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Christopher Swann

Christopher Swann is a graduate of Woodberry Forest School in Virginia. He earned a B.A. in English from Washington and Lee University, an M.A. in English and creative writing from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a Ph.D. in creative writing from Georgia State University. He has won awards and recognition from GSU, Washington and Lee University, and the Heekin Group Foundations Tara Fellowship for Short Fiction. He lives with his wife and two sons in Atlanta, where he is the English department chair at Holy Innocents Episcopal School. Shadow of the Lions is his debut novel.

Genres: Mystery

Series

Faulkner Family Thriller
   1. Never Turn Back (2020)
   2. Never Go Home (2022)
   3. Never Back Down (2023)

Novels

Shadow of the Lions (2017)
A Fire in the Night (2021)

Books containing stories by Christopher Swann

Myopic Duplicity (2025)
Do the Ends Ever Justify the Means?
edited by
Jeff Circle

Christopher Swann recommends

Bless Your Heart (2025)
Leigh Dunlap
"Equal parts murder mystery and social satire, Leigh Dunlap's Bless Your Heart is a savagely gleeful take on the Atlanta elite, Law & Order meets Desperate Housewives. Beneath the glamorous surface, though, Dunlap considers weighty issues such as race, class, and money. As a longtime resident of Atlanta, when reading Dunlap's debut I both laughed out loud and squirmed in my seat, although I laughed more often. Dunlap is a witty and vicious satirist in addition to being a compelling mystery writer. Murder mysteries open all kinds of doors, allowing readers access to hidden truths that are both shocking and shallow. Dunlap accomplishes this with particular verve and skill, sparing no one. "Who killed Anderson Tupper?" may be the question at the heart of the plot, but as Dunlap leads us inside the privileged walls of Atlanta mansions and into the worlds of both the Buckhead Betties and the detective searching for a killer, we may start wondering if there are more deserving victims."

What He Left Behind (2025)
Benjamin Bradley
"Bradley uses the conventions of a murder mystery to conduct his own autopsy of Oak Hill and its residents, and no one is spared. A worthy addition to the Southern Gothic tradition."

Not By Blood (2023)
Chris Narozny
"Chris Narozny ratchets up the tension one agonizing notch at a time in this psychological thriller about trauma, addiction, and memory. In a world of secrets lurking just beyond reach, EMT Tina Evans must face an array of personal demons, including her own broken family. Not By Blood reads like a midnight ride in a speeding ambulance, where your life is on the line and the most dangerous people may be the ones closest to home."

The Protege (2023)
Jody Gehrman
"The sheltered enclave of academia becomes a nightmare for Dr. Hannah Bryers as her favorite graduate student, Winter Jones, plots to shatter her career and her life. The Protege is a wicked ride through a twisty tunnel of revenge, betrayal, institutional politics, and deception. Jody Gehrman deftly manages her two equally compelling narrators. Hannah is socially awkward and fiercely intelligent; Winter is a master manipulator fighting to hold a deep-seated rage in check. Gerhman's novel is not a whodunit but a whydunit--we turn the pages to learn why Winter wants to destroy Hannah and to see how, and if, Hannah can survive. The writing is crisp, the plot engaging, and the characters, even the secondary ones, are well-drawn. As the personal stakes for both Hannah and Winter increase, each is pushed to the edge in a taut thriller that is a hell of a lot of fun to read. That is Jody Gehrman's biggest success, making a tale of one person's calculated destruction of another human being both horrifying and wickedly entertaining."

It Dies with You (2022)
Scott Blackburn
"Scott Blackburn's It Dies With You is a southpaw of a thriller that starts with a slow burn, stuns with a one-two punch of family drama and murder, lands a hook into small-town politics, and closes with an uppercut of an ending. With the most unusual sidekicks this side of a Stephen King novel, ex-boxer Hudson Miller must deal with the legacies left by his father's death--if he survives. As a writer of Southern rural noir, Blackburn is one to watch."

Impacted (2021)
Benji Carr
"Wade Harrell is the kind of protagonist you want to slap some sense into before giving him a hug and some words of wisdom, except none of us, hopefully, has ever faced the hilarious and outrageous problems that author Benji Carr keeps throwing at Wade. So the best advice for Wade might be ‘Good luck, and don't do anything stupid!' Of course, Wade won't listen. Carr's darkly comic yet heartfelt storytelling allows us to laugh at Wade while also empathizing with him, and the perspectives of other characters help us better understand Wade and remind us that, while everyone struggles one way or another, it's better to struggle together than on our own."

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