The Sam Halloran Trilogy
Crime Thrillers by a Forensic Accounting Expert
The Sam Halloran Thriller Series
The Sam Halloran Thriller Series explores financial crime through the eyes of a forensic accountant who learns—sometimes painfully—that uncovering the truth is rarely clean, never without personal consequence, and often costly.
Sunday Night Fears is Sam Halloran’s origin story. Set before he became the investigator readers encounter later in the series, the novel traces his early missteps, professional pressures, and personal fractures, culminating in the first major fraud discovery that will haunt him throughout his career.
The following novels, One Honest Soul and Echoes of Deceit, feature a seasoned Sam forged by those early experiences. These stories launch directly into high-stakes financial fraud investigations inspired by real-world cases, placing Sam at the center of corporate deception, political corruption, and criminal networks—where professional judgment, loyalty, and redemption collide under escalating pressure.
Series Reading Order
While the series follows a long character arc of family estrangements, guilt, and the search for redemption, each novel stands on its own and delivers a complete story. Readers can start at the beginning with Sunday Night Fears to understand how Sam became who he is, or jump into the later books for immediate action and discover his past in reverse.
Whether approached as character‑driven suspense or high‑stakes financial thrillers, the Sam Halloran series shares one constant: the deeper the fraud, the higher the personal cost of exposing the truth.
Available in Kindle, paperback, hardback, and audiobook formats
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Sam Halloran series?
The Sam Halloran series is a forensic accounting thriller series written by Tom Golden, CFE, a retired PwC forensic accounting partner with 30+ years investigating financial crimes. The series follows Sam Halloran, a forensic accounting investigator, through a long arc of fraud cases, personal struggles, and the search for redemption. Each novel is inspired by real fraud investigations from Tom Golden’s career. The series currently consists of three books: Sunday Night Fears (Book 1), One Honest Soul (Book 2), and Echoes of Deceit (Book 3).
What order should I read the Sam Halloran books?
The recommended reading order is: Sunday Night Fears (Book 1), One Honest Soul (Book 2), and Echoes of Deceit (Book 3). Sunday Night Fears is Sam Halloran’s origin story and provides the full character arc. However, each book in the series stands completely on its own and delivers a complete story, so new readers can start anywhere in the series and enjoy it without having read the previous books.
Are the Sam Halloran books based on real fraud cases?
Yes. All three Sam Halloran novels are inspired by real fraud investigations from Tom Golden’s 30+ year career as a forensic accounting investigator for the FBI, IRS, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Tom Golden draws on real cases, real investigative techniques, and real human dynamics from his experience to create stories that are both authentically grounded and compellingly fictional. The result is a series that fraud professionals and general readers alike describe as unlike anything else in the thriller genre.
Who is Sam Halloran?
Sam Halloran is a forensic accounting investigator and the central character of Tom Golden’s thriller series. Ambitious, flawed, and driven by a relentless need to uncover the truth, Sam works at one of the world’s largest accounting firms where he investigates corporate fraud, financial crimes, and the complex human behavior that drives them. Sunday Night Fears tells Sam’s origin story – how an older, underprepared accountant discovers fraud on his first public company audit and sets the course of his career. Later books follow the seasoned investigator that experience forged.
Who wrote the Sam Halloran series?
The Sam Halloran series was written by Tom Golden, CFE, a retired PricewaterhouseCoopers forensic accounting partner and Certified Fraud Examiner. Golden spent more than 30 years investigating financial crimes for the FBI, IRS, and major corporations before turning his investigative experience into fiction. He is also the lead author of A Guide to Forensic Accounting Investigation, the Wiley industry-standard reference for fraud investigators, and was featured in the 2017 documentary All The Queen’s Horses about the $54 million Rita Crundwell municipal fraud case.
If I like John Grisham will I enjoy the Sam Halloran series?
Very likely yes. Like John Grisham’s legal thrillers, the Sam Halloran series places an ordinary professional inside a high-stakes system that rewards silence and punishes scrutiny. The books blend suspense with authentic insider knowledge – in this case from a real fraud investigator rather than a lawyer. Readers who enjoy Grisham, Joseph Finder, or financial thrillers in the tradition of The Big Short consistently describe the Sam Halloran series as gripping, authentic, and impossible to put down.