Lawrence De Maria

Lawrence De Maria has also begun a series of children's books set primarily in the Old West. The first book, THE PURLOINED PONIES, introduces Robert James, the famous Cowboy Bob, an elderly former Texas Ranger and frontier detective, who befriends two small kids, Lucy and Kentucky Jones, during the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. James entrances them with tales from his younger days going back to the American Civil War.

Following a stint in the U.S. Marines, De Maria was an award-winning crime and financial reporter, earning a Pulitzer nomination at The New York Times. His fiction writing, loosely grounded in real-life experiences dealing with some of the most notorious criminals in recent American history, is strongly influenced by Colin Dexter, Ian Fleming, Robert B. Parker, Ed McBain and John D. MacDonald. De Maria reviews books, in all genres, for the Washington Independent Review of Books, where he also provides a popular column.