Liz Lazarus Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Liz Lazarus is an American author who writes books in the thriller, suspense, and crime genres. She made her debut in 2015 with the release of her first book, Free of Malice. The book was loosely based on some of her own personal experience and tells the tale of a woman in healing as she deals with the legal system and her right to self-defense.

She grew up in Valdosta, Georgia which is one of the last stops before Florida. Liz always had an interest in writing and while in high school she was the editor of her school newspaper. By the time of her graduation, Liz was named as the salutatorian of her class. She then went on to attend the Georgia Institute of Technology where she got her engineering degree. After finishing her education there, she headed to Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management where she earned her MBA.

Liz went to work after finishing school and took on a career as an executive at General Electric’s Healthcare division. She worked in that career for a time before eventually leaving to join a consulting firm as a Managing Director. She had the writing itch, but did her best to ignore it for a long time in her lie. She did many other hobbies besides writing, including getting a pilot’s license, learned French and lived in Paris, and produced a music CD. However, the idea for a novel would not leave her and she eventually had to just write it. That book that wouldn’t leave her mind eventually became her debut novel, Free of Malice.

Her original plan was to write that book and go from there, but she received a lot of positive feedback from readers that she decided to continue her writing career. She followed her debut novel up with Plea for Justice, released in 2018.

Free of Malice was Lazarus’ debut novel. The story begins when Laura Holland awakens in the middle of the night in her home and sees a stranger standing in the door of her bedroom. Laura acts quickly and manages to defend herself from the attacker, but he makes a threat to return before leaving. The event is rather traumatizing for her and she begins to have recurring nightmares about that night. Laura goes to therapy where is is exposed a treatment known as EMDR.

However, that is not enough for her and she decides to seek self-protection. Her husband doesn’t want her to get a gun, but she insists and gets one. She learns that if she had the gun when the original attack happened and had shot her would-be attacker then she could’ve gone to prison for that crime. The idea of this bothers her and she puts together a hypothetical legal case using the things that happened on that night as the basis. She ends up connecting with a criminal defense lawyer named Thomas Bennett who knows the legal system well, but she is bothered by him as he has a strong resemblance to the man who stood in her doorway on that night. The two work together on the story, but Laura starts to feel even more uncomfortable around Thomas as he knows more about the night than someone who was not there should. As she works on this fiction with him, it soon starts to blend with reality in some rather uncomfortable ways.

The second book by Liz Lazarus is a legal thriller called Plea for Justice. The story is told from two opposing viewpoints. The first is of Jackie who is a paralegal working on a case. The second is “Me” who is a killer with excellent skills with the computer. The story takes place in Atlanta, Georgia and the action kicks off when Jackie Siegel is contacted from prison by an old high school friend named Aaron Slater. The two weren’t much alike, but they dated in high school until he dumped her just after graduation with no explanation and that was the end of that. Ten years later, Aaron was arrested for one of the biggest murder cases in history. He is known in the media and by the public as “The Snapchat Killer” and he is accused of posting videos of his victim before he murdered them.

Aaron swears his innocence and looks to his old girlfriend for help. The big question is, if he is innocent then why did he sign a plea deal that will put him into prison for the rest of his life? Jackie looks into the evidence and finds people fighting her at every turn as nobody seems to want this case to open back up. That just inspires her more as the conflicting information leads her to digging deeper into the case and questioning everything. As she closes in on solving this case, she’ll see loyalties and relationships tested, and she is left to wonder if she’s being played by her old boyfriend or helping to free an innocent man.

Liz Lazarus is also the author of Shades of Silence. In this novel, Julianna Sandoval is stuck in limbo in her life. Her husband was flying over the Atlantic Ocean when his plane disappeared. The Coast Guard has since stopped the search for him, but she still is holding out hope that he could be alive. She does what she can to move on from the events and three months later she is at her Ormond Beach restaurant when a young woman walks in. She talks to Julianna and tells her that “He’s not who you think he is.” Before she can find out more, a gun is fired through the window and she is killed instantly. Detective Paul Grant is called in to investigate the murder. He knows that his killing wasn’t random, but struggles to find the connection between the victim and Julianna. The question is who is the “he” that the victim was referring to. Was it her husband, her stepson, the bar manager, or someone else? The investigation will leave Julianna wondering who, if anyone, she can trust.