Neil Albert

Neil Albert is the author of the Dave Garrett mystery series, featuring a disbarred lawyer eking out a living as a private eye in Philadelphia. The titles are The January Corpse, The February Trouble, Burning March, Cruel April, Appointment in May, and Tangled June. Are you seeing a pattern? January Corpse was short-listed by the Private Eye Writers of America as a Best First Novel in 1990 and the Boston Globe called it "a first rate first novel." Kirkus and Publishers Weekly also gave positive reviews to all of the books they reviewed. Cruel April was optioned for movies a number of times, but nothing has come of it as yet other than the option checks.

Neil is a lawyer, living not far from Philadelphia, who was not disbarred. Although Neil's legal background provides the ideas for his stories, he writes straight up private eye fiction, not courtroom thrillers. Neil spends his life in courtrooms; the last word he would use to describe them is "thrilling."

The books follow Dave through his adventures in one year, 1989. an era recent enough to have basic cell phones but before the internet put all the information of the world at our fingertips. Each book is different; the first is a classic puzzle that very few readers figured out; the second is a character study where the people are not what they seem; the third is about practicing law in Philadelphia; the fourth is an action-based adventure; the fifth is partly about a case and partly about the evolving relationship between David and his assistant Lisa; and the sixth is the story of Dave investigating his own roots, based upon Neil's own life. The seventh is a follow up investigation that Dave promised to do in the April book.

Neil is originally from Oregon, where he received degrees in psychology and philosophy from the University of Oregon, plus a master's in counseling. Then he moved east, attended Villanova law school, and settled in Lancaster. In middle age Neil took up horseback riding and for twenty years fox hunted, which mainly involves wild galloping, drinking from a flask, falling off, and lying about the height of the fences. No, the fox is not harmed, although what happens to the rider is another matter.

Neil resides with his wife Evelyn near Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Neil released the seventh book in the series, Cold July, in December 2020. At the same time he started a website, www.neilalbertauthor.com, where he hosts a blog about the novels of Ross Macdonald, one of the great hardboiled mystery writers.