In April of 2008, The Thief Maker was named a Finalist in the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award for Independent Books.
Click here for the complete list of finalists.
The Thief Maker was also honored by Writer's Digest in the 15th Annual International Self-Published Book Awards.
Click here for a complete list of winners.
Here's what people are saying once they've caught their breath....
"If anything positive emerged out of the mountain of dreck that 9/11 spawned...it was The Thief Maker...Towards the end all bets are off and suddenly the post 9/11 world has turned to Bedlam...The climactic build-up is a shrieking anxious ride that gets thick with complexity and before you know it you're being hit in the head with a dynamite denoument...an inventive and stylistically nihilistic novel...Schleicher wonderfully captured a lot of nuances of modern-day America spot-on...Schleicher draws the reader into this smartly crafted parallel universe--one that is remarkably like our own world." - Kent Manthie for Reviewer Magazine
"The Thief Maker is for anyone who loves a good mystery with a psychological edge to it...mysterious, thought-provoking, entertaining and sometimes shocking... All in all, that is just what most mystery lovers want." - Joe Graham for Reader Views
"Schleicher keeps everything real and gritty, leaving you awestruck by the depth of the misfortune that these people have had to endure. The Thief Maker...hangs around in your mind, percolating with its pathos and all of its insights into human relationships." - Daniel Jolley, an Amazon.com Top 50 Reviewer
"D. H. Schleicher should be crowned the new King of the Plot Twists. The storyline, characters, and subplots are just so stinking good in The Thief Maker that I cannot help but give it my highest recommendation." - Floyd M. Orr, author and critic
"Overall, it is a well-written, inventive story that strikes at the heart of what it means for some people to love, hate, be indifferent and get carried along in global as well as personal events." - Nancy O. Greene, author of Portraits in the Dark
"The Thief Maker is a story about losing your identity and struggling to find redemption and revenge in a cold harsh world. The characters are fatally flawed and at the same time, tragically endearing." - Book-of-the-Moment
"...characterizations are engaging, and believable...a wonderful book full of twists and turns and lots of surprises." - Terry South for Quality Book Reviews
Published October 2006
…from the author:
The Thief Maker ($14.95, ISBN 0-595-40518-5) is a suspense novel that explores the destruction and restructuring of human relationships in the wake of personal and communal tragedies. Told in “thematic chronology,” the non-linear, multiple point-of-view style is meant to reveal the psychological complexities and intimate details of human interactions.
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Is it time to steal a piece of history?
What brings us to this crucial point? Is it more powerful in those public moments of a communal tragedy like the terrorist attacks on 9/11, or is it in the quiet intimacy of that emotional breakdown in the middle of the night when you think no one is watching? What force compels us to question our identity and ache for that connection to someone or something else? What is it that forms our duplicitous nature with one set of eyes unable to examine the present as it is, and one set of eyes trying to imagine a future where we are not haunted by the ghosts of the past? In the wake of America’s War on Terror, the lives of a con man, a private eye, a nurse, and a lesbian couple tragically intertwine in Philadelphia.
The time has come to meet your maker.
Read an excerpt from The Thief Maker, "William Tells"
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Also by D. H. Schleicher:
Inspired by a True Story
Published October 2003
Inspired by an actual unsolved case concerning the disappearance of a young girl, D. H. Schleicher’s An Accidental House explores the mystical aspects of becoming obsessed and drawn into an unsolvable mystery as well as the ramifications of being adrift in a spiritually bankrupt society. In the fictional town of Notlingburg, local folklore, urban legends, and salacious rumors take the place of religious myth and moral upbringing. With its shady, crime-laden past and uncertain future, the denizens of Notlingburg are sent adrift into a twilight realm where the lines between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, daydream and nightmare are increasingly blurred.
Having lost his own sister to an unspeakable crime he was suspect of and his parents to a religious cult infesting Notlingburg, Truman Murdoch finds himself in the midst of a quarter-life crisis with no real direction in his life and only drugs, booze, and loose women to lead him down a road to self destruction. His only escape from his uncertain and harsh realities is the local rumor mills and old ghost stories that haunt his town. One mystery concerning the disappearance of a young woman named Dorina Sayler some twenty years earlier becomes his de-facto spiritual quest. Was she murdered? Kidnapped? Did she run away? Was her disappearance just an accident? Solving the mystery of Dorina Sayler soon becomes the unattainable Holy Grail in Truman Murdoch’s morally bankrupt life. Will he find redemption? Will the town of Notlingburg ever reveal the truth behind its lies and folklore? Will the reader ever be sure of what really happened? Find out in…..An Accidental House.
Available in both hardback (ISBN: 1-4134-3070-8) and trade paperback (ISBN: 1-4134-3069-4) editions.
I am currently seeking an agent, editor, and/or publicist to help me bring my future novels to larger publishing houses and larger audiences. Please feel free to sign my guestbook if you have any comments, information, tips, or guidance to provide.
This Web site was created on January 14, 2002.
This Web site was last updated on April 13, 2008.
All material found on this Web site and subsequent pages is copyright 2002-2007 by David H. Schleicher.
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