Jim Michael Hansen

Jim Michael Hansen (born 1949, Cleveland, Ohio) is the author of the "Laws" novels, which are hard-edged legal/detective thrillers featuring Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry.

Biography

Hansen is a graduate of Cleveland State University, where he earned a B.A. (Mathematics) in 1971 and a M.S. (Mathematics) in 1973. Following graduation, Hansen taught mathematics to junior high school students for ten years in the Cleveland Municipal School District.

In 1980, Hansen obtained a Juris Doctorate from the Cleveland Marshall College of Law. During law school, Hansen was invited to join the Cleveland State Law Review based on his upper 10% class standing after the first year. He then served as an Associate Editor (1979) and Editor (1980) on the Cleveland State Law Review. His student note, Cross-Certification Teacher Tenure Problems in Ohio, was one of a handful of student submissions that was published in the Law Review. A second student article (Unreliability of Radar) was published in the Law and Fact Magazine, which earned the 1979 Exegesis Award from the Cuyahoga County Bar Association for the best published article received during the year from a law school student.

Following graduation from law school, Hansen served for three years as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Robert B. Krupansky, Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Cleveland, Ohio. In 1984 Hansen was admitted to the bar of the Colorado Supreme Court and has been practicing law in Colorado since that time.

Hansen became an author in 2006 with the release of his debut thriller, Night Laws.

Books

The "Laws" books have been released in the following order. Each one features Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry. However, each is a stanalone and is independent of the others. Thus they can be read in any order.

1. Night Laws (2006).

Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry is on the hunt for a vicious killer who has warned attorney Kelly Parks, Esq., that she is on his murder list. Something from the beautiful young lawyer’s past has come back to haunt her, something involving the dark secrets of Denver’s largest law firm. With the elusive killer ever one step away, Kelly Parks frantically searches for answers, not only to save her life but also to find out whether she unwittingly participated in a murder herself.

2. Shadow Laws (2006).

Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry, and beautiful young attorney Taylor Sutton, are separately hunting vicious killers but for very different reasons. As the two dangerous chases inadvertently intersect, both of the hunters get pulled deeper and deeper into an edgy world of shifting truths where there is more at stake than either could have imagined, nothing is as it seems, and time is running out.

3. Fatal Laws (2007)

When several women are found buried in shallow graves near one another, each murdered in a brutally different way, Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry finds himself pulled into the edgy world of Tianca Holland—a woman involved enough to be a prime suspect, vulnerable enough to be the next victim, and beautiful enough to be more than just a distraction.

4. Deadly Laws (2007)

Third-year law student Kayla Beck receives a chilling telephone call. A stranger has chosen her to be the rescuer of a woman he has abducted. Kayla can either attempt to rescue the victim and possibly save her life or she can ignore the call and never be bothered again. If she disregards the call, however, no one else will get a similar opportunity. The woman will die. What happens next catapults both Kayla and Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry into a deadly world where the FBI has been hunting unsuccessfully for years; a world of unknown boundaries and dangers; a world where, in the end, the only hope of getting out is to go all the way in.

5. Bangkok Laws (2008)

As Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry finds himself entangled in the collateral damage of a killer who uses the entire world as his playground, newly licensed attorney Paige Alexander lands her very first case—a case that could possibly destroy the most powerful law firm in the world; a case involving a deadly, high-stakes international conspiracy of terrible proportions; a case that started in Bangkok but will not end there.

6. Immortal Laws (2008)

Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry is thrust into his most bizarre and twisted case yet as he hunts the killer of a woman who was murdered with a wooden stake through her heart as if she was a vampire. Meanwhile, beautiful young blues singer Heather Vaughn learns that she has been targeted for a similar death. She frantically searches for answers, not only to save her life but also to find out whether dark genes from an ancient past are buried inside her. As time runes out, both she and Coventry find themselves swept deeper and deeper into the throes of a modern-day thriller born of ancient and deadly obsessions.

7. Voodoo Laws (2009)

As Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry frantically searches for a missing woman and is pulled deeper and deeper into an edgy world of voodooism and death curses, beautiful young solo attorney Mackenzie Lee takes on a terrifying case—a case born of shadowy origins; a case that is ever intensifying; a case that is destined to sweep everyone who touches it into the spiraling vortex of a deadly thriller.

8. Ancient Laws (2009)

Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry tracks a killer to Paris, expecting a dangerous but straightforward hunt. What he doesn’t foresee is that he and a strikingly beautiful French detective would be pulled into a deadly game—a game that would stretch from Paris to Cairo to the Valley of the Kings; a game rooted in ancient tombs, archeological murders and lost treasures; a game that started thousands of years ago but is not over yet.

9. Hong Kong Laws (2010)

In his most desperate and personal case yet, Denver homicide detective Bryson Coventry hunts the streets of Hong Kong for a killer who has targeted a mysterious woman for death. As the chase pulls him and a beautiful young Hong Kong detective from seedy underground hideaways to high-society haunts, they soon find themselves spiraling into the vortex of a deadly international hunt for an unimaginable treasure.

10. Relic Laws (2010)

An ancient African relic serves as a catalyst to pull Bryson Coventry into a deadly thriller set in Tokyo.

Recurring characters

1. Bryson Coventry, the 34-year-old head of Denver's homicide unit.

2. Shalifa Netherwood, a first-year African American detective who appears as Coventry's partner.

3. Dr. Leanne Sanders, an FBI profiler.

External links