Bruce DeSilva's Blog, page 45

My AP Review of “The Skeleton Box” by Bryan Gruley

The mythical village of Starvation Lake, Mich., is an authentic realm of piney woods, deadman’s curves, working-class bars, lakefront cottages, friendly neighbors, town drunks, rampant gossip and small-town cops where almost everyone is obsessed with the fate of a junior hockey team called The River Rats.

Bryan Gruley introduced us to the place in his first novel, Starvation Lake (2009), which won the Anthony, Barry and Strand Awards, and then revisited it in his second novel, The Hanging Tree (2010). But The Skeleton Box, the third in a series featuring the adventures of Gus Carpenter, editor of the town’s little newspaper, The Pine County Pilot, is his best work to date.

To read the full text of my review, written for The Associated Press, please click here.

“Cliff Walk” Actually Betters “Rogue Island” — Washington Post

The Washington Post review of my new Mulligan crime novel, Cliff Walk, just landed, and it’s a rave. Here’s what the post had to say:

I hesitated before I started Bruce DeSilva’s Cliff Walk, eager as I was to read it. DeSilva’s first noir thriller, Rogue Island, was a brisk, witty, expertly judged work that won both an Edgar and a Macavity award for best first novel in 2011. So I feared a sophomore slump after freshman honors. “Funny Lady” after “Funny Girl.” “Jaws 2” after “Jaws.” “Scarlett” after “Gone with the Wind.”

I needn’t have delayed. With Cliff Walk,  DeSilva lands another winner.

The action this time begins when the tuxedo-clad body of a man is discovered 70 feet below Cliff Walk, which runs beside Narragansett Bay in Newport, R.I.  Police think the victim is Salvatore Maniella and that he was pushed from the walk’s slippery precipice. “Salmonella,” as some call him, allegedly controls 15 percent of the Internet’s porn sites and owns three local strip clubs, which of late have been the site of Mafia turf wars. This latter development suggests that Maniella’s murder was a mob rub-out.

On to the case comes jaunty Liam Mulligan, the investigative reporter for the Providence Dispatch who debuted in Rogue Island. Mulligan arrives at the Cliff Walk already pursuing another case, the violent death of a 9-year-old girl. More grisly deaths of children follow, culminating in Mulligan’s discovery of a snuff film involving a child. Do these tragedies circle back to the murder at Cliff Walk? Mulligan suspects they do, and a brisk, surprising investigation follows.

Cliff Walk actually betters Rogue Island. The latter dealt with arson in a run-down Providence neighborhood as well as the fading days of the Dispatch. Rendered with pitch-perfect repartee and a keen sense of newsroom politics and personalities, the often-hilarious scenes at the paper sometimes upstaged the central action.

No such imbalance affects Cliff Walk. The paper and its quirky characters remain secondary to the investigation, a case with more impact and reach than the one in Rogue Island. Mulligan sees the tragedies of kiddie porn, the cruel treatment of prostitutes and the poison of pornography as part of a broad cultural decline. Fighting off a night of bad dreams, he muses about an America that’s losing “its tenuous hold on civilization”:

“It happened in 1998, the year Joseph R. Francis released his first Girls Gone Wild video. Since then it’s been a downward spiral of celebrity boxing, Carrot Top, Jackass, Paris Hilton, Flavor Flav, Norbit, Lindsay Lohan, Glenn Beck, Starbucks Pumpkin Chai, Octomom, Bob Dylan’s Christmas in the Heart CD, and Jimmy Dean’s Chocolate Chip Pancakes and Sausage on a Stick.”

Dark and gruesome as the plot’s subjects may be, DeSilva never lets the work turn pretentious or entirely bleak. A polished, engaging raconteur, he spikes the tale with wisecracks and warms it with moments of genuine sentiment. Entering a hog farmer’s home, Mulligan wipes his feet on a Three Little Pigs doormat. On a Thanksgiving day that finds Mulligan working at the paper, a neighbor brings him a turkey dinner to enjoy as her young daughter plays “We Plow the Fields and Scatter” on her violin.

