Book Life Reviews Editor’s Pick
Who Is Dan?
Dan Flanigan is a novelist, playwright, poet, and practicing lawyer. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Rice University and J.D. from the University of Houston. He taught Jurisprudence at the University of Houston and American Legal History at the University of Virginia. His first published book was his Ph.D. dissertation, The Criminal Law of Slavery and Freedom, 1800-1868.
He moved on from academia to serve the civil rights cause as a school desegregation lawyer, followed by a long career as a finance attorney in private law practice. He became a name partner in the Polsinelli law firm in Kansas City, created its Financial Services practice, chaired its Real Estate & Financial Services Department for two decades, and established the firm’s New York City office and served as its managing partner until October 2022. View his legal bio at https://www.polsinelli.com/professionals/dflanigan.
Taking a break from the law practice for two years in 1983-1985, he and his wife, Candy, founded Sierra Tucson, a prominent alcohol and drug treatment center located in Tucson, Arizona.
Recently, he has been able to turn his attention to his lifelong ambition—creative writing. In 2019 he released a literary trifecta including “Mink Eyes,” the first in the Peter O’Keefe series, “Dewdrops,” a collection of shorter fiction, and “Tenebrae: A Memoir of Love and Death.”
“Tenebrae” is a bracelet of verse and prose poems dedicated to his wife, Candy, to honor her last illness and death and their 40-plus years together, a work that has been described as “celebratory” and “heartbreaking and exquisite.” It was a Finalist for both the 2022 IAN Book of the Year in Poetry and in the 2022 American Book Fest “Best Book” Award in the Legacy: Autobiography/Memoir category. A new version with a new cover as well as the audiobook version, narrated by the author, were released in April 2026.
Dan’s novella, “Dewdrops,” was originally written for the stage and enjoyed a successful full-cast staged reading at the Theatre of the Open Eye in New York. Its then well-known and regarded director John Cappellatti described the play as a “powerful” work about “addiction in America—addiction to drugs, alcohol, sex, danger, power, and to finding the Answer,” with characters that are “well drawn, real, and actors love to portray them.” The short story collection comprised of “Dewdrops,” “On the Last Frontier” and “Some Cold War Blues” was a Finalist in the 2022 Independent Author Network Book of the Year for Short Story Collection and a 2022 American Book Fest “Best Book” Award Finalist in Fiction-Short Story.
In 2025, Dan published a second edition of “Dewdrops” to include a new story, “Dude.” As an Editor’s Pick, Book Life called it “a short story collection that’s as heartbreaking, raw, and real as it is beautiful and tender” and said “Flanigan’s prose is melodic and hypnotizing, jarring and chaotic, exploring the human condition through a series of tense, often melancholic tales that still capture the imagination with their reality, sweetness, and sadness.” Writer’s Digest said it more simply, “The writing is truly flawless.” “Dewdrops” was a 2025 Global Book Awards Gold Medalist.
“The Big Tilt,” the second book in the Peter O’Keefe series, was published in 2020 and has been described as “deft, hard-boiled, but literary prose that’s reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s best work.” “The Big Tilt” won the 2022 National Indie Excellence Award for Crime Fiction and was a Finalist for the 2022 Independent Author Network’s Book of the Year in Thriller/Suspense. In 2023, “The Big Tilt” was a Legacy Fiction finalist for the prestigious Eric Hoffer Award as well as making the 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize Short List.
“On Lonesome Roads,” published in 2022, is the third book in the series and was a Notable 100 Book in the 2022 Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition and 2023 IPPY Silver Medalist in the Best Mystery/Thriller eBook category. Most notably, “On Lonesome Roads” followed up “The Big Tilt’s” 2022 NIEA Crime Fiction win with a finish as finalist in the same contest and category for 2023. In the 2023 American Fiction Awards, “On Lonesome Roads” finished with its own trifecta: winner for Mystery/Suspense: General; finalist for Mystery/Suspense: Hard-Boiled Crime; and finalist for Thriller: Crime.
The fourth book in the Peter O’Keefe series, “An American Tragedy,” was published in 2024 with the audiobook version following in 2025. This installment has won many awards, including being a 2025 NIEA Finalist (National Indie Excellence Awards), a 2025 American Fiction Awards Finalist, a 2025 BIBA finalist and winning the 2025 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Best Literary Award. The audiobook version, which is a full cast reading, is a finalist for the 38th Annual IBPA Book Awards (winners to be announced in May).
The fifth book in the series, “Soldiers of Babylon,” was published in December 2025. Reviews have been enthusiastic and effusive: “Soldiers of Babylon is a taut, unsettling crime novel that sinks its teeth into the psychology of belief and the quiet violence it can breed;” “This is a sharp, unsettling examination of extremism that feels academically relevant and emotionally urgent;” “Soldiers of Babylon is a masterful blend of noir crime and psychological thriller that doesn’t flinch from uncomfortable truths.”
Dan has also written stage plays including “Dewdrops” (already described); “Secrets” (based on the life of Eleanor Marx); and “Tomcat’s Progress” (formerly titled “Moondog’s Progress” and inspired by the life of Alan Freed), which was awarded the 2022 Honorable Mention in the 91st Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition for “Script.”
He serves on the Board of Directors of Childhood USA, the U.S. arm of the World Childhood Foundation, established by Queen Silvia of Sweden, working to end child sexual abuse and exploitation everywhere.
He divides his time among Kansas City, New York City, and Los Angeles, and, whenever possible, visits the Catskills in New York and the San Juan Islands (off the coast of Washington state), as well as the Gulf Islands, Vancouver, and the Vancouver Islands in British Columbia.
