Jim Lehrer Books In Order

Publication Order of One-Eyed Mack Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Jim Lehrer
James Charles “Jim” Lehrer was born May 19, 1934 in Wichita, Kansas. His mom, Lois Catherine was a teacher, and his dad, Harry Frederick Lehrer, managed a bus station. He was an American screenwriter, novelist, journalist, and playwright.

He was the executive editor and a news anchor for the PBS NewsHour on PBS and was known for his role as debate moderator during US presidential elections.

He went to middle school in Beaumont, Texas and graduated high school from Thomas Jefferson High in San Antonio. While here, he was a sports editor for the Jefferson Declaration. Jim graduated from Victoria College with an associate degree, and from the Missouri School of Journalism with a journalism degree at the University of Missouri in the year 1956.

After he graduated from college, Jim joined the United States Marine Corps and served as an infantry officer for three years. He attributed his travels and his service with aiding him to look beyond himself and to feel a connection to the world that he wouldn’t have otherwise been able to experience.

Jim began working in journalism in the year 1959 for The Dallas Morning News in Texas. Later on, he workd as a reporter for the Dallas Times Herald, and covered the Kennedy assassination in the year 1963.

Late in the year 1975, became the Washington correspondent for the Robert MacNeil Report. He was promoted December that same year to co-anchor, and the program became renamed as The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. He took over the show in the year 1995, when Robert left the show.

He was married to author Kate Lehrer for six decades. They had three daughters and six grandkids.

Jim was an avid bus enthusiast, hobbyist, and collector of bus memorabilia, including driver caps, antique toy buses, and depot signs. During college, he worked as a Trailways ticket agent in Victoria, Texas.

He died at the age of 85 in his home in Washington, D. C. on January 23, 2020.

Jim’s debut novel, called “Kick the Can”, was released in the year 1988, and it is the first of his “One-Eyed Mack” series. Besides this series, he wrote some stand alone work.

“Blue Hearts” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 1993. Bruce Conn Clark and Charles Avenue Henderson shared one CIA mission in late November 1963 that helped alter the course of world history. Henderson, who now lives the quiet life of a bed and breakfast owner with his wife in rural West Virginia, approaches ex-Secretary of State Clark at a posh restaurant in D.C.

He suggests that they allow some of yesterday’s secrets out and Clark comes back with a plan hat puts Henderson’s life at risk. It also tests both of their dormant skills as spooks. Clark underestimated Henderson’s resolve and Henderson underestimated the depth of Clark’s secrets. It is a mistake neither one is going to make again while the former allies match daggers and cloaks against one another.

“The Last Debate” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 1995. The night of the presidential debate, with the election just days away. Republican nominee James Meredith, who is a fundamentalist Christian ambitions actually border on white supremacy, is going up against four reporters that just found some damaging info that might wreck his career.

What follows during the Last Debate is going to change the course of electoral politics as well as the news business forever.

“Flying Crows” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 2004. Police find an old homeless guy in the Kansas City train station in the year 1997. “Birdie Carlucci” claims that he has been living there since 1993, just hiding out in a Harvey House restaurant’s storeroom. Lieutenant Randy Benton, a cop with the Kansas City police, decides to find out the truth behind Birdie’s story, and finds himself on a ride that leads him ever backward into the bloodstained past of America.

His investigation reveals young Birdie, who was incarcerated in a gruesome insane asylum where beating with a baseball bat served as prefered method of treatment. He was befriended while he was hear by Josh Lancaster, who was once dismissed as lost cause but snatched back by one compassionate doctor. What is the real secret behind Lancaster’s involvement in one infamous Civil War encounter between Union soldiers and Confederate Bushwackers? What actually happened after Birdie escaped from the asylum on Flying Crow train?

While Benton comes back to present day, he thinks about how much, if any, actually happened? What were the real private and public traumas of these two troubled guys that cannot forget what they have seen or only imagined?

“Oh, Johnny” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 2009. Johnny Wrigley, who is a talented athlete, believes firmly that he is going to play major league baseball someday. While on the way to his dreams, Johnny finds his life taking an unexpected detour. April of 1944, Johnny is newly minted as a marine on a troop train that is heading for California, where he is going to be shipped overseas in order to fight in the Pacific Theater.

During a brief stop in Wichita, Johnny steps off of the train and falls in love. She is giving cigarettes and apples to marines, and is the most gorgeous girl that Johnny has ever seen. In a storeroom at the station, they share an intimacy that Johnny is going to treasure for the two years at war, and then beyond.

As the operator of a flamethrower on the suicide squad in Peleliu, Johnny sees the very worst of battle. Many of Johnny’s fellow soldiers get killed all around him, however memories of Betsy Luck (which is the private name Johnny gave his Kansas love) are what keep him safe. Nothing is able to prepare Johnny for the combat in Okinawa, or the horrible events that are sure to haunt him forever.

Two years go by, and he is back in Wichita, trying to find the girl he wants to marry. However, fate has got different things in store for Johnny, the girl whose memory helped him survive, and his long-dreamed-of baseball career.