DeSilva also populates Cliff Walk with appealing, offbeat characters, people you want to chat with over coffee or something stronger. With a reporter’s gimlet eye, DeSilva winnows out their contradictions and vulnerabilities. “Gruff, gray” Rhode Island attorney general Fiona McNerney, who is also a member of the Little Sisters of the Poor religious order and who is justly nicknamed “Attila the Nun,” literally cries in her beer over the sad fate of a young child.

And then there’s Mulligan, hapless and focused, lost and found. He baits a stomach ulcer with whiskey, cannoli and cigars and then appeases it with Maalox. He falls hard for a lawyer for the Maniellas and flirts with her in scenes that tingle. DeSilva fades out on Mulligan in a despairing, melancholy scene that had me cuing up Miles Davis’s version of “ ’Round Midnight” and wondering what will happen the next time the reporter-shamus turns up. I won’t hesitate to find out.

– Gerald Bartell for the Washington Post

If you’re looking for a copy of Cliff Walk or Rogue Island, you can find them here.

Another Rave Review for “Cliff Walk”

Jim Taricani, a veteran newsman in Providence, Rhode Island, where my Mulligan crime novels are set, reviewed my new book for Channel 10 TV.  Here’s what he had to say about Cliff Walk.

If you’re a crime novel aficionado, characters like Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux, and the late Robert Parker’s Spencer are familiar, complex and mostly troubled men fighting for justice, while trying to figure themselves out along the way. And now there’s a new star character being brought to us courtesy of author Bruce DeSilva, who is rapidly becoming a must read crime novelist in a genre that is one of America’s favorites.

Add to the list of irreverent and irascible crime novel characters, Bruce DeSilva’s Liam Mulligan. In his new book Cliff Walk, DeSilva picks up masterfully from his first, Edgar Award-winning novel, Rogue Island. Mulligan, an old-school investigative reporter for the dying Providence Dispatch newspaper, does his reporting much the way a private detective or police investigator does their work.

In Cliff Walk, DeSilva tackles the controversial subject of child pornography and the creeps who deal in it. His rich characters like Rhode Island Attorney General Fiona McNerney, aka “Attila the Nun,” and mobster Salavatore Maniella along with a cast of deadbeat bouncers, strippers and the ever-so attractive defense attorney, Yolanda Mosley-Jones, provide a reader with dark humor, realistic dialogue and palpable images that keep the pages turning.”

DeSilva mixes just the right amount of suspense, mystery and emotion in his writing. Mulligan’s self-doubt and insecurities makes the character all too real, but at the same time sympathetic and likeable. In Cliff Walk, Mulligan delves into the perverted world of child pornography, the mob and the twisted minds of psychopaths who are consumed with money, sex and murder, in that order.

Mulligan’s love/hate relationship with the newspaper publisher’s son, Mason, who Mulligan has nicknamed “Thanks-Dad” provides for some laugh out loud scenes. And the reporter’s ex-wife, Dorcas, surfaces at the right moments, outrageously berating Mulligan for all of her troubles, most of which are contained in her very, screwed up head.

DeSilva, a former investigative reporter for The Providence Journal draws on his personal reporting experiences in Rhode Island tracking down real-life corrupt politicians, mobsters and those almost unbelievable “only in Rhode Island” schemes that to this day are on the tips of just about everyone in the Ocean State. Mulligan and DeSilva will be around for a long time. And for crime novel enthusiasts, that’s a very good thing.

Cliff Walk is the sequel to my Edgar Award-winning first Mulligan novel, Rogue Island. Both books are available here.

The “Cliff Walk” Book Tour: Please Check the Schedule for a City Near You

I’ve already made three stops on the book tour for my new Mulligan crime novel, Cliff Walk, and the crowds were great. But there are still 14 stops to go — and a few more may be added later.  I hope you’ll come see me.  Just check the schedule  for  convenient time and place.

May 29.  Minneapolis.  Once Upon a Crime bookstore, 604 W. 26th St., 7 p.m. – 8:30

May 30. Houston. Murder by the Book bookstore, 2342 Bissonet Street, 6:30 – 8 p.m.

May 31.  Scottsdale, AZ.  Poisoned Pen bookstore, 4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101, 7 – 8:30 p.m.

June 1.  San Diego. Mysterious Galaxy bookstore,  7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302, 7 – 8:30 p.m.

