Elizabeth Zelvin Books In Order

Publication Order of Bruce Kohler Books

Publication Order of Strangers Books

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Elizabeth Zelvin is an Agatha and Derringer Award nominated bestselling author known for writing historical fiction, paranormal, and mystery novels. She is particularly famous for writing the Bruce Kohler mystery series. In addition to being an author, Zelvin is also a well known psychotherapist from New York City. Throughout her literary career, author Zelvin has been nominated for the Agatha Award for a total of 3 times and the Derringer Award on two occasions in the category of the Best Short Story. In the historical fiction genre, Zelvin’s novels, Journey of Strangers and Voyage of Strangers are quite popular. The stories written by Zelvin have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Murder New York Style, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mysterical-E, Guppies Anthology series, etc. One of author Zelvin’s stories has been included in the list of Best American Mystery Stories of 2014 by Otto Penzler. Author Zelvin has an original songs’ CD called Outrageous Older Women. As of now, she is working on the development of her third historical book titled Kingdom of Strangers. Author Zelvin has been a writer all through her life. She graduated magna cum laude from the Brandeis University and then devoted two years of her life working as a volunteer for the Peace Corps in Cote D’Ivoire, West Africa. After returning from there, Zelvin started taking editing jobs. At the same time, she had started publishing her poems in various journals. In 1983, author Zelvin won a CAPS award for her poetry from the NYSC. Following this, Zelvin went back to school to earn her master’s degree in the subject of social work. This was followed by directing programs of alcohol treatment and maintaining a private practice with the profession of psychotherapy.

Author Zelvin has lectured and wrote widely on codependency, addictions, relationships, and dysfunctional families. In the year 2001, Zelvin launched an online website for therapy. She is known to have worked with numerous clients all across the globe via emails and chat. Zelvin has even trained fellow therapists in clinical skills. She has coedited a book based on addictions and gender. The articles written by her have made appearances in professional journals in the UK as well as in the US. Author Zelvin is credited to have contributed an excellent textbook for online counselling and also a bestselling book based on clinical work for the treatment of substance abusers. During the initial days of her career, author Zelvin was involved in blogging. She used to write blogs on a weekly basis on Poe’s Deadly Daughters. She continued with this practice for a period of 7 years. Besides this, author Zelvin can also be found on various social networking platforms like Amazon and Facebook. She also has a music website in her name. Zelvin was also involved in serving on the boards of the MWA’s New York chapters as well as on that of Sisters in Crime. She remains active with these literary groups even today. As of today, author Zelvin remains busy in managing both her professions of writing and psychotherapy. She considers herself blessed to have gotten the opportunity to fulfill her dream of becoming a writer and being able to serve the society by treating the addicted people to get rid of their addictions.

The Bruce Kohler series written by Elizabeth Zelvin is comprised of 4 books in total, which were released between the years 2008 and 2012. Each and every novel of this series depicts the lead character in the role of Bruce Kohler. He is shown as an alcoholic and addict person living in New York City. The debut novel of this series is entitled ‘Death Will Get You Sober’. It was released by the booksBnimble publication in the year 2008. At the start of the book’s story, it is shown that Bruce wakes up in detox on the day of Christmas on Bowery. He realizes that it is the time to go for a change. But, he thinks that if he remains sober for some time, he will die of boredom. A short while later, several cases come to light in which homeless alcoholic end up dying unexpectedly. Bruce Kohler wants to know the reason behind the sudden deaths and becomes surprised to know that he cares for others. While many of the homeless alcoholics were down & out for several years, his friend Guff was not like that. He was a cynical aristocrat and kept some secrets of his own. When Bruce shows the interest in investigating about Guff’s death, a couple of his old friends come forward to help him. One of them is his best friend named Jimmy, who knows a lot about computers and history, and the second person is Jimmy’s girlfriend named Barbara, who works as a counselor. Barbara works during night shifts at a detox center. She comes across a counselor, who deals in drugs. On the other hand, Bruce tries to keep a track of the activities of Guff’s nephew. As they proceed with the investigation, numerous suspects keep piling up. Finally, the trail leads them to the detox.

The next installment of the mystery series is called ‘Death Will Help You Leave Him’. This book was also published by booksBnimble publishers in 2009. Once again, the plot takes place in New York City and features the primary characters in the form of Bruce Kohler, Barbara, Luz, Jimmy, Laura, etc. At the beginning of the story of the book, it is depicted that Bruce Kohler had been sober and clean for the past 10 months. On a rainy night in autumn, he gets a phone call from Barbara and becomes startled from what she tells him. Barbara tells Bruce that the abusive boyfriend of her sponsee named Luz was found stabbed to death when Luz arrived home. The dead body was lying in the kitchen in Luz’s apartment in East Harlem. Even though Bruce and Jimmy become curious about the case, they decide to leave it by thinking that it might have been a mob hit because of a bad drug deal. However, Barbara is not able to get her mind off the case. Therefore, she convinces Jimmy and Bruce Kohler to investigate the murder. All three of them take a ride through every nook and corner of New York City in order to get clues about the killer. While doing so, Bruce keeps getting calls from his former wife named Laura for help. But thinking that she is now seeing Mac, he does not pay any heed to her pleas. This book depicts the interesting case of mental illness and the subsequent recovery, and mixes it up with a thrilling mystery that keeps the readers intrigued until the very end.