James Queally

All These Ashes

“James Queally takes the skills he has acquired as an award-winning journalist and puts them to devastating use as an author.” ––S.A. Cosby, bestselling author of King of Ashes

Russell Avery needs a story to tell. 

The laid-off reporter turned private investigator is almost out of clients after he stood up against the Newark police officers whose problems he used to fix for a paycheck, exposing a scandal that left him on the wrong side of one of those thin blue lines. Desperate for work, Russell is as 
elated as he is skeptical when a detective shows up on his doorstep, asking him to look into one of the Brick City's most haunting mysteries: The Twilight Four killings. The detective tells Russell a story almost too good to be true, but maybe good enough to save his otherwise doomed journalism career if it is true. Supposedly, the wrong man was convicted in the brutal arson-murders that claimed four teenagers' lives, and if Russell finds the right one, he'll have the inside track on the kind of story that most reporters stake their careers on. But things worth knowing don't make themselves easy to find. As Russell starts untangling the complications of a decades-old murder that never even had a crime scene to start from, he runs into opposition from City Hall and finds himself drug into the middle of a contentious Mayoral race that could impact Newark for generations to come, all while trying to stay one step ahead of the real Twilight Four killer, who wouldn't mind reducing Russell to ash. 

In the sequel to the critically acclaimed Line Of Sight, Russell Avery must once again try to figure out the definition of justice in a city where that term rarely.

Line of Sight

"AN AMAZING FIRST NOVEL." ––MICHAEL CONNELLY

All favors come with a cost, and after using what little favors he has in the Newark PD to get his private investigators license, former crime reporter Russell Avery finds himself paying. He spends his days reluctantly keeping sideways cops out of the crosshairs of the Internal Affairs department. Until Keyonna Jackson, a social justice activist, presents him with a troubling video: a made-for-Youtube cell phone snippet chronicling the same kind of questionable use-of-force that had set New York City, Ferguson, and Cleveland on fire in recent years. The same use-of-force that he’s been covering up for Newark PD. Now, the young black man who filmed this video is dead and the more questions Russell asks, the less his cop buddies like him. For the first time in his life, Russell finds himself on the wrong side of the guys with the badges and guns. When details of the shooting become public―and a city with race riots in its DNA flirts with the idea of letting history repeat itself―Russell finds himself allying with street activists and gang members as he races to put together the biggest story of his life… before the city he needs to tell it to burns down around him.

Surviving the Lie

From the critically acclaimed author of Line of Sight and All These Ashes comes the exciting final installment of the Russell Avery series: Surviving the Lie

After the death of his two oldest sources, Russell trades in his life as a former journalist turned private investigator for a peaceful life at home. Aside from the occasional reporting online under the safety of an alias, Russell is enjoying a normal life with a normal girlfriend and suburban bliss just within reach. That is, until his onetime mentor disappears. Russell soon learns that other journalists in the area have gone missing, all under mysterious circumstances. Unable to resist the pull of a good story, he quickly finds himself at odds with a violent band of conspiracy theorists and ex-cops set in their own truth and convinced reporters are the “enemy of the people.” Russell sacrificed two careers to the belief in the power of facts. But now, face-to-face with a post-fact America, he must decide if the truth is still worth fighting for.