Ronald H. Balson Books In Order

Publication Order of Liam Taggart & Catherine Lockhart Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Ronald H. Balson is a reputed author, trial attorney, and educator from America, who is known for writing historical fiction, thriller, and mystery novels. He is particularly famous for writing the Liam and Catherine novel series. As a trial attorney, Balson has practiced at a few international venues. Some of them include several Polish villages, which also became the inspiration for his first book. Author Balson says that his love for the Middle East, traveling and history inspired him to write the second book of his career. For writing his third book, Balson returned to Poland. Over the course of his writing career, author Balson once became a finalist for the prestigious Harper Lee Award in 2014 in the category of the best Legal Fiction. He was also nominated for the Italian Literature’s Premio Bancarella Award in the same year. Being a respected citizen of the Chicago city, author Balson was invited as an honoree at the Carl Sandburg Award dinner of the Public Library Foundation of Chicago. Whenever author Balson is not busy with his writing works, he can be seen representing his clients in his law practice for the Stone Pogrund and Korey law firm in Chicago. For the past 43 years of his lie, Balson has been serving as an attorney of civil litigation. Prior to his law career, author Balson used to work as an adjunct business law professor at the Chicago University’s Graduate Business School. In fact, Balson states that he has spent a total of 25 years in the teaching profession before moving on to work in the field of law. Balson has also been a frequent lecturer during trial advocacy seminars and in the certification course of the federal bar. Author Balson says that the ever increasing demands of his tiresome legal practice made him visit the courts all over Canada and the United States. And for the deposition testimony, he has traveled all across Asia and Europe. Some time ago, author Balson was representing a client in a case of commercial dispute that concerned the telephone services in Poland. For this purpose, he had to make frequent trips to southern Poland and Warsaw. These trips helped him come up with the story of his debut novel titled Once We Were Brothers. Throughout the next few years of his legal career, author Balson remained motivated by his frequent travels and by his love of Middle Eastern and history. This greatly helped him in coming up with ideas for his future books.

At the time of the book tour of his first novel, author Balson was introduced to a few survivors of concentration camps of the Second World War. This provided him the opportunity to hear and learn about the stories of determination and courage of the survivors in the harsh conditions. Author Balson was highly moved by the story of one of the women survivors and decided to use it as the basis of his third book. He decided to name the book as Karolina Twins. During the initial years of the 21st century, author Balson was involved in a number of complex lawsuits. Many of these cases required him to travel extensively to a number of foreign countries like Israel, Canada, etc. The traveling helped him get acquainted with the memories and scars of the World War II. Balson was so much moved by all such stories and descriptions that he decided to use them in his books. His intention behind developing such stories is to let the people of the world know about that part of the difficult war that is still unknown to the world and is not found anywhere else. As of today, author Balson is busy in his lawsuit and is also trying to develop the next book of his writing career.

The Liam and Catherine series written by Ronald H. Balson is comprised of a total of 4 books, which were released between the years 2010 and 2017. Each and every book of this series features the chief characters in the form of a private investigator named Liam Taggart and a lawyer named Catherine Lockhart. As the series progresses, numerous other important secondary characters are introduced by the author. An initially released book of this series is entitled ‘Saving Sophie’ This book was released by the St Martin Griffin publication in the year 2015. The main characters of the novel include Jack Sommers, Liam Taggart, Catherine Lockhart, and Sophie. At the start of the book’s story, Jack Sommers is introduced as a normal accountant living in Chicago. His life turns upside down as his wife dies, his daughter gets kidnapped, and he becomes the prime suspect in an embezzlement case of several million dollars. Jack Sommers runs away in order to avoid getting caught by the federal agents and rescuing his daughter named Sophie. It seems that Sophie maternal grandfather is the one who ordered her kidnapping, and who is known to involved in terrorist activities in Palestine. When the feds learn about the reality surrounding Jack’s life, they form an investigative team comprising of Catherine, Liam, and a newly appointed CIA operative. This team is sent on the secret mission of rescuing Sophie and destroying the plans of a major attack by the terrorists in Hebron. However, as the mission is highly difficult and risky, the members of the rescue team are required to overcome the obstacles and save numerous lives on the Israeli-Palestine border, including their own.

The next book written by Balson in the series is called ‘Karolina’s Twins’. It was also published by the St Martin Press in 2016. Author Balson has mentioned the main characters in this novel as Lena Woodward, Arthur Woodward, Karolina, Liam Taggart, and Catherine Lokhart. At the beginning of the story of the book, it is depicted that Lena Woodward is an old woman. She takes the help of Catherine Lockhart and Liam Taggart to get through her harrowing past’s story in the Nazi-occupied Poland. During the same time, Lena’s own son Arthur files a lawsuit against her for acquiring her estate in order to set up his own business. At the time of her struggle in Poland, Lena had a childhood friend, Karolina, with whom she shared a feeling of sisterhood. Both the women faced the atrocities in Poland during the Holocaust. They not only harbored courage to live through the difficult times, but also shared a mysterious maternity secret. This secret has troubled Lena for all these years, but now, she feels that she must reveal it to the investigators. And in doing so, she thinks of coming to terms with the her own dark past.

4 Responses to “Ronald H. Balson”

1. Russell Doig: 1 year ago

   Totally addicted to every book, wait with great anticipation for the next brilliant novel.

   Reply
2. Murray Tandler: 1 year ago

   Have been binge reading your novels after coming across Once We Were Brothers. Just finished Karolina’s Twins that had me in tears. My maternal grandparents died in the Soviet Union during the Holocaust and I kept thinking of them. Thank you for your diligence and extraordinary skill.

   Reply
3. Nan Dichter: 2 years ago

   I love the Liam Taggart and Catherine Lockhart novels the most. I have read all your books except your new book, “An Affair of Spies”. It’s now on my kindle. I would like to join your newsletter. I don’t do Facebook, Twitter, etc.

   Reply
4. Laurie Alexander: 2 years ago

   Your books are terrific! Reading Karolina’s Twins now.

   Reply