PAUL LEVINE worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. Obviously, he cannot hold a job. Paul claims that writing fiction comes naturally: he told whoppers for many years in his legal briefs. His books have been translated into 23 languages, none of which he can read.
He has won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and has been nominated for an Edgar, a Macavity, the International Thriller Writers Award, and the James Thurber Humor Prize.
What's new? Now on Amazon Kindle: The 20th Anniversary edition of "To Speak for the Dead," the first of the bestselling Jake Lassiter novels. All author proceeds of "To Speak for the Dead" (£2.15) are pledged to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports cancer treatment and research at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital.
Writing in USA TODAY, Larry King called the Lassiter series, "Mystery writing at its very, very best." All the books are now on Kindle:
To Speak for the Dead
Night Vision
False Dawn
Mortal Sin
Riptide
Fool Me Twice
Flesh & Bones
"Night Vision" (£2.15) is set partially in London. Enlisted as a Special Prosecutor, Lassiter finds himself on the trail of a psychopath from the mean streets of Miami to an insane asylum in London and the very streets where Jack the Ripper once stalked his prey.
A professional football player turned hard-nosed lawyer, Lassiter has been described by Booklist as "one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction."
Also now available on Kindle: "Impact," a legal thriller set at the United States Supreme Court; "Ballistic," in which a fundamentalist religious cult takes over a nuclear missile silo; and "The Road to Hell," a collection of four short stories.
Paul's other work includes the critically acclaimed "Solomon and Lord" series for Random House, featuring mismatched Miami lawyers Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord:
Solomon vs. Lord
The Deep Blue Alibi
Kill All the Lawyers
Trial & Error
"Fans of Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry will enjoy this humorous Florida crime romp," Publishers Weekly wrote of "Solomon vs. Lord."
Paul also wrote "Illegal," a thriller set on the Mexican border, now available on Kindle. His next novel will be "Lassiter," due in hardcover from Bantam in September 2011.
Paul wrote 20 episodes of the TV series JAG, which gave him an opportunity to steer a nuclear submarine and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier, all without endangering national security. He is a graduate of Penn State University where he majored in journalism and the University of Miami Law School where he majored in the swimming pool. He passed the Florida Bar exam in his first try in what he suspects was a computer glitch.
He was a trial lawyer with the mammoth international law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, where he did not even pretend to know all his partners' names. He specialized in "complex litigation," cases so abstruse that even lawyers charging 500 bucks an hour didn't fully understand them. He tried hundreds of cases and handled appeals at every level, including the Supreme Court. Along the way, he filed expense accounts nearly as creative as his legal briefs.
Paul says he enjoys writing more than lawyering because he no longer keeps time sheets and gets to work in his underwear. He lives in the hills of Southern California, which he claims are populated by rattlesnakes and coyotes, and those are just the Hollywood agents.
More info at http:www.paul-levine.com