June 2.  Redondo Beach, CA. Mysterious Galaxy bookstore, CA,  2810 Artesia Blvd 2:30 – 3:30 p.m.

June 4.  Seattle. Third Place Books, Ravena, 6504 20th Ave. N E , 7 – 8:30 p.m.

June 6.  New York. Book Expo America, Javits Center, Manhattan, Mystery Writers of America table,  12:30 – 1 p.m.

July 11.  New York. Craftfest workshop on the writer’s voice, Grand Hyatt Hotel, 109 East 42nd Street by Grand Central Station, Noon.

July 14, New York. Thrillerfest panel on setting, Grand Hyatt Hotel, 109 East 42nd Street by Grand Central Station, 2 – 2:50 p.m.

August 22. Kansas City area.  I Love a Mystery bookstore, Mission, KS. Time to be announced.

August 23.  Atlanta area. Peerless Book Store, 8465 Holcomb Bridge Rd., Alpharetta, Ga., 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.

August 24-26.  Killer Nashville crime fiction conference, Hutton Hotel, Nashville.  Appearing on at least one panel.

Oct. 4-7. Cleveland, Bouchercon crime fiction conference.  Marriott Renaisance Hotel, 24 Public Square.

Nov. 17.  Irvine, CA. Men of Mystery conference, Irvine Marriott, 18000 Von Karman Ave.

Coming Soon:  Details on Hartford, CT.

Cliff Walk, the sequel to my Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island, has received nothing but rave reviews. You can buy either book here.

Minneapolis Star-Tribune calls “Cliff Walk” a Winner.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune weighs in with another rave review for Cliff Walk . Here’s what they have to say:

Bruce DeSilva’s first mystery, Rogue Island, won last year’s Edgar Award for best first novel, and if there’s a prize for best second, Cliff Walk is a winner, too.

It crackles with snappy banter and a plot layered with a hefty dose of hard-boiled morality — good guys rarely win, justice may not always be achieved, but you do what you can and when you can’t, you drink. In a “newsroom cut to the marrow,” journalist Liam Mulligan is doing what he can, scraping around in the sleazy underbelly of Rhode Island, which, after reading DeSilva’s books, I’m thinking isn’t very under at all.

The Cliff Walk is a famous “rocky, guano-slick precipice” in Newport, and it symbolizes Mulligan’s slippery path in this investigation. In the 1990s, a clever lawyer discovered that Rhode Island’s “antiprostitution law … defined the offense as streetwalking,” making prostitution legal if it’s indoors. Mulligan is investigating the sex trade in searching for connections among prostitutes, mobsters, the governor’s re-election campaign, and the limbs of a murdered child found in pig slop.

It’s no wonder that Mulligan drinks Maalox for a “growing pain just below [his] breastbone.” It’s his heart aching.

– Carolee Barrowman, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

Legendary Writing Coach Don Fry Loves “Cliff Walk.”

Don Fry

Don Fry, the great legendary writing coach, took the time to write a review of my new Mulligan crime novel, Cliff Walk .  Here’s what he had to say:

One of the reasons to write a novel is to attack all the things that drive you crazy; another is to celebrate the things you love. Bruce DeSilva’s second mystery novel, Cliff Walk, does both.

He attacks child molesters, pornographers, sex pedlars, corrupt politicians, drug dealers, prostitution, and the stupid owners of newspapers who are destroying journalism. He celebrates Rhode Island, corruption at all levels of government and society, weirdos of every kind, deep-digging newspaper reporters, and his wife, the poet Patricia Smith.

With two menus like that, you get an over-the-top story populated by rich characters with wonderful names: Dominic “Whoosh” Zerilli, Raymond L. S. Patriarca, Bobo Marrapese, Pro Lerner, Frank Salemme, Dickie Callei, Red Kelly, Jackie Nazarian, Rudy Sciarra, Blackjack Baldelli, Knuckles Grieco, etc., many of them, I suspect, real.

The plot involves the murder at a snazzy party on the Newport Cliff Walk of a prominent sex merchant, and weaves through the bottom feeders and top feeders of Rhode Island, toward a surprise ending.

