Gray Basnight Books In Order

Publication Order of Sam Teagarden Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Gray Basnight
Author Gray Basnight was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where he spent his childhood and his teen years on two beloved activities: participating in theater productions and reading.

After he studied theater and English at a tiny college in North Carolina and George Washington University in Washington, DC, he moved to New York City where, after he experienced the actor’s struggle, he started working local radio. He worked as a broadcast new writer, producer, reporter, and editor.

Close to thirty years later, he got laid off as a radio reporter at the height of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Even though he had been writing fiction the whole time, he chose to turn this life-altering event into a chance to pursue a second (possibly third) life. Thanks to his supportive wife, he works at home now, happily working on several fiction projects. The one and only thing certain to pull Gray away from the keyboard is his dog.

When he is not busy with writing, he is thinking about writing while walking the dog, watching movies, and all other sorts of daily activities.

Gray’s debut novel, called “The Cop With the Pink Pistol”, was released in the year 2012. His work is from the thriller and mystery genres, and featuring a range of characters and voices which are very different from himself. It earned rave reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus.

“The Cop With the Pink Pistol” is the first novel in the “Donna Prima” series and was released in the year 2012. She is not into jewelry or shoes. And she does not do jiggle. She does not wear makeup (or war paint, as she calls it). NYPD Homicide Detective Donna Prima’s only concession to modern womanhood is the pink .38 that she wears strapped onto her ankle. Not that she even gets much of a chance to use it, having been demoted to working desk duty for the serious infraction she made of NYPD regulations.

Donna, during a routine burglary follow-up in Greenwich Village, meets Conner Anderson (a soap-opera actor that plays Crawford on Vampire Love Nest, a top rated program), who alerts her to some odd goings-on in a liquor store just across the street. Donna decides to investigate, having grown sick of being chained to her desk. At the same time, the Feds need her aid on a cold murder case while they are investigating a theft from the nuclear power plant.

However, Conner, would-be detective, wants to join her. And Donna, who is an Italian-American from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, cannot deny the mutual chemistry that she feels with this Southern WASP from Tupelo, Mississippi. Is taking Conner on as a civilian partner going to be the beginning of something beautiful or is it going to be the biggest mistake of her life?

This is a rare debut novel that is able to fire on all cylinders, combining one likable and tough heroine with a story that keeps you engaged up until the final page.

“Flight of the Fox” is the first novel in the “Sam Teagarden” series and was released in the year 2018. One innocent math professor runs for his very life while teams of hitmen attempt to prevent their government’s dark history to be published.

Sam Teagarden, a college professor, comes across a decades old government cover-up when this encoded document lands mysteriously into his inbox. It is followed by a cluster of mini-drones that is programmed to kill him.

That starts a horrifying flight from upstate New York, off to Washington and Key West while Teagarden has to outfox the teams of hitmen which are equipped with very sophisticated technology. As a fugitive, he races in order to decode the journal, just to realize the fully dreadful truth. It is the exact reason he is being hunted because it details criminal secrets that the US committed during the twentieth century.

If he happens to survive and publish the decoded diary, he is going to be a heroic whistle blower. However, there is no guarantee. He could also wind up dead.

“Madness of the Q” is the second novel in the “Sam Teagarden” series and was released in the year 2020. Six years have gone by since his Flight of the Fox ordeal which dubbed him the American Prometheus, humble Sam Teagarden gets caught in the middle of another mission.

This time it involves him decoding a secret document that provokes tragic reactions all around the world. Unearthed somewhere in Israel, the ancient parchment’s called the Q Document, for the German word quelle, which means source. Biblical scholars believe that it might be the original source for two gospels: Luke and Matthew. If decoded, it might shed light on the creation of the most widely observed religious faith in the entire world.

The FBI, instead of trying to kill him this time, formally taps him to aid, and help stop, a contagion of mass suicides among the other religious zealots. Each cult group has been motivated by fear of what might or might not be revealed should the document be decoded and published. His mission is supposed to last for two days on foreign soil. Teagarden is forced to work alone once the plan goes awry, without the protection promised to him by the CIA and the FBI.

The journey takes him from New York and off to Israel, across the Mediterranean Sea off to Rome, and then finally Berlin. While he attempts to decipher the two thousand year old enigmatic parchment, he has to outsmart two equally dangerous and fanatical groups: one that is rooted in fervent atheism and the other entrenched in religious faith. He learns that there is a group that wants him dead, and the other wants him alive. Until each of their goals reverse in midstream.

Is he going to become another casualty that is caught up in the controversy that is caused by the fear of the Q Document? Or, should he survive the gauntlet of extreme violence, is he going to get blamed for conveying news to the world that millions of people won’t want to hear?