Former MSU law professor finds success as novelist under pen name
Attorney and former Michigan State University College of Law professor Anthony Franze has written three legal thrillers under his own name. However, he’s published twice as many novels under his pseudonym, Alex Finlay.
An alumnus of the University of Nebraska and the University of Notre Dame Law School, Franze lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and works as an attorney at the law firm Arnold & Porter in Washington. He taught appellate practice and federal jurisdiction classes at MSU from 2004 to 2014.
He said a crossroads in his writing career led to the adoption of the pen name. He published his first novel as Finlay, “Every Last Fear,” in 2021.
“My legal thrillers were well received, but they were more niche,” he said. “I told my agent that I wrote another legal thriller. She asked me, ‘Don’t you want to break out and gain more readers? Have you considered writing something that isn’t a legal thriller?’ And that planted the seed.
“Coincidentally, I went on vacation shortly thereafter and had an idea for what became my first Alex Finlay book,” he continued. “The publisher was really excited about it. One thing led to another, and, basically, the pen name was supposed to separate my legal thrillers from what are my more commercial thrillers. Also, there was a component of a rebrand, so that was part of it as well.”
He never did publish his fourth legal thriller.
“When l looked back on it later, I didn’t think it was anything different than what I’d already done. By then, the Finlay books had gotten a different reaction from publishers and from readers, for whatever reason, so I’ve been pretty much all in with Finlay. My last three Finlay books became national bestsellers pretty quickly, either in their first or second week of release,” he said. “One of the things I didn’t realize when I started using the pen name — which at the time was really a business decision — was that it would be freeing for me. I used to worry about what judges and people in the appellate community would think about what I was writing — ‘Oh, this is based on somebody or something real.’ It never was, but I always had that in the back of my mind as a worry.”
However, when writing as Finlay, he has nothing to worry about.
“It’s cliché to say, but it wasn’t until I changed my name and wrote something that wasn’t something I knew that I found my voice as a writer,” he said.
His latest novel, published in May, is “The Anniversary” (Minotaur Books, $29).
The book takes place over a 10-year year time span. On May 1, 1992, popular high school girl Jules Delaney and outsider Quinn Riley meet each other in study hall. That night, Jules is attacked by the elusive May Day Killer, a serial killer who strikes every year on May 1 and vanishes without a trace. Jules is one of the “lucky ones” who survives the May Day Killer’s attack. Meanwhile, Quinn is arrested after breaking up a fight and nearly killing someone in the process.
“The book starts in 1992. As someone who went to college in the early 1990s, it was fun to revisit that period and what events would be nostalgic for people or capture the era without being heavy-handed,” Franze said.
On May 1, 1993, Jules is haunted by her ordeal and wonders why she was spared. Quinn gets released from juvenile detention and looks into the unsolved murder of his mother, which may or may not have connections to the May Day Killer.
As the years pass, Quinn joins the military, gets wounded in Somalia and eventually becomes a private investigator. Jules becomes a model and later opens a nonprofit organization for victims of violent attacks.
However, the May Day Killer is still out there, waiting in the wings, ready to strike again as he does every year.
The book came in stages for Franze. He wanted to do something different than his previous novel, “Parents Weekend.”
“With the Finlay books, I have multiple characters and points of view. ‘Parents Weekend’ had a bunch, so I wanted to do something with just two main characters,” he said. “In ‘The Anniversary,’ we have Quinn and Jules, the two main leads. I also wanted to have that pacing I like, which keeps readers turning pages. Having multiple points of view lends itself to that. You go from one person, reach a critical point, then jump to another; it keeps the pace going and allows for cliffhangers. That’s when I got the idea that the book would be told over the course of 10 years, but we’d only see a snapshot of what happened in the characters’ lives one day per year.”
Both Jules and Quinn came to Franze in the writing process.
“The fun thing about them is when you have a lot of characters, which I’ve done in the past, you don’t get to dig as deep into each character because you’re moving point of view,” he said. “However, with having just two characters, I got to explore who these people were over this period and try to think about where they would go from 11th grade and how they might change over those 10 years.”
Fellow novelist and MSU alumna Allison Leotta, also known as the “female John Grisham,” has high praise for Franze.
“He’s one of my favorite writers,” she said. “But I blame him for many lost hours of sleep when I can’t put his books down!”
Franze is hard at work on his next novel, “Spin the Bottle,” which will be released in 2028. He’s keeping details about it close to the vest.
He has no plans to leave the legal profession to write full time.
“I get asked that a lot. I really still love my practice. It’s challenging, it’s interesting, and it gives me a lot of experiences that feed the fiction side. I cover a lot of interesting topics,” he said. “These two careers have complemented each other. I love both of them, honestly. It’s been the best of both worlds for me.”
Keep up with Finlay at alexfinlaybooks.com.
