After a near decade of silence, Edgar and Hammett award winning novelist Domenic Stansberry returns to the mystery scene with a chilling new noir: The Lizard.
In 2016, six years after the conclusion of his acclaimed North Beach Series, Stansberry returned to win the Hammett Prize with The White Devil. Now he comes with The Lizard -part political thriller, part expressionist nightmare-a timely contemporary tale of betrayal, murder and violent transformation, dark stuff laced with the author's signature black humor.
The main character, S.E. Reynolds, is a former investigative reporter now working as a political ghostwriter. He is thrust into the center of a conspiracy investigation after an illicit romance turns deadly. His efforts to untangle himself only entangle him deeper, drawing the attention of government agents with their own agenda.
An unlikely hero, candidly amoral, shunning idealism, Reynolds works for candidates at either side of the political spectrum. At the same time, he possesses a deep if complicated love for family: his beautiful, unknowable wife; his aging parents; his children.
The Lizard is the story of man trapped between a relentless security apparatus and a personal reckoning from which there is no apparent escape. As the tale unfolds ,the differences between the outer world and the inner inexorably dissolve, leading to psychic and physical transformation at once unimaginable and inevitable.
The Lizard is forthcoming from Molotov Editions with a release date of May 15. 2025. Two earlier novels, The White Devil and The Confession, winners of Hammett and Edgar Awards, will be re-released at the same time, also from Molotov.
Industry Reviews
A compelling noir that shades into the abstract and strange in wonderful and unexpected ways. Kind of like what you might get if you crossed Jim Thompson's The Getaway with a 70s paranoid political thriller, and then injected both with a crazed 21st century grinning haplessness. Brian Evenson, Shirley Jackson Award Winner on THE LIZARD
Edgar-Winner Stansberry takes the reader on a wild ride in this exceptional noir. Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) on THE WHITE DEVIL
A glittering noir triumph.... recounted in a delirious, shimmeringly erotic flow, The White Devil is a possessed, fever dream of a book, an unwise third cocktail that proves impossible to resist. The Irish Times
In the literary tradition of The Killer Inside Me, and every bit as powerful ... Stansberry is an extraordinarily evocative writer. George Pelecanos,writer/producer The Wire on THE CONFESSION
A neo classic among pulp fiction fans. January Magazine on THE CONFESSION
For THE NORTH BEACH MYSTERY SERIES. (Edgar and Shamus nominee, also on Booklist's top 100 crime reads of decade)
Suspense.... Illicit Passion... Murder... Stansberry does it with originality, through the freshness of his imagery and the lyricism of his lament for times that change, neighborhoods that grow old and people who can never find their way home. New York Times
Brilliantly imagined ... packs an emotional wallop genre fiction rarely delivers. Kirkus (Starred Review)
Compelling ... Equal parts contemporary crime fiction and dark, existential poetry. Publishers Weekly
