David Shawn Klein

David Shawn Klein is an American novelist and writer of short stories, essays, and poetry.

Writing
Klein's debut novel, The Money, a crime thriller published by Black Rose Writing in February 2021, was a 2021 Best Thrillers Book Awards winner and a Maxy Award Finalist. A critic for IndieReader praised the story for its outrageous twists and acerbic wit, noting, “Klein writes with a gritty narrative style reminiscent of crime greats like Raymond Chandler and Rex Stout.”

The same publisher released his subsequent novel, the psychological thriller And the Dead Shall Live, in February 2024. A reviewer for BestThrillers.com deemed it Klein's best book to date, prizing the sheer depth of the central characters, particularly agoraphobic novelist Phillip Raymond's “curious proclivities and disturbing backstory.” A critic for Kirkus Reviews concurred that Klein “expertly unspools the backstories of Raymond and Carter,” convincingly guiding his characters around the city.

Klein has also authored a children's picture book, Sherlock Mendelson and the Missing Afikomen, illustrated by Bridget Starr Taylor, which BookViral described as “an appealing fusion of fun and instruction and colour.” Kirkus Reviews wrote positively about the book, observing that the “detective elements, which offer a nod to Sherlock Holmes, are skillfully incorporated, and the entertaining resolution will delight readers.”

The author's short stories, essays, and poetry have appeared in various literary magazines, including Film Comment, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, New York Stories, Runner’s Gazette, American Jewish Times Outlook Monthly, Art:Mag, Lowestoft Chronicle, Pembroke Magazine, and Mystery Magazine. In praise of his short story, published in the Lowestoft Chronicle anthology Intrepid Travelers, a journalist for the Blackpool Gazette remarked, “David Klein hits new heights with The Final Ascent of Hal Tripp.” Two of his later short stories, “Einhorn’s Kosher Palace” and “Finch,” taken from The Money, were published in The Hudson Review. Both stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize, with “Finch” named a Distinguished Mystery Story of 2019 by Best American Mystery Stories 2020. His creative nonfiction piece “Irrational” appears in the Lowestoft Chronicle anthology A Place to Pause, published in 2024.

Klein has taught his short stories at New York City high schools as part of the Hudson Review's Writers in The Schools program.

Novels

 * The Money (Castroville, Texas: Black Rose Writing, 2021).
 * And the Dead Shall Live (Castroville, Texas: Black Rose Writing, 2024).

Children's books

 * Sherlock Mendelson and the Missing Afikomen (Castroville, Texas: Black Rose Writing, 2022).