The Lizard

After a near decade of silence, Edgar and Hammett award winning novelist Domenic Stansberry returns to the mystery scene with a chilling new noir: The Lizard.

In 2016, six  years after the conclusion of his acclaimed North Beach Series,  Stansberry  returned to win the Hammett Prize with The White Devil. Now he comes with The Lizard -part political thriller, part expressionist nightmare-a timely contemporary tale of betrayal, murder and violent transformation, dark stuff laced with the author's signature black humor.

The main character, S.E. Reynolds, is a former investigative reporter now working as a political ghostwriter. He is thrust into the center of a conspiracy investigation after an illicit romance turns deadly. His efforts to untangle himself only entangle him deeper, drawing the attention of government agents with their own agenda.

An unlikely hero, candidly amoral, shunning idealism, Reynolds works for candidates at either side of the political spectrum. At the same time, he possesses a deep if complicated love for family: his beautiful, unknowable wife; his aging parents; his children. 

The Lizard is the story of man trapped between a relentless security apparatus and a personal reckoning from which there is no apparent escape. As the tale unfolds ,the differences between the outer world and the inner inexorably dissolve, leading to psychic and physical transformation at once unimaginable and inevitable.

The Lizard  is forthcoming from Molotov Editions with a release date of May 15. 2025. Two earlier novels, The White Devil and The Confession, winners of Hammett and Edgar Awards, will be re-released at the same time, also from Molotov.