Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Plugs Gone Wild

This Saturday afternoon from 2:00-4:00 p.m. romantic suspense novelist Roxanne Rustand and I will be signing books at Mystery Cat Books 112 32nd St. Drive SE Cedar Rapids IA 319 363-2179 It'd be great to see anybody in the area. This is a very well-stocked bookstore and Ruth and Todd Myers are excellent folks.

One of the books I'll be signing is the newly re-issued The Night Remembers. This can be ordered on line from Ramble House Press http://www.ramblehouse.com/index.html

Bill Pronzini was gracious enough to introduce it. Here are a few of the things he said:

"Written with wit and real feeling, in a lean and understated style, Night is arguably Ed’s most emotionally charged work -- so much so that the mystery, even though it revolves around a major topical theme, is secondary throughout to the intensely personal backstory: narrator Walsh’s agonized involvement with the health issues faced by his young girlfriend, Faith, and the fate of her (and perhaps his) infant son. Walsh may have been inspired by “Nameless,” but he’s anything but a “Nameless” clone. He has his own unique voice, outlook on life, methods of detection. In his fifties, a part-time private investigator who supplements his income by managing a rundown apartment house, he’s a man who yearns for the simpler days of his youth, an outsider trying to make his peace with the world, and a model of compassion and sensivitity.

"All the other characters, primary and secondary, are equally well depicted -- living, breathing human beings instead of the two-dimensional cardboard figures of so much contemporary fiction. Faith, baby Hoyt, the partner’s widow Irma Ozmanski, the Pennyfeather family, the disparate Heckart brothers, the mad racist preacher, Bainbridge, and the overweight alcoholic seductress, Terri Jankov, are all memorable creations."

Review quotes:

“Subtle, ironic, never flashy (THE NIGHT REMEMBERS introduces Jack Walsh)…the kind of sleuth forever dogged by somber truths and bitter ironies. He grows on you, and so does Gorman.”
--Booklist

“Gorman’s sixtyish sleuth Jack Walsh, tough as the job demands but as compassionate as the circumstance permits, is a gem and Gorman surrounds him with an ingenious story and a solid supporting cast.”
--Robert Wade, San Diego Union

“Character and a sense of place (Cedar Rapids) are the strengths of this taut who-really-dunnit.”
--Publisher’s Weekly

“THE NIGHT REMEMBERS is some of the best work Gorman has ever done. Walsh deserves a long life and an extensive literary life.”
--Library Bulletin

“Characterization is Gorman’s strong suit…The sometimes awkward, sometimes silent relationship between Walsh and his troubled lover is uncomfortably true to life.”
--Ted Fitzgerald, THE DROOD REVIEW

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

These glow! Congratulations, Ed.

Richard Wheeler

Anonymous said...

Walsh is my favorite of all your characters Ed, and The Night Remembers is one of your very best books. How about another one?