Stark in the Bronx: A Detective Novel

by Saul Landau

Stark is an endangered species. He's the last Jewish private detective in the south Bronx and his days may be numbered. It's the summer of 1965: the Yankees are making another pennant run, the war in Vietnam is heating up, hemlines are rising and the old neighborhood is changing. These days it's easier to stumble on a mugging than to find a good bagel. Stark is not a tough guy. In the trade, he's what's known as a peeper. His business is adultery and his weapon is a camera with a long lens not a snub-nose revolver. But Stark's life is beginning to unravel. His wife left him, his secretary hates him, his mother wants to mother him, he can't shake his shrink's voice from his head and he's got a strange pain in his chest. Then things go from bad to worse. He witnesses a shocking murder and suddenly Stark goes from being the hunter to the hunted, as he races through a decaying world of bookies, transvestites, loan sharks, slum lords and thugs for hire. "Stark in the Bronx" is the dazzling first novel by acclaimed historian Saul Landau. A kind of comic noir, Landau's atmospheric novel is both thrilling and imagine the "Maltese Falcon" narrated by Woody Allen.Praise for Saul Landau and "Saul Landau, like the narrator of 'The Great Gatsby, marvels at how the rich so joyously make messes secure in the knowledge that others will clean up. But what if, one day, they don't?" -- Gore Vidal"You'll believe him, laugh with him, weep and get off your ass." -- John Berger, author "Ways of Seeing"

212 pages, Paperback

First published July 29, 2013

About the author

Saul Landau (1936–2013) was an internationally known scholar, author, commentator, and filmmaker who worked for forty years on social, political, and human rights issues. Landau authored fourteen books and produced more than forty films. He received several honors, including an Emmy Award for Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, an Edgar Award for Assassination on Embassy Row, a George Polk Award for his investigative reporting, a Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award, and a Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award. In 2008 the Chilean government presented Landau with the Order of Bernardo O’Higgins for his human rights work, and in 2013 the Cuban government gave him the Medal of Friendship.