The Black Rose

Joe Dylan #4

by James A. Newman

THE BLACK ROSE takes JOE DYLAN on his fourth adventure to London on a missing person case that tangles him up in a nest of crime, drugs and an evil club-footed gypsy with a beautiful wayward daughter determined to find her own path to Fun city.

"NEWMAN writes with a flamethrower. He is terrifically gifted, enormously energetic."
- Shamus and Edgar nomineeTimothy Hallinan.

"NEWMAN joins more established writers such as Christopher G. Moore and John Burdett in an exploration of the garish netherworld of private eyes, prostitutes, pimps, gangsters, cops and dirty tricks."
- Tom Vater Chang Mai City News.

245 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 5, 2014

About the author

JAMES A. NEWMAN, born in London 1977. He studied Media Arts, Advanced Skateboard Technology and Fretboard Logisics. Newman has sold Pulp Fiction stories and novels to publications in Arizona, Mumbai, Johannesburg, London, Ontario and Bangkok. Newman has worked as a litigation insurance broker, a copy-writer, an English teacher, a movie extra in Bollywood, a rare book dealer, a rainforest tour guide, and an importer of cheese and wine. He lives in Bangkok, Thailand with his family, is kind to certain animals and is very much involved with the local art scene, writing books, reviewing plays, hosting literary events and supporting writers and artists. His novel the White Flamingo has been optioned for adaptation into a motion picture. Newman is busy writing the screenplay and working with authors as content editor of Spanking Pulp Press.

Visit the author at www.jamesnewmanfiction.blogspot.com


SHORT STORIES

MEAT– September 2009- 69 Flavors of Paranoia
CARMEN– March 13th 2010– Freedom Fiction Anthology Vol: 1
KIM– April 2010– Scalped Magazine
RAVANA– February 2011 – Freedom fiction journal
CLEAR– March 2011– Freedom fiction Anthology Vol: 2
THAILAND AFTER DARK– Bangkok Book House– August 2011
TWO LUMPS AND A PAIR OF GLASSES- Big Pulp Magazine- March 2013
THE COLD SUN- March 2014- Twisted Tales
PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY- Exiles Anthology-2014- Blackwitch Press
THE FAST RATS- 2014- Strange Story Saturday
GHOST HIT - 2014 -Freedom Fiction
UNDEAD CARGO - 2014 - Spanking Pulp Press.

NOVELS

BANGKOK EXPRESS– August 2010- Bangkok Book House
THE BOY THAT PLAYED CHEQUERS- August 2011- Fried Fiction. Serial.
BANGKOK EXPRESS- Revised 2012 edition. Books Mango.
RED NIGHT ZONE- BANGKOK CITY- 2012 - Books Mango.
LIZARD CITY- 2012- Books Mango / Spanking Pulp
THE WHITE FLAMINGO- Spanking Pulp Press 2013
THE BLACK ROSE- Spanking Pulp 2014
ITCHY PARK- 2014- Double Dragon. Blood Moon Publishing.
THE PENNY BLACK HOTEL - WIP.

NON FICTION

Thai Meditations (As James Alexander) – September 2010– Bangkok Book House
FROM SUB TO SCRIBE- AUG 2014- Spanking Pulp Press

FILM SCREENPLAYS

The White Flamingo

STAGE PLAYS

The Natives

Reviews

[Alasdair Mcleod · Rating 5 out of 5]

The action explodes in your face as soon as you open the book. The reader is then guided through a well-crafted series of high-contrast portraits of the characters whose stories tighten together like interwoven nooses to set the stage for the shocking finale. Dylan sorts out business and barely breaks stride to indulge all his vices in full!

It’s a dark and menacing fairy tale of gypsies and drug-deals, exploring some of the ways in which separating from ones roots can change a person and their choices. The mind-sets of the tropics are cleverly contrasted with those of cooler climes and the story arcs between the two locales. The ways in which a person is changed by what they endure are shown to be just as interesting as the other aspects in which they stay exactly the same. The crazed world of Fun City seems to spill out of its boundaries and spread to Europe like a burning oil slick. The prose is jagged with sharp nuggets of perceptive insight, a real treasure trove.

Don’t expect to find traditional heroes to look up to – every character you meet is so twisted up that you might start feeling like the only sane person in sight! Words fly with gusto and flair, and the authoritative presence of the author’s voice invites us to wonder how much of the story may be rooted in real events…

[Matt Carrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's no mean feat to portray convincingly the dark side of human nature - James Newman showed that he is more than capable of doing that in the first three books in the series. It's another matter entirely to make the reader feel like they can see things from the perpetrator's point of view. The author manages to get inside the head of his villains and whilst you may not be able to sympathise - you understand what drives their actions.
It was a brave move to switch the initial setting of Black Rose from Thailand - a country which the author clearly knows very well - to the UK. It pays off in spades - there's an extra dimension to the plot and enables Newman to introduce us to an array of well drawn characters you wouldn't come across on the street of Bangkok or the bars and beaches of Fun City.
Black Rose is suspenseful and delivers a nicely executed twist. I really enjoyed book 3 - White Flamingo - this is right up there - looking out for Joe Dylan 5 already.

[Dave Eisenstark · Rating 5 out of 5]

More hard-hitting prose from James Newman, this time dividing the plot between Fun City and the UK, past and present, from several different points-of-view. A wild ride and like the other Joe Dylan books, vastly entertaining if you've got the stomach for serious violence and truly nasty behavior. I'd say you could just as easily start with this book and work your way back, or take them in order, all worthwhile.

[Garry Henwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my favorite in this series so fair. Great story line.