Works by
William Coughlin
[aka Sean A. Key, William J. Coughlin, William Jeremiah Coughlin]
(Writer)

Charlie Sloan Series

• Shadow of a Doubt (1991)
  Detroit attorney and former alcoholic Charley Sloan lost his practice, his wife, and his fortune to booze. A chance at a comeback arrives in his former lover, Robin Harwell. She’s now the desperate widow of a multimillionaire—and stepmother of the teenage girl charged with his brutal murder.

  Damned by forensic evidence, witness testimony, a history of mental problems, and by her own confession, young Angel’s defense will be hard coming—and believing in her innocence could come at a price far more personal than he ever feared.

  As the media descends, Charley finds himself shadowed by rivals determined to destroy him, trapped in the seductive grip of a never-forgotten love affair, and plunged in a dark morass of terrible lies, bitter secrets, and unforgiving family ties…

• Death Penalty (1992)
  Detroit lawyer Charley Sloan has been around the block once or twice. Down for the count, drinking heavily, a three-time loser in the marriage wars, Charley repairs his tattered career and gets back in the game. Heading his rogues' gallery of clients is the infamous, twisted angel of mercy, Doctor Death, whose patients have a strange habit of dying under very peculiar circumstances.

  But now Charley steps into a case with the opportunity to do some good. The high stakes include a literal matter of life and death. And, as he quickly discovers, they also include the sinister stench of corruption that reaches to the highest levels of jurisprudence-including Charley Sloan's respected mentor. Suddenly, a rock and a hard place never looked so good.

• The Judgment (1997)
  In a rural area outside of Detroit, bodies are being found in the snow. One after another. Neatly washed, wrapped in platic, methodically laid out like sleeping angels. And very, very young.  Forty miles away and at the other end of the world, an honest cop, the deputy chief chief of police, has been framed for a corruption charge. In a world of big-city politics, he wants ace lawyer Charley Sloan to get him off.  Pulled into the two very different cases, Charley faces the heat of a perplexnig serial murder investigation and the heavey hitters of the Motor City's inner circle. Interviewing witnesses, putting together clues, Charley Sloan, a man who has been at the bottom and at the top, is about to uncover the explosive difference between true innocence-and the most dangerous guilt of all...

• Proof of Intent: A Charley Sloan Courtroom Thriller (2002) with Walter Sorrells
  Charley Sloan isn't your typical lawyer. But then again, this isn't your typical case. When famous author and hometown hero Miles Dane is arrested for murdering his wife, it seems like an open-and-shut case. With no credible alibi, a mountain of physical evidence, and a motive of millions, it seems the prosecution's case is airtight.

Other Novels

• Songs of An Idle Hour (Date?)

• The Widow Wondered Why

• Dividend Was Death (1968)

• The Destruction Committee (1971)

• The Grinding Mill (1973)

• The Stalking Man (1979)
  In a twisted trail of blood, he spelled out his name, The Stalking Man, hunting women in cities across the country the way his father had once taught him to hunt deer. He loved the moment of terror frozen on their faces when the all-too-horrifying realization would hit them-they were going to die a death more violent and ghastly than their worst nightmares...

  They had caught him once-he did his time and now he was "cured." But he'd been sloppy then. This time he slithered through the country, striking with cunning and precision, laughing at the law as he outran them again and again. Now two men must piece together his macabre clues and stop a sadistic killer who's about to strike too close to home...

• Day of Wrath (1980)

• No More Dreams (1982)

• The Twelve Apostles (1984)

• Her Father's Daughter (1986)

• Her Honor (1987)

• In the Presence of Enemies  (1990)

• The Heart of Justice (1994)
  She's a beautiful New York heiress who will do anything for love, including pulling strings with a ruthless power broker to advance her husband's judicial career. But she doesn't know the hidden price; a blackmail, the rape of her trust fund, and perhaps the ruin of her marriage. 

  He fought his way up from his working-class Irish roots to the Federal bench. Tough and honest, dedicated to the law, he relishes sitting on the case before to rival some of America's biggest corporate takeovers.

  The outcome is worth billions, the tactics cutthroat, and suddenly, with the threatened exposure of a ruinous secret, everything Paul cares about is on the line--his marriage, his career, his reputation. Now faced with choices he never thought he'd have to make, he must confront what truly lies at the heart of justice...

  With lighting dialogue and authentic courtroom action, William J. Coughlin, former prosecutor and bestselling author of In the Presence of Enemies and Shadow of a Doubt, spins another superb legal thriller filled with emotions on the fire, intellects at war, and an outcome exploding with excitement and surprise.

• The Court (1999)
  Nine Supreme Court judges will soon decide four history-making cases. Eight of them will split along party lines four to four. The ninth judge, holding the swing vote, will tip the scales of justice. He's a good man, a fine man, and, unknown to nearly everyone, a dying man-barely kept alive by machines in a very private hospital.

  High-powered Washington attorney Jerry Green is one of the privileged few who discovers American justice rides on the rise and fall of a respirator. Now he's been called by the President himself to do something about it. It's a hunt for truth that will arouse his darkest suspicions...force him to make a shocking choice...and save the legitimacy of American justice. Or shatter it forever...

Writing as Sean A. Key

• The Mark of Cain (1980)
  Once Cain had been a cop. Now he is the hottest gun in town...His business is danger. His trademark is violence.

• Cain's Chinese Puzzle (1981)
  A mysterious murder in New York's Chinatown...an urgent summons from the ruthless chief of an oil cartel and Cain is speeding across the globe on a hunt that leads from the twisting back alleys of Hong Kong to a secret meeting in Communist China and a violent confrontation with an oriental crime Syndicate.

See also:

• Grieving: A Love Story 1993) by Ruth Coughlin
  Filled with emotion, comfort, and wisdom, this beautifully written memoir is William Coughlin's widow's look at her late husband's final months with cancer and her adjustment to living without him.