James A. Ardaiz

James A. Ardaiz is an award-winning author who set out to write books that would leave readers thinking about the stories he told and the dilemmas his characters faced. He writes a mixture of genres, from true crime to murder mystery to historical fiction, with each book exploring issues of violence and human frailty. His storylines feature complex characters who explore the boundaries of truth and morality. He wants the reader to merge into the journey of the protagonist and consider, “Is that what I would have done?”

Ardaiz is a retired judge and former prosecutor. Before becoming a writer, he spent eight years as a prosecutor and chief of homicide, thirty years as a trial and appellate court judge, and ten years as an attorney in private practice.

In Hands Through Stone, he takes readers through an actual major criminal investigation, revealing the true story behind California’s notorious Fran’s Market murders and their mastermind, Clarence Ray Allen, the last man executed in the State of California. Ardaiz was the prosecutor on the case before becoming a judge.

His next books involve the Matt Jamison series—a fictional courtroom legal thriller series. The books encompass a range of subjects from serial murder (Fractured Justice) to wrongful conviction (Shades of Truth) to international child sex trafficking (Trading Innocence) to ritualistic murder/fanaticism (Leaves of Moonlight). Trading Innocence was a finalist in the Thriller/Crime category of the 2022 American Fiction Awards and received an honorable mention in the General Fiction category of the 2022 Paris Book Festival Awards.

Finally, Tears of Honor is a sweeping novel of history, depicting how Japanese American soldiers fought against Nazi tyranny in World War II while their families remained imprisoned in internment camps. Tears of Honor was a 2022 silver medalist for National Historical Novel of the Year by the American Association of Independent Publishers.