Michael W. Sherer

BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL
Sean Chercover – THE TRINITY GAME (Thomas & Mercer)
Brian Freeman – SPILLED BLOOD (SilverOak)
Lisa Gardner – CATCH ME (Dutton Books)
Gregg Hurwitz – THE SURVIVOR (St. Martin’s Press)
William Landay – DEFENDING JACOB (Delacorte Press)
BEST FIRST NOVEL
Daniel Friedman – DON’T EVER GET OLD (Minotaur Books)
Owen Laukkanen – THE PROFESSIONALS (Putnam Adult)
Chris Pavone – THE EXPATS (Crown)
Matthew Quirk – THE 500 (Reagan Arthur Books)
Michael Sears – BLACK FRIDAYS (Putnam Adult)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Blake Crouch – PINES (Thomas & Mercer)
Sean Doolittle – LAKE COUNTRY (Bantam)
Alison Gaylin – AND SHE WAS (Harper)
Alex Marwood – THE WICKED GIRLS (Penguin Books)
Michael W. Sherer – NIGHT BLIND (Thomas & Mercer)
BEST SHORT STORY
David Edgerley Gates – “The Devil to Pay” (Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine)
Clark Howard – “The Street Ends at the Cemetery” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine)
Dennis Lehane – “The Consumers” (Mulholland Books)
Gordon McEachern – “The History Lesson” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine)
John Rector – “Lost Things” (Thomas & Mercer)
BEST YOUNG ADULT NOVEL
Michelle Gagnon – DON’T TURN AROUND (HarperCollins)
Andrew Klavan – IF WE SURVIVE (Thomas Nelson)
Dan Krokos – FALSE MEMORY (Hyperion Books CH)
Niall Leonard – CRUSHER (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
William Richter – DARK EYES (Razorbill)
BEST E-BOOK ORIGINAL NOVEL
Jon Land – PANDORA’S TEMPLE (Open Road E-riginal)
CJ Lyons – BLIND FAITH (Minotaur Books)
Alexandra Sokoloff – HUNTRESS MOON (Alexandra Sokoloff)
Allen Wyler – DEAD END DEAL (Astor + Blue Editions)
Allen Wyler – DEAD WRONG (Astor + Blue Editions)

Rosa St. Claire at examiner.com has named Night Blind one of the best novels of 2012!

“…a tense, twisty thriller…Terrific!”
—Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

“…the type of story I crave—an impossible to put down thriller. Loved every page of it.”
—Brett Battles, author of SICK and the Jonathan Quinn Thrillers

“Pay attention. You won’t want to miss a word."
—J.T. Ellison, bestselling author of A DEEPER DARKNESS

“…a story in which the layers have layers, rich, complex, and deeply satisfying.”
—Bill Cameron, author of COUNTY LINE

"NIGHT BLIND is a tense, twisty thriller about a wrongfully accused man seeking to clear his name and finding himself in the middle of a gripping mystery with deadly consequences. A tightly paced page-turner that's impossible to put down. Terrific!"
—Allison Brennan, New York Times bestselling author

“Sherer’s NIGHT BLIND is the type of story I crave—a deep mystery wrapped in an impossible to put down thriller. This is a novel that will keep you up late, and force you out of bed early to start reading again. Loved every page of it.”
—Brett Battles, author of SICK and the Jonathan Quinn Thrillers

"NIGHT BLIND is a study in contrasts – both a complex international thriller and a tightly woven wrongfully accused mystery, with storylines that crackle with intensity before they collide in a shower of sparks. Michael Sherer has crafted an original and compelling character in Blake Sanders. Pay attention. You won’t want to miss a word."
—J.T. Ellison, bestselling author of A DEEPER DARKNESS

"In an ingenious, byzantine tale, Michael Sherer has woven multiple threads through history and across continents to link a long hidden secret to a modern day murder. Deftly written and enthralling, NIGHT BLIND succeeds both as a thriller with international scope and as a profoundly personal tale of a man who’s been knocked down more times than he can count but gets right back up again. Sherer masterfully navigates dizzying plot twists and his characters’ frailties with the perfect balance of grit and humanity. NIGHT BLIND is a story in which the layers have layers, rich, complex, and deeply satisfying."
—Bill Cameron, author of COUNTY LINE

An appealing, empathetic lead makes up only in part for a misguided plot in this thriller, set mostly in Seattle, Wash., from Sherer (Death on a Budget and five other Emerson Ward mysteries). Blake Sanders, who lost his reputation after he was accused of embezzling money from a political campaign, now delivers newspapers for a living. One morning on his rounds, Sanders, who lost a close relative to suicide, is at the right place at the right time to stop a woman from jumping off a bridge. Later, Sanders becomes the prime suspect in the stabbing murder of an old woman on his route with whom he was friendly. This crime, committed we learn by another, somehow ties in with a killing carried out by a French intelligence agent in Paris in the opening chapter. The reveal of what’s behind the mayhem will strike many readers as not a good fit with the book’s everyman hero. (Oct.)
—Publisher’s Weekly
Reviewed on: 08/​13/​2012

Night Blind, is the first book in the Blake Sanders thriller series published by Thomas & Mercer as a trade paperback and as a Kindle e-book.

