Nick Petrie Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Peter Ash Books
| The Drifter | (2016) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Burning Bright | (2017) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Light It Up | (2018) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| Tear It Down | (2019) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Wild One | (2020) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Breaker | (2021) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Runaway | (2022) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
| The Price You Pay / The Heavy Lift | (2024) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Nick Petrie is a popular author best known for Peter Ash, a series of books whose protagonist has been compared to Jack Reacher.
+Biography
Nick Petrie showed all the signs of publishing greatness at a relatively early age. And it wasn’t just his MFA in Fiction writing from the University of Washington that got people talking.
There was also the short story he wrote as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan that saw him win a Hopwood Award. Then there’s ‘The Laundromat’, a short story he wrote in 2006 and which won him a Seattle Review Short Story contest.
The author has since been nominated for an Edgar Award, Barry Awards and a Hammett Prize, feats that have further cemented his place in the literary arena. A father and a husband, Nick Petrie has always been good with his hands.
When he wasn’t roofing, he was doing carpenter work and even carving out a career for himself as a remodeling contractor.
The author got into the remodeling contracting business because of its tangibility. Unlike his work as an author, Petrie’s efforts as a carpenter and a contractor allowed him to see the results of his work on a regular basis.
Each new week brought a whole slew of new accomplishments that he could look at and admire. And it always gave Petrie great joy to see the work of his hands produce drastic change.
Eventually, Petrie became a home inspector and, while that work wasn’t as transformative, he found that he enjoyed the opportunity to interact with all manner of individuals.
The author’s inspiration for his first book was ignited during his time as a home inspector.
+Literary Career
Before he wrote novels, Nick Petrie was a reader. Writing did not come into the picture until high school. Petrie started out writing for the school newspaper. Over time, he produced a multi-part soap opera that used the school hallways as a setting.
Nick Petrie knew he was meant to write for a living when the people who read his stories kept stopping him at school and telling him how much they liked his work. There was a sense of exhilaration that followed each compliment which Petrie began to obsess over.
The author spent more than two decades writing before he got his big break in publishing. ‘The Drifter’ is the first novel Petrie ever published. It was released in 2016. However, ‘The Drifter’ is not the first novel Nick Petrie ever wrote.
Petrie will be the first to tell you that his first ever written novel was not good. In fact, he couldn’t even find an agent willing to give his work a shot. Fortunately for Petrie, he did not dwell on that failure, instead choosing to move on to a second novel.
That one got him an agent but her best efforts to find the book a home ended in utter failure. Again, rather than dwelling on the defeat, Petrie moved forward with a third novel.
Once more, he elicited the interest of an agent. The New York hotshot actually got a few publishing houses to look Nick Petrie’s way. But again, failure reared its ugly head. However, that time it wasn’t Petrie’s fault.
It was bad luck that he chose to go shopping for a publisher in 2008. That was the year the economy crashed. Most Publishing houses were willing to move forward with books they have committed to, but they wouldn’t buy new ones.
This time, Petrie let the defeat wear him down. He gave up and even stopped writing for a while, instead focusing his efforts on his remodeling work. Petrie wasn’t the most appealing of companions during that time, and his wife told him that his moods wouldn’t lift until he started another writing project.
The author relented and went back to his writing. Petrie was working as a home inspector at the time. His work allowed him to talk to many interesting people.
One day, the author took note of the fact that so many of his clients were veterans who had fought in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. A number of them just wanted to buy a house and settle down after coming home.
When Petrie began asking questions, what he learned about the plight of these veterans intrigued him. After a little more research, the character of Peter Ash began to take shape in his mind.
Ash is a war veteran who basically wanders the country righting wrongs. Petrie did not mean for veterans and war to feature so heavily in his first book. But that is what happened. Petrie’s friends and clients loved this book because it looked at the lives of veterans and the manner in which those closest to them were affected by their shattered lives once they came back home.
The author was happy to know that he had not only written an entertaining tale but that his book actually had the capacity to touch lives. Nick Petrie has since written several sequels to ‘The Drifter’.
He still cannot believe that the fourth book he ever wrote got published by Putnam. The author imputes his success to hard work, perseverance, and pure luck.
