David Grann Books In Order

Publication Order of Mystery Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

David Grann is an American author and journalist best known for his narrative fiction that tends towards investigative and explorer fiction. Grann has been working at The New Yorker since 2003 where he has been one of its most respected staff writers. Some of his novels include “Birth of the FBI” that made the shortlist for the National Book Award, and “Killers of the Flower Moon”. “Birth of the FBI” was recognized by Entertainment Weekly, and Time, as one of the best books of 2017. His most known work is “The Lost City of Z” that was made into a film. Before he went to work for The New Yorker he wrote for the Washington Post. He has a masters from Boston University for Creative Writing and another from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in International Relations. For his bachelors, he went to Connecticut College from where he did a lot of research in Mexico and even receiving a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. He lives with his wife and two children in New York.

David Grann was born in New York and went to Connecticut College before launching his journalism career as a research fellow in Mexico. While he obtained degrees in international relations and journalism, he found himself gravitating towards fiction and dreamt of one day becoming a fiction author. In 1994 he began his journalism career at The Hill where he was hired as a copy editor for the Washington based paper that mainly reported on the US Congress. He went on to earn his creative writing master’s degree at Boston University, and for a while taught fiction and creative writing courses. For his work in journalism he won the Sigma Delta Chi Award, the George Polk Award, and the Michael Kelly Award. His New Yorker article about Cameron Todd Willingham “Trial By Fire” was described by reviewers as one of the most complete reporting on the broken justice system that executed an innocent man. Another article of his was titled “The Mark of a Masterpiece” that investigated Peter Paul Bistro and his methods of using fingerprint technology in authenticating long lost pieces of art. For his efforts, he got himself and the paper sued for libel, though the article went on to make the shortlist for the National Magazine Award in 2010.

David Grann’s 2009 title “The Lost City of Z” is a novel going back nearly a century to analyze the exploration journey of Captain Percy Fawcett the British explorer. Captain Fawcett had together with his son disappeared in 1925 while trying to find the fabled city of Z. For years, scientists and explorers had been trying to find clues to where the two men had disappeared to by going into the Amazon. Grann also goes into the Amazon to prove that Z may have been a real city and also shows how the famed explorer Fawcett met his end. The novel was adapted into a feature film and optioned by Paramount Pictures and Plan B Production Company in 2017. “The Devil and Sherlock Holmes” is a collection of twelve essays by David Grann that comprised most of his New Yorker historical fiction pieces. These range from everything from the death of a Polish writer that cleverly wove in clues to a gruesome murder in his novel to detailing the death of Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective that ever lived. In another title in the essay collection he tells the story of execution of a man that was later found to be innocent when the scientific material that convicted him was found to be erroneous. Grann’s also wrote a novel about the mass killings of the Osage Indians that became a huge bestseller. It details what could have been the biggest or most bizarre crimes against the Native Americans in all of American history. His award winning “Killers of the Flower Moon” was a tale of heroism, betrayal, murder, and the struggle by America to enter the postmodern world and leave its proud but old culture behind.

“The Lost City of Z’ is an excellent novel of the adventures of Percy Harrison Fawcett. In 1925, the explorer had embarked on a most dangerous journey, trekking through the Amazon on the basis of some proprietary information that he had obtained through research. Accompanied by a few support personnel that included guides and porters , they cut a path through the Amazon searching of the city of Z that had been fabled as a most fabulous and rich city deep in the Amazon. Fawcett and his company disappeared, never to be heard from again. Many scientists and explorers had attempted to find Captain Fawcett or at least try to determine how he had met his end. David Grann is not one to be left behind as he joins the bandwagon with his only experience being a veteran subway riding native of Brooklyn, which in no way makes him a great athlete or outdoorsman. His odds do not look good as he sets out on a quest to solve an eighty year old mystery. While the novel is mostly fiction it reads like an adventure novel from the likes of H. Rider Haggard. Full of excitement, it tells an exciting story as the lead digs up the clues to determine where Fawcett could have traveled to.

“The Devil & Sherlock Holmes” is a spellbinding mosaic of folly, passion, madness, and ambition. David Grann excellently tells his stories whether it be a scientist going after an elusive squid, tracking down a confidence artist on the streets of London and Paris or investigating the infiltration of the Aryan brotherhood. Grann’s strongest point is the piecing together of unforgettable and true mysteries and an exploration of the nature of obsession. All the stories in the novel are a revelation of the dangerous and hidden world in stories such as The Orchid Thief and Into Thin Air. There is the tale man executed while innocent, navies in a race to finish the construction of New York’s new water tunnels before the old system collapses, and the murder of the leading expert on the 20th century’s greatest ever sleuth, Sherlock Holmes. Through it all the author displays how perverse the human spirit can become.