DeSilva’s prose crackles with unexpected sentences: “Seagulls had strafed with building again overnight, continuing their war of turds with the current administration,” or “the water is sometimes streaked with sewage, and quahogs angry with coliform bacteria pave the mucky bottom.”

Beginning journalists could learn three primers worth of investigative techniques from the hero’s adventures and misadventures. If you like swagger, you’ll love this tale.

Thanks, Don!

Cliff Walk is the sequel to my Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island. You can buy both of them here.

 

“Cliff Walk” at The Mysterious Bookshop

My new Mulligan mystery novel, Cliff Walk, on sale at the famous Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan. It’s the sequel to my Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island. If you don’t shop there, you can find them here.

Audio Book of My New Mulligan Crime Novel, “Cliff Walk,” Now On Sale

Jeff Woodman, a veteran book narrator, is once again the voice of Liam Mulligan in the downloadable audio edition of my new crime novel, Cliff Walk.

Jeff does a great job, which is no surprise because he was nominated for an Audie, the Academy Award of recorded books, for his narration of my Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island.

You can download the audio book here.

Thank You, Mysterious Bookshop, for a Great Book Launch Party

Me at the Mysterious Bookshop

Publication day is always an exciting time for an author, and last night’s book-release party for my new Mulligan crime novel, Cliff Walk, at The Mysterious Bookshop on Warren Street in Manhattan couldn’t have been sweeter.

A full house showed up to meet and mingle, listen to me blather about the true events that inspired the book, and snatch up the signed first editions.

I was especially honored that crime writing legend Lawrence Block dropped by; that the king of Kindle himself, Parnell Hall came; and that dancer and choreographer extraordinaire Paloma McGregor graced us with her presence.  Even Jonathan Lopez, who wrote a rave review of Cliff Walk for The AP, showed up to chat.

My thanks to everyone who came, including old pals from the Associated Press, friends from Columbia University and the book publishing business, and of course my beautiful wife Patricia and our suddenly-seventeen girl Mikaila. I’m grateful to the staff of the Mysterious Bookshop, one of the world’s greatest bookstores, for hosting the event. You can visit the store online here.

The Associated Press Raves about Cliff Walk’s Masterful Style

The Associated Press review of my new hardboiled Mulligan crime novel, Cliff Walk, has arrived just in time for publication day — and it’s another rave. Here’s what the news service has to say:

In his Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island, published in 2010, Bruce DeSilva introduced readers to the affable Liam Mulligan, a crime-solving Rhode Island metro reporter for the fictional Providence Dispatch.

Mulligan, an old-school newspaperman with a taste for whiskey, cigars and irreverent humor, returns in the chilling murder mystery Cliff Walk, whose sometimes violent plot is tempered by the hero’s wry observations on print journalism’s seemingly inexorable decline.

Recent staff consolidation and cutbacks have forced Mulligan to churn out light stories on topics such as high-society parties. But a charity gala in posh Newport turns into real news when a guest is murdered atop the rocky Cliff Walk separating the area’s Gilded Age mansions from the sea. Police believe the victim to be Sal Maniella, a millionaire pornographer and strip-club owner, but mysteries abound as none of Maniella’s friends or family will consent to identify the body.

Mulligan teams up with Maniella’s beautiful, brainy female attorney to unravel the case, whose scope widens to include prostitution, child abuse, multiple homicides and an enduring vendetta. Along the way, he receives help from a colorful cast of supporting characters, including a no-nonsense state attorney general nicknamed “Attila the Nun,” loosely modeled on real-life Rhode Island politician Arlene Violet, who left the Sisters of Mercy religious order to pursue public office.

Despite the book’s sexually charged situations and graphic crime-scene descriptions, DeSilva’s masterful narrative style ensures that any shocking details remain firmly in service of the plot, and the tone never turns exploitative. You can count on the brilliant Mulligan to reappear in the next installment of this outstanding series from DeSilva, but be prepared for changes. When Mulligan learns that bookmakers are taking bets on how long the Dispatch will remain in business, he begins to consider a tempting job offer — from a private detective agency.

– Jonathan Lopez for Associated Press

Cliff Walk is the sequel to my Edgar Award-winning first novel, Rogue Island , which won both the Edgar and Macavity Awards. You can find the new book in most bookstores or purchase both of them here.