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William Bayer Books In Order

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Publication Order of Foreign Detective Books

Publication Order of Frank Janek Books

Publication Order of Kay Farrow Books

as David Hunt
The Magician's Tale (1997)Description / Buy at Amazon
Trick of Light (1998)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

In Search of a Hero (1966)Description / Buy at Amazon
Stardust (1974)Description / Buy at Amazon
Visions of Isabelle (1976)Description / Buy at Amazon
Punish Me With Kisses (1980)Description / Buy at Amazon
Blind Side (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Dream of the Broken Horses (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon
Hiding in the Weave (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Luzern Photograph (2016)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Murals (2019)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

The Great Movies (1973)Description / Buy at Amazon
Breaking Through, Selling Out, Dropping Dead and Other Notes on Filmmaking (2004)Description / Buy at Amazon

William Bayer
William Bayer was born February 20, 1939 in Cleveland, Ohio, and is a notable crime fiction author. He is the son of screenwriter mother (Eleanor Perry) and an attorney dad (Leo G. Bayer), who wrote four mysteries that they published as Oliver Weld Bayer. William describes his own family background as being secular Jewish and identifies this way.

William was educated at Phillips Exeter and at Harvard University, where he majored in art history. His Harvard honors thesis was an analysis of one of Paul Gauguin’s paintings: “D’ou venons-vous? Que sommes-nous? Ou allons-nous?”

After working from 1963 until 1968 as a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Information Agency. During this time, he spent time in New York, Washington, and Vietnam. William has also been a grantee of The National Endowment of the Arts and The American Film Institute.

He also wrote and directed “Missippi Summer”, a 1971 feature film, and it won Best First Feature Award (a “Hugo”) at the Chicago International Film Festival.

“Peregrine” won an Edgar for Best Novel, while “The Magician’s Tale” won the Lambda Literary Award for Best Mystery. He won the French Le Grand Prix Calibre 38 for “Mirror Maze”, and “The Dream of the Broken Horses” received the French Prix Mystere de la Critique.

“Switch” was the source of seven television movies and two four-hour mini-series. Richard Crenna was in all of them, playing NYPD Detective Frank Janek. All of the movies were broadcast nationally by CBS in a prime time slot.

William writes the “Janek” series and the “Foreign Detective” series, as well as some stand alone novels. He also writes under the pen name of David Hunt. Besides writing crime novels, he has also written books on movies.

William’s work has been translated into languages such as Dutch, French, German, Italian, and Japanese, as well as nine other languages.

He is married to Paula Wolfert (a food writer), and he has lived in New York, San Francisco, Paris, Connecticut, and Tangier (Morocco).

“Punish Me With Kisses” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 1980. This is the story of a pair of sisters and the mysterious Dark Man that they are both helplessly drawn to.

It begins in the town of Bar Harbor, Maine, the summer playground of all the rich. Sensitive and shy Penny Berring watches while her gorgeous sister, Suzie, puts on a rather odd display, as she flaunts all her transgressions under her parents windows. Her behavior is both compelling and odd. There is a scream in the night, and Suzie winds up being murdered. There is an inconclusive and sensational trial. An enigma, too. What actually happened? Who really killed Suzie? Why did they kill Suzie?

Three years go by. Penny now lives a quiet life in New York. Then it begins all over again. She locates Suzie’s secret diary, and it sends her on a surreal and strange odyssey all her own, and on toward one terrifying secret.

This is a solid and suspenseful read that kept the interest of the reader. It has strong writing and does a fantastic job of showing the inside of the main character’s mind.

“Hiding in the Weave” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 2014. This is written from the point of view of Joel Barlev, eighteen year old and a senior at Delamere, a school that is geared to talented young artists.

There is more here, so much here.

What cannot be spoken should and will be danced. What cannot be woven should and will be marked on the flesh. And what cannot be danced should and will be woven.

This is the odd mantra of Liv Anders, a gifted weaver and dancer at Delamere. Joel, who is an equally talented ceramic artist, finds that he is falling in love with her, intrigued by her ethereal beauty and by her casual comment about their different art forms. She points out that he gouges his pots to show his pain to the entire world, while she hides her pain in the weave.

As it turns out, there is something that is hidden in an abstract weaving of Liv’s, and tragedy strikes, Joel along with Kate and Justin (his two best friends) feel like they are compelled to find it. The novel follows the four from the start of their senior year at Delamere through their graduation and beyond.

Readers were captivated by all of these characters in their struggle to find a way to balance art and type-A career trajectories and still find time to cherish each other. Fans found themselves being taken back to their own times in high school as they read this novel.

“The Murals” is a stand alone novel and was released in the year 2019. Jason Poe, an ex-war time photographer, is transfixed by a rather disturbing set of murals he finds in the attic of some abandoned house, and decides to find out the secret behind them.

Jason Poe has been breaking and entering into some abandoned houses in order to work on a project to document whatever the previous tenants have left behind. In one house, he finds more than he ever expected when goes into an attic and gets confronted by the haunting set of murals in there.

Murals cover every wall of the cramped space and leave Jason hypnotized. Convinced that there is an important story behind all of them, he goes on a quest to find their creator and learn their meaning. In order to accomplish this, he enlists several buddies, including one reporter for Calista Times-Dispatch, Joan Nguyen. While the team dives deeper they find a mystery that involves accusations of police corruption, satanism, a scandal that involves a wealthy family in Calista, and a sequence of contemporary arson attacks. As well as a mysterious patient in some Swiss psychiatric clinic.

The story proves to be fresh, suspenseful, and surprising. The multiple perspectives, the style of writing, and well crafted plot. The unique way the book is written goes along nicely with the premise of the novel.

Book Series In Order » Authors » William Bayer

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