Barbara D’Amato Books

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Barbara D’Amato is an American author that writes mystery novels. Like many writers, Barbara meandered through a number of careers before finally settling on the publishing arena.

Her resume will include stints spent as an assistant surgical orderly and a tiger handler. She also worked as a stage manager and a carpenter. This isn’t even including the time she spent doing research for criminal lawyers.

It could be argued that the author’s storytelling abilities have been groomed and molded by the varied and rather exciting life she has lived. Born in 1938, Barbara D’Amato refers to herself as a playwright and a researcher, this on top of her work as a novelist.

She garnered some fame for the work she did for Unsolved Mysteries, making an appearance on the program after her research into the Doctor John Branion murder case proved so invaluable.

The child of a department store owner, Barbara Steketee became Barbara D’Amato when she married Anthony D’Amato in the late 1950s. The author chose to abandon her studies at Cornell University to marry Anthony, though she eventually got her degree from Northwestern University several years later.

She even followed it up with a master’s degree. A wife and mother to two artistic sons, Barbara, and her husband worked together on her first play in 1973. She didn’t get into novel writing until 1980 when her debut work and first mystery novel was published.

The awards she won, as a result, confirmed her belief that she was meant to pursue writing and publishing. The author believes that writing is the greatest job in the world because it allows her to meet amazing people (for research) and embody the lives of such wide-ranging characters.

According to Barbara, her storytelling abilities are driven by anger. She typically sits down to write a story because she has a subject matter she feels so strongly about that she cannot rest until she tackles it in a story.

Barbara D’Amato Awards

Barbara has won Anthony Awards (1992, 1999), Agatha Awards (1994, 1999), a Macavity Award (1999) and a Mary Higgins Clark Award (2001). The author has also been nominated for a Nero Wolfe Award.

Best Barbara D’Amato Books

Barbara has been writing fiction and nonfiction, full-length novels and short stories since 1980 and she has garnered a strong following in that time, with some of the best books in her bibliography including:

The Doctor, The Murder, The Mystery: Doctor John Branion captured the public’s attention in 1968. Branion supposedly killed his wife in their home and the courts convicted him accordingly. Branion sought to use the appeals available to him to attain his freedom. But when he exhausted them all and still failed to prove his innocence, the doctor fled to Africa.

By 1983 he had been captured and dragged back home to face the consequences of his actions. Despite seemingly impossible circumstances, Branion not only continued to fight for his freedom but he actually won, compelling his accusers to admit that there was no way he could have killed his wife.

Barbara D’Amato brings Branion’s story to readers. The author did extensive research to understand the doctor’s physical and mental state as he languished in prison with no hope of escape.

Barbara shows that the police’s perception of the way Branion supposedly killed his wife was impossible and they knew it all along. Barbara lays bare all the facts of the case and digs into every shocking twist and turn that led the authorities to blunder their investigation into the death of Branion’s wife.

The author goes so far as to explore the years Branion spent in Africa practicing medicine even as he attempted to evade the law. The book shows the flawed nature of the criminal justice system in the United States and the power it has to ruin an innocent man’s life.

Hard Tack: Cat Marsala is a journalist. But when time allows, she is happy to play the role of amateur sleuth. Cat is drawn into the glamorous world of the rich and famous. Her story takes a backseat when a murder happens on an expensive yacht and Cat takes it upon herself to catch the killer.

Hard Tack is the second novel in the Cat Marsala Mystery series. Cat is afraid of water because she cannot swim. So sailing is the last thing she would ever want to do. But this book finds her doing just that when she is charged with writing a story on sailing.

When Does The Next Barbara D'Amato book come out?

Barbara D'Amato doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The Hands of Healing Murder and was released on March, 7th 2016. It is the newest book in the Gerritt De Graaf Series.

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