April Smith Books In Order

Publication Order of Ana Grey Books

Publication Order of Canine Capers Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Books for Teachers Books

April Smith is an American author, producer, and television writer best known for the historical fiction thrillers, the Ana Grey series. Smith was born in the Bronx, New York and went to the Bronx High School of Science, graduating in 1967. She later earned a bachelor of science degree from Boston University as an English major. Not one to be satisfied with an undergraduate degree, she went to Stanford University, from where she graduated with a Master’s Degree in Creative writing. Despite all her study and qualifications, the first novel she wrote while she was back in Cambridge was a total failure. She decided to try the 9 to 5 and got a job writing ad copy for a Los Angeles company, before she graduated to writing and producing for TV in 1976. She still had the desire to be a writer but it was not until the 1988 writer’s strike that she started writing her first successful novel, North of Montana. She is a well-travelled writer that has been to nearly every location in her novels from the Meuse-Argonne in France, Siena in Italy, to the Dominican Republic. During her travels, she wanders, talks to people and takes pictures that she then incorporates into her novels. While she does not specifically travel to research the novels given that most of these are family vacations, the big picture she gets sets the tone for her writing in later years. She lives in Santa Monica California with her fabulous family of two children and a husband of 34 years. When she is not writing her novels or traveling, she loves yakking with her girlfriends, hiking, writing, swimming, playing with pet pooches, cooking chocolate chip cookies, and watching a British TV series while sipping on a grapefruit Martini.

April Smith is a woman of many talents and writes novels in both the historical fiction and suspense fiction genres with ease. April has written the Ana Grey series of suspense thrillers, and a standalone thriller about a woman who works as a baseball scout. She is also a celebrated scriptwriter and producer of several TV series and movies. Her historical fictions such as Home Sweet Home and A Star for Mrs. Blake have received much critical acclaim for tackling serious socio historical themes. Some themes of the 1950s such as the murderous witch-hunts in South Dakota and the Gold Star pilgrimages that mothers of the fallen soldiers of World War I undertook in the 1930s strike an emotional chord with many readers. April Smith is also known for the suspense novels featuring special FBI agent Ana Grey, who works the Robbery Squad of the Los Angeles field office. The Ana Grey crime thrillers that are characterized by highly detailed descriptions, unflagging pace, and an appealing heroine. In what can only be described a literate and unrelenting prose, Smith writes a series full of characters and storylines that are full of depth in the diverse Californian settings of the novels. In addition to these novels, April published a standalone thriller novel in 2000 and two young adult fiction novels that are derived from the popular British TV series, James at 15.

Throughout the 1970s and through to the 2000s, Smith has been active as a producer, executive story editor, and writer of several popular television series such as Chicago Hope, Cagney and Lacey, and Lou Grant among others. Some of her most notable adaptations were Dreamscapes & Nightmares, which are derived from Stephen King novels. She has also written screenplays for several movies made for TV such as the adaptation of Anna Quindlen’s title Black and Blue in 1999, and the The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in 1998, that went on to receive much critical acclaim. Her screenplay for the 1984 novel, Between the Laughter by Ernie kovacs was so good that she made the shortlist for an Emmy Award. With regard to her own novels, she collaborated with TNT in 2011, to write the movie adaptation of Good Morning Killer for the Mystery Movie Night series.

In April Smith’s Debut novel, North of Montana, Ana Gray an ambitious and young special agent with the FBI is made the lead on a high-profile case involving a washed out movie star Jayne Mason, and a well-known doctor believed to be supplying illegal drugs to her. Ana’s professional and personal life collide she discovers that a woman recently found murdered, had been in the employ of the doctor, and is a distant cousin of hers. Before long she comes to the conclusion that to her bosses, the Jayne Mason case was a politically charged one that could explode at any time. With pressure building on Gray to resolve the case, Ana and Mike Donnato her partner and married man, become too close for comfort. It seems that it will be a struggle to prevent the case from becoming a part of her world and psyche. However, the more she struggles, the more it brings out her family’s and her own long hidden past, that is in total conflict with her present circumstances.

In Good Morning Killer, the first novel of the Ana Grey series, FBI Special agent Ana Grey is working to find Juliana, a fifteen-year-old girl who is apparently the victim of a kidnap ring in Santa Monica, California. Gray works with Detective Berringer, a veteran of the Santa Monica Police Department. Ana’s job is to research the victim until she knows her like she is her own kin. But what will happen to Ana when they finally find Juliana who is in a total state of trauma and paralyzing terror. Will Ana be able to hold back her own emotions, particularly when she has essentially taken Juliana’s shredded emotional state and made them her own. Things get even worse, when in a moment of panic and passion she shots her partner, who she believes has betrayed her. Posting bail for her assault against Berringer, she comes out to find that she now has to track the abductor alone, while fighting the overwhelming emotional connection she has with Juliana. Nevertheless, even as her common sense continues to fray, she is unable to put a lid on the truths she knows about herself and her partner Andrew.