James O. Born Books In Order

Publication Order of Bill Tasker Books

Publication Order of Alex Duarte Books

Publication Order of Michael Bennett Books

Publication Order of Tom Moon Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Bookshots: Mitchum Books

Publication Order of Bookshots: Michael Bennett Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

James O. Born is a renowned American author of mystery and thriller stories. He is a former law enforcement officer and uses his years of experience in the field to add realistic dialogue and details to his crime thriller stories. Born has written several intriguing book series in his career, including the Bill Tasker series, Michael Bennett series, Alex Duarte series, and Tom Moon series. To write the Michael Bennett and Tom Moon books, he collaborated with author James Patterson. Additionally, he has written a couple of single books in collaboration with Lou Dobbs and another independent standalone book. Also, Born has contributed to two of the original novel series of James Patterson. He has even penned a few of his books under the pseudonym of James O’Neal. Author Born made his debut in 2004 with the novel Walking Money. This book received excellent reviews, became immensely successful, and went on to be nominated for the Barry Award.

Born won the gold medal in the first Florida Book Award with his third book called Escape Clause. He is currently writing several of his novels in partnership with James Patterson. Author Born was born and brought up in West Palm Beach, Florida. He studied at Florida State University and went on to graduate from Southern Mississippi University. Following his graduation, Born developed an interest in law enforcement. Born began his law enforcement career with the United States Marshals Service. Later, he was transferred to the Drug Enforcement Administration within the Department of Justice of the United States. Born worked for the DEA as a Special Agent until 1990 in South Florida. Then, he accepted another job to work as a special agent with the FDLE. By agreeing to work in this job, Born got the opportunity to indulge in a much wider range of investigations. The cases he worked on included interesting investigations of organized crime, public corruption, narcotics, and serial killers. Along with all these, Born was also on the team of Special Operations under the command of the FDLE.

While Born was associated with the DEA, he was stationed at the Miami Field Division. He was made to work out of the field office in West Palm Beach. Born worked cases across the state and in Central America as well. He even worked undercover to help in the investigation of a few large smuggled cocaine loads. One of his assignments with the FDLE was working undercover to attend Ku Klux Klan meetings, buying illegal weapons, tracing serial killers, and assisting the Special Operations team. His dedicated service helped him win the Officer of the Year award from the office of the US Attorney, Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service prize, and a few other commendations. In 2011, the Governor of Florida felicitated Born with the Lifesaving Medal for rescuing a girl from a canal at night by diving into it.

During the late 1980s, Born came across Elmore Leonard, a popular crime writer, through a common friend. He helped Leonard with some important technical advice to write one of his novels and after that, they became good friends. Elmore Leonard even encouraged Born to write his own crime novels. After giving serious thought to it, he gave it a try and completed two books. However, they did not see the light of the day. But, Born working as a technical advisor for TV shows and crime writers. Born’s third novel, Walking Money, drew the attention of many literary agents, and helped him get a multiple-book contract with G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Over the years, Born has grown as a writer and undertaken trips to many countries for doing research work for his novels. Currently, he resides in South Florida with his lovely wife and works as a full-time author. He even gives technical advice and speaks and public events.

A successful book series written by author James O. Born is known as the Alex Duarte series. It is comprised of two books released between 2007 and 2008. Each of the books features the lead protagonist in the role of an ATF agent named Alex Duarte. Born has shown that Alex Duarte’s work in the field has helped him get the pen name of ‘Rocket’ from the people close to him. The debut book of the series is entitled ‘Field of Fire’. It was released by Putnam Adult in 2007. This crime fiction novel revolves around corruption, murder, fraud, and attack by explosives. The book opens by introducing Alex Duarte as an alcohol, tobacco, and firearms (ATF) agent. He returns to his home in South Florida from his latest assignment in Bosnia and becomes busy in getting his life in order. Soon after, he learns about the car explosion of gunrunner and begins the hunt for a serial bomber.

Alex teams up with a lawyer from the Justice Department, who is already working to catch the culprits of bombings in Seattle and Virginia. In his search for hunting down the bomber and trying to prevent him from carrying out another attack, Alex Duarte travels across the country along with his partner. He even tries to anticipate the next move of the bomber. Alex Duarte’s investigation helps him unravel multiple layers of corruption and deception and set him up for a more explosive outcome than he has already witnessed.

The second volume of this series is called ‘Burn Zone’. It was also published by Putnam Adult in 2008. This novel opens by showing Alex Duarte working on a small case that would lead him to bust something big. He visits New Orleans to check on the activities of a Panamanian man named Ortiz, who is known to deal in the gun trade illegally and smuggle marijuana in huge truckloads. While keeping a watch on Ortiz, Alex gets his hands on something much bigger than he ever thought. Alex was of the opinion that drugs and guns were the bad things present in society. But, his latest findings make it clear that something worse is about to happen. He learns that shadowy colonel is indulging in shady business deals. Also, a white supremacist is trying hard to become the face of America and be known as the one who brought about major changes in the country. Another suspicious character comes under his radar in the form of an FBI agent. Alex Duarte firmly believes that there is a lot to come from all these characters. He looks to find out what they are up to so that they can be stopped from causing huge damage to the country.

One Response to “James O. Born”

1. PB: 3 years ago

   Will there be a follow up book from Escape Clause in the Bill Tasker series?

   Reply