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Jim Fusilli is a music critic for The Wall Street Journal. This is his first novel.
Closing Time
It's after midnight and a novice private investigator, out for a late-night run, discovers the battered body of a livery cab driver in downtown Manhattan's meatpacking district. Two days later, he witnesses a bloody explosion at a gala opening at a SoHo art gallery. Unrelated incidents? Not to Terry Orr. A single father to a remarkable twelve-year-old daughter, Terry is still devoted to his beautiful Italian wife, a painter of immense talent, whose life ended abruptly during a brutal event that also took the life of their infant son. Sparked to action by violence and deception, he begins to understand that he's been given a chance to confront his tragic past by learning the skills of the PI trade, and finding the madman who forever changed his life. And, perhaps, to realize fully what it means to be the father of a young, loving daughter. But the person who took the life of the cab driver isn't so easy to find, and Terry must chase the killer into the upper reaches of Harlem. Beating back his own demons in both his therapist's office and the basketball courts of Houston Street, he finds that redemption can come in the form of a game of horse with the daughter who views him as a hero. So focused is he on the world's injustices, he can barely see the girl who will do anything for her hurting, tormented father.
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Jim Fusilli's Summer Reading List
The Translator
by Ward Just
A tale of expatriates in Paris. For the first time in a dozen years, I won't be spending part of the summer in Paris.
Italian Stories
by Joseph Papaleo
A collection of his stories on the Italian-American experience in New York. I'll be thinking of my grandparents when I read it, I'm sure.
The Blue Flower
by Penelope Fitzgerald
A dazzling, miraculous novel about the brilliant Romantic poet Novalis and his inexplicable love for the insolent child Sophie. I've read this book several time and it still amazes me.
Boss Tweed
by Denis Tilden Lynch
Originally published in 1927, its subtitle is "The Story of a Grim Generation." Tweed fascinates my character Terry Orr, a New York City historian turned detective. Me too.
The Wrong Case
by James Crumley
A classic hard-boiled set up --- a detective, a beautiful woman, a missing person, violence and a river of liquor. I can't wait to see what Crumley does with it.
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