Aaron Philip Clark Books In Order

Publication Order of Paul Little Books

Publication Order of Trevor Finnegan Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Aaron Philip Clark is a mystery fiction author from Los Angeles who also doubles up as a screenwriter. He loves to describe himself as a son of the city given that he often goes on expeditions to explore the many facets of life in Los Angeles.

Clark made his debut as a fiction author when he wrote “The Science Of Paul” in 2011. He has never looked back since and now has more than eight titles to his name and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon. However, he has not always been an author as he began purely as a screenwriter writing for contests.
He would then go freelance as he worked on several scripts that he would rework into independent films. He is now both a screenwriter and fiction author even as he does love teaching creative writing.

Whenever he works on a script, you can usually find that it is an adaptation of a genre like horror or science fiction or one of his novels. For some reason, he loves writing horror scripts but has not yet been able to write any horror novels.

Philip Clark first discovered his love for writing when as a kid he attended summer camp where he wrote a story. He would spend the summer adding illustrations and chapters to his story and can still remember snippets of the plot and some of the characters.

The first book he ever read which inspired him to become an author was “Incognito Mosquito” that he read while he was in the third grade. It told the story of a mosquito that happens to be a private investigator. It is a clever and fun tale that uses many of the familiar tropes you can find in children friendly private detective fiction.

Another novel that had a huge influence on the young author was “Life & Times of Michael K” by JM Coetzee which he believes is an eloquently written and incredibly layered novel. One of the major themes in the work is the power of the human spirit, which is something that has always resonated with him.

Aaron Philip Clark was once upon a time a recruit for the LAPD and was determined to become a police officer until he got injured three months before his graduation.

While the training consumed his entire life, he was a keen observer of the people around him and was fascinated by his fellow recruits, examiners, training officers, and background investigators.

Most of the recruits in his class told of reasons for joining that he found interesting. Some had joined because they experienced trauma and believed being a bully with a gun would be something of a salve on their wounds. He also watched the many changes in his fellow recruits as he took on the language of his trainers.

The first time his class got a brutal reprimand was when the instructor said they were acting too much like individuals rather than components of the most revered police department in the world. It was the idea of law enforcement and that individualism had no part in it that inspired him to start writing novels.

“Under Color of Law” by Aaron Philip Clark tells the story of the killing of a police recruit. Assigned to the case, an LAPD detective finds himself in an intricate web of cover ups, race, violence and corruption.

Trevor Finn is still a rookie detective that is hoping to one day become a high ranking police officer in Los Angeles so that he can fix the mess in the higher echelons. It is not long before he is on the fast track promotion route as he joins the Robbery Homicide Division, which is a highly coveted post that draws him closer to his objective.

Several years later, the headlines are full of headlines demanding accountability from the LAPD as protests for racial justice are held all over the city. Finn is tasked with investigating the death of an academy recruit whose body was found in the Angeles National Forest.

There is a lot of pressure on the police to solve the crime and the detective scours the underbelly of the volatile city where race, violence and power intersect. But it is his experience working as a beat cop that would stand him in good stead when trying to resolve the murder of the academy recruit.

Aaron Philip Clark’s “The Science of Paul” is an unconventional work that is nothing like your usual hard boiled crime fiction novel.
The tale is about Paul Little, a former convict living in Philadelphia who is trying to find redemption from his past. He acknowledges that he has made mistakes in the past and wants to live a different life. But it has been hard adjusting to life in Philadelphia, the city that molded him into what he is today.
When there is a possibility of getting out of it all, he takes it and in the process falls back into known and comfortable ways that destroy the only meaningful relationship he ever had.

The novel is a combination of a morality tale and a social commentary as Paul’s life asserts that most people are a product of their social environments. In his world, he cannot escape the violent street culture which has become a part of who he is.

But it is his realization of this that makes it possible that he could take a look at his life and perhaps try to find redemption. Paul does not accept a life of crime as his fate and he also does not make excuses for being himself.

“A Healthy Fear of Man” is unlike any of Aaron Philip Clark’s novels that tells the story of Paul Little.
The conservative Christian is facing bankruptcy following the demise of big tobacco and an economic downturn. Out on the farm that once used to belong to his deceased grandfather he does not know what to do next.

One day out for a walk, he meets Gilly Catlett, a precocious girl that harbors a dark secret, and Bo, his father’s old friend and ex-sheriff. Gilly promises to come visit him and one day interrupts him asking for company and to fish in his pond.

They form an unlikely friendship until the woman is found killed by strangulation and dumped in the pond and he is the number one suspect in the murder. It does seem as if he has been framed and with Pharris County known for its injustice, corruption and wrongful convictions, things do not look good.