Finstad wrote the national bestseller
Sleeping with the Devil (1991), a
non-fiction novel about the murder-for-hire of Barbra Piotrowski, a
California beauty queen in a destructive love triangle with a married
Texas health club tycoon named Richard Minns, who was alleged to have hired the assassins who shot and paralyzed Piotrowski. The book was excerpted in
Cosmopolitan and published in France, Italy, and Germany. One critic called
Sleeping With the Devil "a true American tragedy". Others described it as "hypnotic," ". . . a disquieting book about adultery, scams, misuse of power and attempted murder . . . a must-read." The paperback includes details about Minns' arrest for felony passport fraud, assisted by information provided by Finstad, who, reported the
Dallas Morning News,"fearlessly dug into the story about the brilliant, complex man who has stayed beyond the reach of the courts and the Houston police."
Sleeping With the Devil was made into a movie for CBS that aired in 1997. Finstad was an Associate Producer. In 1988, Finstad wrote a cover story on
Queen Noor of Jordan, the American who married
King Hussein after graduating from
Princeton's first class to admit women ("The Incredible Odyssey of Lisa Halaby"). It led to a contract for Finstad to write a biography of Queen Noor for
Villard Books after the
Gulf War. Finstad made numerous trips to the
Middle East and elsewhere for her research. The manuscript was set aside for political reasons. CBS later optioned the magazine piece. Finstad spent the next three years researching and writing
Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley (1997), the first biography of
Priscilla Presley. Finstad offered a detailed account of Priscilla Beaulieu's childhood, including Priscilla's discovery of her true father at eleven, her courtship by
Elvis Presley when she was 14 years old, their marriage, and her management of Elvis Presley Enterprises after their divorce and his death.
Child Bride was alleged based on extensive interviews with Priscilla Presley, her family, her close friends, her classmates, her co-stars and numerous members of Presley's circle in
Memphis and
Germany, including Currie Grant, a former Army buddy of Elvis, who introduced Priscilla to Elvis. Harmony/Crown published
Child Bride in 1997; Century London published the book in the U.K. However, the book's credibility is questionable, with some even noting how Finstad's support of Grant's account of events was controversial. However, this view about great use of various sources for the book's content was later disputed, with Grant's account later determined to have been, as
The Chicago Tribune noted in August 1998, "used as the source for the book “Child Bride: The Untold Story of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley” by Suzanne Finstad." Judge Daniel A. Curry, also found that Grant had not only made false statements which were repeated, but that these statements had also been used as "the source" for
Child Bride. However, neither Finstad nor her publisher was a party to the lawsuit, and Finstad and her publisher say they stand by their account of the affair in the book. Crown re-released
Child Bride in 2005. "Finstad's research and her analysis of Priscilla's complex character make for a riveting read,"
Liz Smith wrote in the
New York Post.". At least one reviewer for
The StoryGraph referred to
Child Bride as "idiotic" and "pure rag gossip trash," further claiming it "felt like" Finstad "could have co-written alongside
Perez Hilton and posted to a blog." ==Work since 2000==