher (2011)
As Catch Can (1999)
Permanence: A Novella (1996)
Five Easy Pieces (1992)
For a full list of published works, please visit Zandri’s website.
Biggest literary influences:
Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, the Bible, James Crumley, Jim Harrison, Hunter Thompson, Amy Hempel, Robert B. Parker, Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Charlie Houston, Max Frisch, Don Winslow, Joe Lansdale, Harlan Coben, Todd Robinson, Les Edgerton, Patricia Abbot, Eric Beetner, and more…
Last book read:
The Cost of Doing Business by Jonathan Ashley
The book that changed your life:
Hemingway’s In Our Time: His first collection of short stories and vignettes. They make you feel like you lived the experience you were reading on the page. They inspired me to give up a multimillion-dollar-a-year commercial construction business and become a writer. His short, tight, almost explosive sentences knocked me on my back like a swift right hook to the temple. I had no idea how to write, other than what I did in college, and that didn’t count for much, so I read that book again and again, dissected it, tried to copy its rhythm, and eventually attempted to write my own first stories. They were terrible of course, but eventually I got the hang of it.
Favorite literary character:
In terms of character, I love the Hemingway adventurer — the drinker, the traveler, the most interesting man in the room and the world.
Hunter Thompson was just plain crazy and fun, and he spoke for several generations of college students with his drinking, drug-taking, not to mention his fear and loathing in the universe.
Norman Mailer is also a favorite character since we’re so much alike. Physically we’re on the stocky, shorter end of the spectrum, and therefore your sense of fight or flight is more much heightened when confronted with a potential enemy, and I think that’s reflected in our works of fiction. Like me, he was the child of immigrants (my grandparents were from Italy, Poland and Austria) and he was a New Yorker through and through, despite its many faults and its politics, which are horrible. He also challenged himself with each new book and wasn’t afraid of who he pissed off with his opinions.
Also Hank Thompson from Charlie Houston’s Hank Thompson trilogy. He’s a fuck-up, but also a survivor. That kind of thread runs throughout my series books. Survival is something that is paramount in my standalone psychological suspense novels like The Girl Who Wasn’t There, The Remains, The Ashes and Paradox Lake.
Currently working on:
Presently I have just finished my biggest standalone book ever, American Crimes. I’ve also finished a new thriller, Her Darkest Secret. Down & Out books is not only reissuing all the Dick Moonlight PI novels in 2021, they’re publishing the latest in the crime saga, Moonlight Kills. I have a new Young Chase Baker that needs editing, also a new Jack Marconi PI novel and a New Steve Jobz PI novel called The Plumber. I’m also working on the first draft of Kidnap and Ransom, a new thriller series my agent Chip McGregor came up with. A few days ago, Sam Raimi’s Production people in Hollywood inquired about my writing some screenplays based on five of my novels, so that’s a very real possibility too.
Words to live by:
Actually, these are words to die by, since they were written by an old woman on her deathbed, but I think about them every day. “I was born, I blinked, and it was over.” So make your life count. Do what makes you happy no matter who tries to rain on your parade, even if they are blood. Live simply, buy Bitcoin, and travel the world to experience how people live and survive in other countries.
Advice for aspiring authors:
Read what you love, love what you write.
“There’s nothing to writing. You just sit at your typewriter and bleed.” —Ernest Hemingway
Articles/Reviews
Industry Commentary:
- “Amazon Locked in Revenue Battle with Publisher,” Fox News
- “An Author Who Makes Good Money Publishing With Amazon Isn’t Cheering On Its Industry Takeover,” Business Insider
- “Amazon, a Friendly Giant as Long as It’s Fed,” New York Times
Reviews and Interviews:
- Publishers Weekly review of Orchard Grove
- Book Reporter review of Orchard Grove
- Publishers Weekly review of The Detonator
- Publishers Weekly review of The Caretaker’s Wife
- The Big Thrill interview on The Girl Who Wasn’t There
Testimonials
“Sensational … masterful … brilliant.” —New York Post
“Vincent Zandri hails from the future.” —New York Times
“The story of Vincent Zandri is the story of our times.” —Business Insider
