Dennis Palumbo Books In Order

Publication Order of Daniel Rinaldi Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Dennis Palumbo is a licensed psychotherapist and bestselling author of thriller and mystery fiction novels. As a psychotherapist, he is a specialist in helping practitioners and especially writers having creative problems.

He made his debut with the publishing of “City Wars,” the single-standing novel that came out in 1979. He now has more than half a dozen works of fiction to his name with his most popular being the “Daniel Rinaldi” mystery series.

Before Palumbo became a fiction author, he used to be a reputable screenwriter in Hollywood. In fact, he is credited with writing “My Favorite Year,” which would then be nominated for Best Screenplay at the WGA Awards. He was also a staff writer for Welcome Back, Kotter the ABC TV series in addition to numerous pilots and episodes.

“City Wars” his debut novel is set to be made into a feature film while his short fiction works have been featured in the likes of “The Strand,” and “Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine” among several other places.
Palumbo also writes reviews and articles for “The Lancet,” “The Los Angeles Times,” “NPR,” “Psychology Today,” and “The New York Times.” A graduate of Pepperdine University and the University of Pittsburgh, he was named Outstanding Teacher of the Year when he served at UCLA Extension as a professor.

Palumbo was having a successful career as a screenwriter and making gobs of money when he decided to quit and become a therapist. While he was working on a Robert Redford film in Nepal, he would have what he usually describes as a “Razor’s Edge” experience.
He went back home to the United States where he began seeing a therapist and soon after, he also began taking psychology studies.

Initially, he never intended to become a therapist but ultimately, he started thinking that it was not a bad thing to have a psychology master’s degree. As part of his training, he worked with several schizophrenics which provided valuable experience.
His inspiration to write came when he was meeting a movie producer who needed a script. It was at that meeting that his mind drifted to some of his patients and he had some profound insight. This was his Damascene moment when he started thinking he did not want to do screenwriting anymore.

Twenty-eight years later, he is working as a psychotherapist in private practice. Dennis Palumbo is a specialist in creative issues even though he never completely stopped writing. Nonetheless, he only writes what he loves as she spends most of his time working with clients and writes his fiction during his lunch hour.

Dennis Palumbo remembers always loving to write even when he was in his teenage years. During this time, he used to love writing short stories, even though he also penned articles for the school paper in Pittsburgh.

In college, he dreamed of becoming a novelist but he would gravitate toward film and television when he spent a few years penning TV commercials while working for an advertising agency. Soon after, he packed up his stuff and moved to Holywood to make his fortune.
He was very lucky with his first break as he had just begun writing jokes for Gabe Kaplan the TV star and comedian. The man was then doing standup while on a short hiatus from “Welcome Back, Kotter,” the TV series.

By this time, Palumbo was trying to get into the writing of TV series alongside Mark Evanier his partner at the time. They would eventually get hired as staff writers for Kotter since Palumbo was known to Gabe from his time working for him on the road.
When Dennis retired from screenwriting and got into psychotherapy, he never expected it would lead to him becoming a fiction author. Ultimately, he drew on his experiences working as a therapist to pen the novel “Mirror Image” that would spawn the “Daniel Rinaldi” Mystery series.

“Mirror Image” by Dennis Palumbo introduces psychologist Daniel Rinaldi who is a consultant with the Pittsburgh Police. He specializes in treating violent crime victims including college student Kevin Merrick who had been violently attacked.
He is a troubled and fragile kid that has always been desperately seeking a sense of identity and a role model. He has recently started dressing like his psychotherapist Rinaldi, mirroring his appearance and acting like him.

Before Daniel can get a chance to work through the many issues his client has, Kevin is discovered brutally killed. The police and the psychotherapist are stunned by the homicide and believe that Daniel was the intended target.
Shortly thereafter, the killer begins leaving death threats for the psychotherapist. Feeling guilty, Rinaldi vows to find the killer and his quest takes him through a labyrinth of colleagues and friends any of whom could have been the culprit.
It also includes an affair with a free-spirited and beautiful assistant district attorney who also has some secrets of her own.

When Kevin is discovered to be the estranged son of a man who runs a massive biotech company, the story becomes headline news across the nation. Things only get more complicated when another body is discovered in eerie circumstances.

Dennis Palumbo’s novel “Fever Dream” opens with Daniel Rinaldi the Pittsburgh trauma expert and psychologist battling a sweltering heat wave. It is a year since he helped to resolve a mysterious murder and now has to work on another similarly baffling case.
There had been a daring bank robbery in town that went horribly wrong and resulted in the death of all hostages except for one. Daniel the psychotherapist is called in to question the traumatized Treva Williams who is the young woman that survived.

What had initially seemed like a simple robbery soon turns into an explosive series of events that plunges Detective Eleanor Lowrey and Sergeant Harry Polk the investigating officers in addition to Rinaldi into a vortex of kidnapping and mistaken identity.
In the meantime, Eleanor and Rinaldi are brought together by the demands of the homicide case and they have to deal with growing feelings between them. There is also the governorship campaign by Leland Sinclair the District Attorney and former romantic rival to Rinaldi.
There is all manner of plot twists as a frenzy of political maneuverings and accusations gathers steam.

“Night Terrors” by Dennis Palumbo is the third novel of the “Daniel Rinaldi” series of novels. The work is set in Pittsburgh in the mids of a cold and brutal winter where our favorite psychotherapist and trauma expert is asked to treat Lyle Barnes.
The man is a former profiler for the FBI that has been having terrifying visions that cause him to wake up in terror. Barnes had spent more than two decades working inside the minds of some of the most brutal serial killers in the US and it is understandable that he is falling apart.

He is also being targeted by some unknown assassin who has been paralyzing the city with his kills. His former colleagues at the bureau hide him for his own protection but he runs away and Daniel has to work with a joint task force of the Bureau to try to find him. They desperately need to find him before the killer gets to him.