“A brilliant legal thriller, well-crafted characters, and the abuse of governmental power results in a riveting, tension-filled tale. Chasing Justice is a must-read. Expect a roller coaster ride as decency and goodness struggle to triumph over morally corrupt brokers of evil."
Laura Taylor, 6-Time Romantic Times Award Winner

“G.J makes his characters real people you will cheer on as they fight to make good come out of a nasty criminal conspiracy with national implications.”
p.d.r. lindsay, author of ‘Tizzie’, ‘Bittersweet’, ‘Jacob’s Justice’

“With Chasing Justice, accomplished historical novelist G.J. Berger makes an impressive debut in the conspiracy thriller genre. In a league with the best of Grisham and Baldacci.”
Dan Pollock, author of Lair of the Fox and Duel of Assassins

One of only "Four beautiful, pack-your-suitcase worthy reads for summer vacation. . . . Four Nails is a big book packed with history and adventure."
Huffington Post, April 2016

"Fast paced and richly entertaining . . . [with] a love story . . . natural rather than forced is just an added bonus."
Historical Novel Society "Recommended" review, 2016.

"FOUR NAILS is many things, all of them topnotch, . . . a love story, a couple of them, actually, both unconventional—between a boy and his magnificent war elephant and also for the unattainable and untouchable girl, . . . [an] epic tale of a lost Indian boy trying find his way back home."
Dan Pollock, former Los Angeles Times Syndicate Editor, Amazon Reviewer, 2017.

"A wonderfully crafted balance of Roman-era drama and the fierceness of battle."
Kirkus Review of "South of Burnt Rocks"

"[W]ell researched and engrossing novel . . . . bringing this time period alive. Recommended."
Historical Novel Society Review of  "South of Burnt Rocks", Aug. 1, 2015

G.J. Berger

When G. J. was eight, his mom told him the story of Hannibal crossing the Alps with elephants and a great army. He asked her what happened to Hannibal after that. Mom didn't know, but he was hooked, had to find out, had to write about it.

G. J. spent much of his young life on the road and at sea, even working as a crew member on a tramp steamer. Wherever his travels took him, old walls, canals, storage holes deep in the ground, made him wonder about how they got there, about the people who built them, how they lived and got along. The award-winning "South of Burnt Rocks--West of The Moon" and the second historical, "Four Nails", bring to modern readers the lives and times of Hannibal, history's greatest elephant, and much more.

For decades G. J. worked trial lawyer shepherding many cases through the court system. That naturally led to his most recent creation, the legal thriller "Chasing Justice." One author reviewer says of it, “With Chasing Justice, accomplished historical novelist G.J. Berger makes an impressive debut in the conspiracy thriller genre. In a league with the best of Grisham and Baldacci.”

When not writing, G. J. tries to roam around the places he writes about, likes to sit and soak up the times back then and bring them to life in his stories. G. J. is convinced that for all the changes in last 2000 years, people loved and hated, suffered and rejoiced, destroyed and built out of the same urges then as today.

G. J. says, "I write historical fiction because the genre gives the reader an added 'take away' as only historical fiction can. Nothing else sweeps the reader into great tides of the past, into the lives of people who lived and loved, fought and suffered, laughed and rejoiced just as we do today--but differently too." He says of his legal thriller, "Only the American legal system, when done right, can bring justice to victims of any kind. It separates us from the rest of the world--in a good way."

Both "Four Nails" and "South of Burnt Rocks" won recognition as the best published historical fiction of 2012 and 2015-16, respectively, from the San Diego Book Awards. "Publishers Weekly", Kirkus Reviews, and the "Huffington Post" have praised G. J.'s novels.

G. J. lives in San Diego with his favorite grammarian and English Professor and tango dancing partner. They visit their two sons and grandsons as often as the kids will have them.

 

 

Books

To Steal A Moment's Time

On the brink of World War II, Katharina Berger was the most sought-after stage and film actress in Germany. As many of her colleagues fled Hitler’s madness and the devastation of war, Katharina stayed and gave birth to a healthy baby boy in 1944. From evading Nazi fanatics and helping Jews escape, to scrounging for food and shelter as she searched for her missing husband, she journaled during her son’s first year of life, surviving on the small thread of hope that she and her child might live to see a better world.

A compilation of remarkable diaries penned by a new mother, To Steal a Moment’s Time is a powerful memoir that highlights the unique perspective of German citizen Katharina Berger during the throes of a war she never agreed with.

 

This work is a rare feat, a seamless amalgam of an unflinching literary realism with an unsentimental affirmation of life. A beautiful war account—both unsettling and inspiring. Kirkus Reviews 2021

Four Nails

School children in many lands have heard of Hannibal, the general out of Carthage who took an army and elephants over the Alps and down the back side of his mortal enemy, Rome. Author GJ Berger transports the reader into the heart and mind of Hannibal’s lead elephant driver and into the spirit of his magnificent elephant. As with Berger’s debut historical fiction novel, “South of Burnt Rocks West of The Moon”, the places, tides of history, and main encounters in “Four Nails” are all true, laced with rich details from a life-time of research into an engrossing and deeply satisfying story previously lost to the fog of history.

 

 

South of Burnt Rocks
West of The Moon

After three great wars, Rome has crushed Carthage. Now the undefended riches of Iberia beckon–gold, tin, olives, wine, and healthy young bodies to enslave. “Burnt Rocks”, a mostly true historical novel portrays Celtic fighting women making a last stand against the Roman army. Armed with little more than the spirits of the earth and sky, they show a courage known only to those with nothing left to lose. Based on real characters, places, and events, “Burnt Rocks” recreates that shadowy history–and eternal human nature rubbed raw.

 

 

 

Chasing Justice

Judge Angela Cornwell sits on the California Superior Court. One busy Friday morning, Angela’s mentor lies dead in his own chambers. The police say he blew his brains out. Not possible to Angela, she can’t leave it alone.

Decades before, rogue FBI agent, Frank Maier, gets a murder case of a young woman in Washington D.C. Too soon he’s ordered to back away, even threatened. But he can’t leave it alone either.

In their separate quests, Frank and Angela learn the two killings are related to other deaths that all arise from the biggest true crime of the last century. They each attract the attention of the most clever and powerful criminals in the U.S. Will Angela’s by-the-book courtroom process help them, or is Frank’s street justice their only safe path?