A former international banker who now writes the twisting, morally fraught thrillers only an insider could.
Two award-winning crime novels that draw on a real banking career across Latin America, Canada, and North Africa — where money, family, and danger are never far apart.
When the FBI can’t help, an unassuming banker takes matters into his own hands to bring his son home.
Wade, a respected La Jolla banker, and his estranged wife Fiona make the unbearable decision to send their troubled teenage son Myles to a treatment center. A year later he returns seemingly healed — until he slips across the border into Tijuana to buy drugs, and is kidnapped.
To raise the ransom, Wade strikes a devil’s bargain with a Quebecois financier of dubious reputation — agreeing to work for his bank in exchange for the cash. As Wade races to rescue Myles before the kidnappers lose patience, he discovers he’s now indebted to a cartel, and wrapped up in far more than a kidnapping.
When you’re the son of a serial killer, you can never escape your past.
No one was supposed to know that private banker William McNary is a serial killer’s son. His father stamped his picturesque post-murder photographs onto the nation’s horrified consciousness; William was eight when he went to prison. Since then, William has carefully built a life as a devoted family man and banker to the very wealthy.
Then, one night, the phone rings — and the past he buried comes roaring back. A dark, sophisticated story about just how deep the sins of the father can reach into the lives of his children.
A banker who spent a career around the world’s money — and now writes about what people will do to keep it.
Carl Vonderau is an award-winning author of crime fiction. Even as a child in Cleveland, he loved to write — but it took a long time to become a full-time author. He left for Stanford, spent a year studying and traveling in Latin America, and, after a degree in economics, became a banker.
That career let him live and work in Latin America, Canada, and North Africa. He became a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen. After a long banking career, he finally devoted himself to what he loved most: writing novels.
Carl lives with his wife in San Diego. His two grown sons are close by — and wonder how he knows so much about serial killers and banking crimes.
Conversations on crime fiction, the writing life, and the strange truths behind the stories. New episodes posted as they drop.
On Murderabilia, inherited guilt, and the children of infamous men.
How a career in international finance became a wellspring of crime fiction.
News on new books, events, and the occasional story from a writing life that started in a bank vault.