Jim Lynch Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Jim Lynch is a literature and fiction author from Seattle. Lynch grew up in Seattle and went to the University of Washington. After graduation, he got jobs all over the United States working as a reporter for papers in Virginia, Alaska and a columnist for Washington DC based “Jack Anderson.” He would later go back to the Northwest where he wrote for the “Seattle Times,” the “Portland Oregonian,” and the “Spokane Spokesman – Review.” In 2005. he started writing fiction full time with the publishing of “The Highest Tide.” Notable awards he has won for his reporting include the Livingstone Young Journalist Award, the HL Mencken Award and the George Polk Award.

Lynch lives with Denise, his wife and Grace, their daughter in Olympia Washington. The watery surroundings around their home provided the inspiration for “The Highest Tide,” his well regarded debut novel. He has always wanted to become an author ever since he was a teenager and he was inspired to write his novel when a rare sea fish only found in the deep sea was found on the beach near his house in Washington. He was intrigued by the fact that experts were puzzled by how the fish came to be in the very shallow bay in Olympia. It was at that time that it occurred to him that anything that floats or swims in the Pacific could wash up on the bay. The next revelation that was also intriguing was that most exotic marine discoveries were made by children. His debut novel thus tells the story of a thirteen year old pint sized narrator that spends his formative summer at the edge of the lake. Jim Lynch has asserted that a sense of place and setting are some of the most important things that he takes into account in his writings.

Reviewers have said that Jim Lynch writes like a poet and observes like a journalist. He has written critically acclaimed novels that have included “Before the Wind” that was an American Library Association and The Wall Street Journal best novel of the year. The novel also became a bestselling title in France and made the finals of the Voyagers Award. “Truth Like the Sun” his third novel made Janet Maslin of New York Times best 10 books of 2012. The work also made the Dashiell Hammett Prize finals. “Border Songs” his second novel won the Indie’s Choice Honor Book Award, the Washington State Book Award and was adapted for the stage. It was also a bestselling book in Canada and a New York Times Editors Choice. His debut was performed in Seattle, was the winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and was featured in a British TV show after which its popularity went global.

“The Highest Tide” by Jim Lynch is a satisfying, unusual and often humorous novel that tells the story of Miles O’Malley. He is an extremely short, precocious thirteen year old boy that is also an ocean specimen collector, night time adventurer, avid reader, insomniac and budding marine biologist. Just before he turns fourteen, he makes several discoveries on the Puget Sound mudflats near his hometown. Among these were an invasive species of sea kelp and crab, a ragfish and a giant squid. Miles’ encyclopedic knowledge of marine biology and his finds soon attract the attention of the media and it is not long before a mystical cult on the West Coast is holding him up as a prophet and wise child. Within a few weeks, large numbers of people are trooping to the small town searching for miracles.

Jim Lynch’s second novel “Border Songs” is the story of Brandon Vanderkool. He had been trained for eight months and is now ready to head down to New Mexico to join the Border Patrol. But first he heads home to Washington in the northwest and is happy to meet his family and friends once again. While he has cool in his name, he is the farthest thing from cool. He is an awkward, dyslexic, well built and tall young man that has never been very comfortable around people. He never knows what to say and often does not get jokes. What he is more comfortable with is being on the farm and he knows every bird and its call. When he is not tending to the cows, he likes to spend his time making weird art. But there is one thing about Brandon that makes him so useful to the Border Patrol. Vanderkool has an ability to sense the smallest thing that is out of place. With his senses, he is often tripping over drug smugglers, would be terrorists and illegal aliens. Soon after the media becomes interested in the successes of Border Patrol and the Federal government provides more technology, manpower and funding to protect the border. But the people traffickers and drug smugglers change their tactics making Border Patrol work harder but even more fascinating.

“Truth Like the Sun” by Jim Lynch is an entertaining story of urban intrigue. The novel is set in 1962 at a time when Seattle was at the height of its power following the Microsoft gold rush. The lead is Roger Morgan the mastermind that had organized a fair that had been the pride and joy of the city. It is now four decades later and Morgan who is now a seventy year old man is running for mayor hoping to restore the city’s glory. One reporter named Helen Gulanos is desperate to report on the story and she is soon making front page news with her stories focusing on the seventy year old candidate. Determined to find everything about the man, she learns that he was an excitable and brash young promoter in 1962 that brushed shoulders with everyone from Lyndon Johnson to Elvis Presley. He had a knack for talking himself out of tight circumstances and dipped in and out of secret gambling parties. He is now a much loved public figure but it is clear that he still has a lot of secrets. Beautifully interwoven into the story are pragmatism, idealism, backroom deals, the worst and best ambitions and aspirations that shape the human condition.