Lawrence Kaplan
Author of Medical Thrillers & Historical Fiction
Lawrence Kaplan is the author of two novels that refuse to stay in a single lane. One is a medical thriller rooted in pharmaceutical research and organized crime. The other is a historical mystery that opens with a death and a missing tattoo. What they share is a fascination with the hidden forces that shape human events — and the records that never tell the whole story.
His debut novel, Gene Killers, plunges readers into the world of pharmaceutical research and organized crime — where a new asthma drug secretly funded by the Mafia turns clinical-trial patients into killers, including the President of the United States.
His second novel, The Vanishing Tattoo, opens with the death of a beloved Westfield, New Jersey community member — and the discovery that his concentration-camp tattoo has been surgically removed. What follows is an investigation into identity, survival, and the crimes that time cannot erase.
INVESTIGATOR'S NOTE
Both novels draw on real events, real places, and real moral failures. The fiction is the frame. The truth is underneath.
Field Notes
The Work Behind the Work
Medical Expertise
Kaplan's fiction is grounded in real medical and pharmaceutical knowledge. The clinical details in Gene Killers reflect genuine research into drug development, trial protocols, and the intersection of medicine and power.
Historical Investigation
The Vanishing Tattoo required deep research into Holocaust history, survivor communities, and the long shadow of World War II on American life. Kaplan approached the subject with care and precision.
New Jersey Roots
Both novels are anchored in the specific geography and community life of New Jersey — lending the fiction an authenticity that readers recognize as lived, not invented.
Investigator's Statement
Why These Stories
The best thrillers are not about plot — they are about what people are willing to do, and what they are willing to ignore. Whether the setting is a pharmaceutical lab or a postwar New Jersey neighborhood, the stakes are always human, the records are always incomplete, and the truth is always more complicated than the official version. Medical fiction and historical fiction are different genres. But they share the same engine: a secret that refuses to stay buried.
"The record is never the whole story."
Novels on Record
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