Writers Born Today - Joel Goldman

It's the birthday of Joel Goldman, born October 23, 1952 in Kansas City.  He began his career as a lawyer, but switched to another life of crime; a writer of legal thrillers.

While joking around with another attorney in his firm, Joel suggested the best way to handle a difficult colleague was to write a mystery and kill him off. It was a good joke, but it got Joel to thinking. The result was his first thriller, Motion To Kill, published in 2002. Publisher's Weekly said it was filled with  high tension and had an electrifying finish. Four more thrillers followed featuring his smart and sassy protagonist Lou Mason, including Deadlocked, which Mystery Scene Magazine called "a real page turner delivered by a pro." It seemed that Goldman could do no wrong. Then unexpected health problems ended his legal career. Rather than dwell on the matter, Goldman turned to writing full time and created a new hero, FBI Special Agent Jack Davis, and gave his hero the same health issues that plagued him  as a way to deal with the change in his life.

Not content to just write crime fiction, Joel got into the publishing business with a new company he started with fellow crime writer Lee Goldberg. They started Brash Books in 2014 with the ambitious goal of publishing "the best crime novels in existence". At first they focused on top notch authors whose works had gone out of print, and even went so far as to hire a private detective to track down one missing writer who they wanted to publish! Since the company started they have published dozens of award winning authors and over 80 novels.

"Ask yourself the question I ask myself each time I start writing a new mystery – what happens when things go wrong, especially when you think no one’s looking?"

- Joel Goldman

Brash Books - The new publishing kid on the block

There are a lot of good mystery and crime fiction novels that have fallen out of print over the past thirty years. Writers like Jack Lynch, W. L. Ripley, and Carolyn Weston (whose police procedurals were turned into the hit TV show The Streets Of San Francisco) were hard to find. You could wander the shelves of your local library hoping to get lucky or check out the second-hand bookstore in your town (assuming you have one).

No more. Brash Books, the creation of Lee Goldberg and Joel Goldman, is now publishing, as they put it, "the best crime novels in existence". That's a pretty bold claim. But I think they can back it up. Check out their author page, where you can find out more about their award winning writers. 

No more searching for that great book you heard about which is out of print. Brash Books is doing the legwork for you, pounding the streets and hunting down these lost but not forgotten writers. One author who was rediscovered and now is seeing his books back in print asked Joel how they managed to track him down. Brash Books did it with a private investigator! That's pretty brash..for a publisher.

Joel Goldman spoke to Sisters In Crime at our Border Chapter about Brash Books and how the company got it's start. It's a fascinating story...one of many. Check it out.