George Dawes Green Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

George Dawes Green
George Dawes Green is a New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Moth. He grew up in Georgia and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

“The Caveman’s Valentine” was adapted into a movie that starred Samuel L. Jackson, and won an Edgar Award. “The Juror” was adapted into a movie that starred Demi Moore and Alec Baldwin and was published in over 20 languages. “Ravens” was selected as one of the best books of the year by the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications.

“The Caveman’s Valentine” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 1994. Romulus Ledbetter was not always homeless. At one time he was a devoted husband, dad, and musician with a bright future. He now forages for his food out of the trashcans of the city’s better neighborhoods and wages this strenuous one-man war against Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, who is an evil, and imaginary, power broker that is responsible for society’s ills, and the sinister Y-and Z-rays which are corrupting humankind.

Then this one wintry night, Rom discovers this corpse at the mouth of this cave which rouses his well-defined sense of ethics and it sends him off on this obsessive quest to find answers. Forced to reconnect with society, he leaves his world and he journeys through this spiraling web of hunches and clues, right into a sinister den of temptation, money, and murder, which is otherwise known as the “civilized” world.

This is a top notch mystery thriller populated by these well drawn, quirky, and interesting characters, none more than the protagonist, Romulus Ledbetter. And when he gets involved in a murder investigation, the novel takes off into all sorts of strange directions.

“The Juror” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 1995. Annie Laird is Juror 224. She’s a single mom that struggles to raise a son. A sculptor with a career that’s going nowhere. Just a good citizen that has been summoned to what looks merely like a routine tour of civic duty. However the trial that she’s called to serve on is no ordinary trial. This is a mob trial, whose outcome has been meticulously orchestrated by a man of deadly precision and insidious power.

He’s a man that lives by the teachings of Lao Tsu, whose mind is just as brilliant as it is twisted and whose magnetism is irresistible. He’s known to some people as the Teacher, and he has set his sights on Annie Laird.

Thrust into the most chilling depths of the criminal underworld, Annie’s going to be seduced by double-edged promises, stalked by the spector of horror, and then, at last, driven to a shocking choice by the most basic motivation that a woman can know.

This is a tour de force of obsession and crime, evil and innocence. It’s a story that taps into fears that are so primal that they linger well after the final page has been turned.

“Ravens” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2009. The Boatwrights just won $318 million in the Georgia State lottery. This is going to be the worst day of their lives.

When Romeo Zderko and Shaw McBride pull up at this convenience store off of I-95 in Georgia, their one and only thought is to fix their leaky tire and get on their way to Florida-away from their dull Ohio tech-support jobs. However this happens to be the store that a $318 million Jackpot ticket has just been sold from, and when a pretty clerk accidentally reveals to Shaw who the winning family is, he hatches this ferociously audacious scheme: He and Romeo are going to squeeze the family out of half their prize.

That same night, he visits the home of the Boatwrights and takes the family hostage, as Romeo patrols the nearby streets, ready to kill the Boatwrights’ loved ones at any sign of resistance. At first, the family doesn’t offer any. However Shaw’s plan depends on maintaining constant fear-unfaltering and merciless horror. And before too long, under all this pressure, everybody’s sanity starts unraveling.

At once comic, frightening, and comic, “Ravens” is this wholly original and fully compelling novel from one of our most talented authors. It is a long-awaited, “fast paced, psycho-comedic thrill-ride” from the “master storyteller” that also delivered such hits as “The Caveman’s Valentine” and “The Juror”.

“The Kingdoms of Savannah” is the fourth stand alone novel and was released in 2022. Savannah might appear to be “some town right out of a fable”, with its turreted mansions, vine flowers, and ghost tours which romanticize the history of the city. Yet just look a bit deeper and you will find secrets, present and past, which tell a much more sinister story. It is the story at the core of this chilling new novel from George Dawes Green.

It starts peacefully on a balmy Southern night while some locals gather at one of the town’s beloved watering holes, Bo Peep’s. Within just an hour a man’s going to be murdered and his companion is going to be “disappeared”. Morgana Musgrove, an unlikely detective and doyenne of Savannah society, gets called upon to unravel the mystery of such crimes. Morgana’s a demanding, imperious, and conniving woman, whose four grown kids have long grown weary of all her schemes.

However one by one she inveigles each of them into helping with her investigation, and pretty soon the family uncovers some horrifying truths, and these are truths which will rock Savannah’s power structure right to its core.

Moving from the various homeless encampments which ring the city to the more stately homes belonging to Savannah’s elite, this novel brilliantly depicts an underbelly of this city with a dark history and the oddly mesmerizing dysfunction of one complex family.

Green leans all the way into Southern Gothic, however the main grotesquerie is the town’s history, which is built on the backs of the enslaved people. Green’s prose is languid, even luxurious at times, however at crucial moments of suspense, he pares it back to ramp up the horror.