Overcoming a lifetime affliction of ADD, Blake Sanders had it all—great career, beautiful wife and loving son—until the one-time college basketball star’s world was rocked by scandal and his grown son’s suicide. In the space of a few months, he lost his only child, his public affairs job, and his marriage. Now, a year later, he delivers newspapers and washes dishes in a restaurant, able to face the world only at night. Blake figures he’s fallen about as low as he can go.

But an elderly customer on Blake’s paper route is brutally slashed to death in her home, and Blake is charged with murder. In a desperate attempt to prove his innocence, Blake gets caught up in a maelstrom of murder and deceit involving a pre-Civil War secret naval intelligence mission, hundreds of millions of dollars in buried gold and a potential bio-weapon that could cause a worldwide pandemic.

When the only man who can help him is assassinated, Blake finds himself on the run from the cops, a murderer and a shadowy rogue French military intelligence agent. His only hope of staying out of jail is his ex-wife’s law firm. His only hopes of staying alive are his wits and the sudden appearance of a beautiful and mysterious naval intelligence officer. But Blake’s not sure he can trust even them.

Night Blind is a breathless thrill ride on and under the streets of Seattle as one man’s quest for the truth turns to a fight for survival—his own and possibly the world’s.

“The budget may have been tight, but Michael W. Sherer cuts no corners with Death On A Budget. Buy this book. It’s worth every penny.” —Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award-winning co-author of Tower.

There’s nothing like having kids to change your outlook on life. A toddler has Chicago freelance writer Emerson Ward thinking twice about his habit of tilting at windmills and riding a white charger to people’s rescue. It’s no wonder he turns down his friend Brandt’s pleas to find out why a banker they both knew was shotgunned to death in the park near Montrose Harbor.

But when the love of Emerson’s life leaves for Seattle with their daughter to care for her ailing mother, Emerson has no reason to turn down a cry for help from a childhood friend. It means climbing back in the saddle of his old GMC motor home and returning to the small town where he grew up and swore he’d never return to confront old demons, family, friends and foes he hasn’t seen for 25 years.

Soon he’s up to his eyeballs in a high-stakes commercial real estate scam and a decades-old family secret that threaten everything he holds dear. The deeper he digs, the less he likes what he learns, about his old hometown, the people in it, and even himself. When he links the dead banker to the real estate scam and a group of fundamentalist Muslim businessmen raising funds for terrorists, the FBI steps in to let him know he stands to lose even more—his life.

"Think Travis McGee in Chicago with an Alfa Romeo coupe instead of a moored houseboat,” says author Jeremiah Healy (Rescue, Spiral), “and you have a terrific series."

My new stand-alone suspense novel, Island Life, is out now in hardcover from Five Star. Island Life is the story of an ordinary suburban father's race to solve the mystery of what happened to his missing wife before he loses his children, his freedom and possibly his life.

Early reviews are coming in. Check them out.

“Sherer takes a break from his Emerson Ward series with this solid stand-alone … an unrelenting tale of personal calamity that ends on a gratifying note of hope.” —Publishers Weekly

Island Life is a genuine page-turner … a portrait of a family in free fall…” —Adam Woog, Seattle Times

“In a shift from his Emerson Ward mysteries (Death is No Bargain, 2006, etc.), Sherer creates a suspenseful tale of a family stressed by the conflicts murder reveals.” —Kirkus Review

“Beautifully written and richly nuanced, Island Life by Michael W. Sherer transcends the usual suspense tale. No one will be able to resist rooting for Jack Holm as he fights for his son, his daughter, and ultimately his own soul when his wife is found dead and he's arrested for the crime. Full of insider details and psychological insight, this taut tale takes the reader into the darkest recesses of the human heart. Sherer is an artist, and his work is powerful.” —Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Spymaster

“Island Life is a terrific novel of a tortured husband doing his best to deal with a missing wife and his therefore motherless children. Michael W. Sherer is a seasoned pro who adopts a fascinating narrative voice: While the plot is developed through the first-person voice of Jack Holm, the reader is provided back-story through short prelude scenes of Jack with his psychotherapist, trying to work through why his wife might have left her family. A truly different and fascinating story.” —Jeremiah Healy, author of Turnabout and The Only Good Lawyer

Within a week or two of first appearing on amazon.com, the short story A Primer On Death featuring Emerson Ward topped the site's "Amazon Shorts" bestseller list.

Amazon Shorts are short fiction and nonfiction pieces that you can download for only 49 cents! Check it out by clicking the amazon.com link on the right. Or click here on Amazon Shorts.

On the page devoted to each Emerson Ward mystery (click on title at right) is an exciting preview from the book. For a complete chapter, send me an e-mail, and I'll return a Word file of the opening chapter for that book. When I get more sophisticated, I'll make samples available in .pdf format for Adobe Acrobat Reader. (Give me a little time and I may get the hang of this web stuff yet.)