Who’s Reading “A Scourge of Vipers” Now? The Star of HBO’s “The Wire” — Benjamin Busch
Benjamin Busch reading “A Scourge of Vipers.”
Benjamin Busch is best known as the actor who played Officer Colicchio in the final three seasons of HBO’s brilliant series, The Wire. and as the author of the acclaimed Iraq War memoir, Dust to Dust. My wife Patricia and I know him as a friend –and as her colleague on the MFA faculty at Sierra Nevada College.
But that only touches on the accomplishments of one of the most creative and versatile people I’ve ever met.
As a U.S. Marine, he served in the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion and the 5th Civil Affairs Group during the worst years of the war in Iraq.
He is a great photographer whose tours of duty formed the basis of his photography exhibits, ‘The Art of War,” “Occupation,” and “Abstract Matter.”
Benjamin Bush (center) as Officer Colicchio in HBO’s “The Wire.”
As an actor, he has appeared in Party of Five, Homicide: Life on the Streets, and The West Wing and played the role of Major Todd Eckloff on the HBO mini-series Generation Kill. And he was the writer/director of the film Bright, which was featured at the 2011 Traverse City Film Festival.
As a writer, he has contributed to Harpers, The New York Times Magazine, All Things Considered, and The Daily Beast. And he recently completed his first volume of poetry.
He’s also a talented artist, a stone mason, and a Vassar College graduate with a degree in studio arts.
He is the son of the late Frederick Busch, an acclaimed author of both fine novels and non-fiction works including the novels Girls, and North, which Ben was kind enough to give me. I recently finished Girls, a beautifully written, absorbing story of suspense, loss, and redemption, and I’m reading North now.
Benjamin Busch and I chatting in my wife Patricia’s home office
Patricia and I are fortunate to call this amazing man our friend.
A Scourge of Vipers by Bruce DeSilva is the fourth in my Edgar Award-winning series of hardboiled crime novels featuring Liam Mulligan, an investigative reporter for a dying newspaper in Providence, R.I. The novel has received rave reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and a host of other publications. The fifth novel in the series, “The Dread Line,” will be published in September. You can order that one in advance, or order any of the books in the series, from independent or chain online bookstores by following this link.