+The Drifter
With Iraq and Afghanistan finally behind him, Peter Ash comes home determined to forget the wars. But Ash’s PTSD won’t let him settle down. So he spends a few months just roaming the country and enjoying the wonders of nature.
Ash is forced to return to civilization when a friend of his commits suicide. Ash initially just wants to help the Marine’s widow make a few home repairs. But then he finds a case of cash and explosives under the porch that drags him into a sinister plot.
+Burning Bright
Peter Ash is a war veteran looking for peace in the Northern California redwoods. However, the dense forest and the fog do not favor his claustrophobia. Things only get worse when Ash encounters a grizzly and makes a hasty retreat up a sapling.
The undertaking reveals a climbing rope to Ash which he follows to a hanging platform, a woman on the run and men with guns.
June Cassidy escaped an attempted kidnapping. She thinks her determined kidnappers want something that belonged to her mother. She will need Peter Ash’s skills to stay ahead of her pursuers.
Book Series In Order » Authors »
Any issues with the book list you are seeing? Or is there an author or series we don’t have? Let me know!
Wanted to thank you for introducing me to this author and/or character. I am in love with this series! I never would have found him/the books without your page. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You are welcome 🙂 And thank you. I love recommending Nick to everyone as he is universally loved 🙂 Easiest recommendation I make haha
Was “The Price You Pay” originally titled “The Heavy Lift”?
Yep it was. We had it by its original title initially, and then changed it when he updated it. But I’ll add the alternate title just now just to save any confusion.
I’ve really enjoyed the Peter Ash series and look forward to the next book! I’ve read all the Reachers and Keeler novels and enjoyed them, but Peter Ash is my favorite. I think it is the fact that he has a stable of close friends from book to book who are interesting characters themselves.
Keep him going!
Just ordered ‘The Wild One’, the fifth book in Nicks series.
Nick has managed to mess with my normal sleep cycle
every time I start the next one.
I appreciate the storyline and the seemingly non-stop action.
It’s nice for me to know such writing talent comes from my
state of Wisconsin and gives me hope as a inspiring new writer.
Keep up the great work, Nick!
Lol, inspiring, aspiring, can I be both?
I need Nicks editor, I haven’t found an error in any of his first four books I’ve read.
Just discovered Burning Bright. 50 pages in l decided to look up the author. I’ve been a reader my whole life and l know rather quickly if a book one will hold my attention and two if l like the theme. I’ll be reading more of this author. He reminds me of David Baldacci.
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Any new books coming? Love Joe, but like the writing and want more🥲🥲
Please write more about Peter Ash. I really enjoy reading your stories.
Thank you
I love Jack Reacher series, so I am going to read your Peter Asher Series. Can’t wait to get started.
I have read all of the Reacher novels and enjoyed most because I always knew Reacher would come out on top. I more or less read them for pure entertainment. I discovered Nick Petrie and “The Drifter” after searching for an another author with a leading character similar to Reacher. I am halfway through the “The Drifter” and heading to the local used book store to purchase whatever other books in the Peter Ash series they may have on the shelf. I love Nick’s writing, the thoughts he beautifully expresses and the fact that I have to pause at times to fully process the sentence just read. I prefer books and movies that feature relationships and insights into personalities, and Nick has a gift for doing both.
So glad you are enjoying it! I love recommending that series to Reacher fans.
I hadn’t given Reacher any thought as I read Burning Bright. Peter is less likely to use his well-developed brawn while using his insightful intellect and intelligence first. Reacher uses his knowledge but is just as apt to use his brawn first and then evolve into intelligence. I found Burning Bright a fun read with just as much action as most Reacher books. Like Mr. Petrie I am uncomfortable with the way technology is developing. Too much of a good thing can be very dangerous to people, to society.
Yeah. No. This is not anything like Jack Reacher aside from the wanderlust. The writing is much tighter, more intelligent. I like the Reacher series, having read all of them. But I refer to them as comic books. There’s little depth to anyone Lee Childs’ books, but they are fun, quick reads. Sort of like reading Superman comic books when I was of that age.
Where Reacher is clearly someone solidly on the spectrum, Peter Ash’s damage is less obvious, less fundamentally caused by genetic mismatches. The result is Ash has more emotional depth, even if psychological damage from war interfere with his ability to function in concert with societal norms.
I read Reacher for the action. I read Ash for the interactions. Not the same.