DeSilva's "Cliff Walk" Amazing Second Novel!

"A mystery that began with a single murder more than five months
ago now had tentacles that stretched from Newport's scenic Cliff
Walk to a bloody bedroom in the Chad Brown housing project,
from a Pascoag pig farm to a bullet riddled strip club in
Providence. It had taken the lives of an ex-navy SEAL, three
snuff film producers, a Brown University dean, a New Jersey
child porn aficionado, and a pedophile priest in Michigan. I
didn't give a shit about any of them, but it had also snuffed out
an uncertain number of children..."

Cliff Walk:
 A Mulligan Novel


By Bruce DeSilva








Rogue Island, Bruce DeSilva's first novel, won the Edgar and Macivity Awards, with good reason. Having gotten to know Bruce a little on line, when he wrote Cliff Walk, I'm fairly certain he was thinking, "You 'ain't' seen nothing yet..." In his second novel, DeSilva has shown us he's the writer to be watching, a new best-seller whose name will be on the lips of mystery thriller readers everywhere! Sure, I loved It!

DeSilva mentions several authors in this novel, including his wife, Poet Patricia Smith. But even if he hadn't mentioned him, I recognized his kindred spirit with Robert B. Parker. I haven't enjoyed the dialogue and quips DeSilva zings us with since the early books starring Parker's Spenser. If you know what I'm talking about, readers, be prepared to meet a new Spenser-investigative leading man--Liam Mulligan style! Mulligan captures us in this novel, keeping us fully entertained with smiles and laughter...

And we need it, because the topic covered is very important to all those who care about children--child pornography and abuse/murder...

I especially liked that Mulligan, along with other characters, was written to show his emotional response to the grim crime scenes to which he was called. In fact, by the end of this novel, readers will have fallen for Mulligan--and I'm sure many of us will want to comfort him as he laments being alone...LOL...

As a newspaper man, Mulligan tells us much about Rhode Island and this time is no exception...Did you know that prostitution had been legal in Rhode Island until recently? So when an arm of a child was found--you don't want to know where--it was natural for Mulligan and the police to look at those involved with the sex business.
Poor Mulligan had to investigate all the strip joints, and tell us about them of course. But the owner of these bars, who was also producing pornographic vids, swore he was not involved. And, surprisingly, Mulligan later finds out why he could cross him off the suspect list, at least for the murders that continued to result in body parts being found... But he did confirm that the governor had been receiving "donations" from the pornographer!

Mulligan continues to have a good working relationship with a local cop and their byplay adds much to the credibility of those activities in which Mulligan finds himself involved. And there is much in which he does touch upon, including religion as several were priests who were found to be involved in child pornography.

As we all know, child pornographers and pedophiles can be found everywhere, especially on the Internet. That makes solving a case much more complex and spread across states and borders. For readers, that makes for a page-turning thriller as we try to solve the case with Mulligan. I applaud DeSilva not only for taking on an important issue and handling it with sensitivity to the extent possible...but also for broadening Mulligan's character to include more of his personality through humorous as well as touching scenes. Let's hear it for a leading man we readers will love to follow--including moi!

And I knew I liked Bruce DeSilva even more when he closed with his comments about the signature move of the star of a TV show--which I refuse to watch because of that same "look!" LOL

This is a must-read from a new DeSilva "Favorite Author" Fan!

GABixlerReviews

Bruce DeSilva worked as a journalist for 40 years before retiring to write crime novels full time. In April of 2011, he was awarded the Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Edgar Award in the best first novel category for "Rogue Island." In September 2011, he was awarded the Mystery Writers International's Macavity Award for best debut novel. The book was also a finalist for the Shamus, Barry and Anthony Awards.

The sequel, "Cliff Walk," was  published by Forge in May.

At the Associated Press, DeSilva served as the writing coach, responsible for training the wire service's reporters and editors worldwide. Previously, he directed an elite AP department devoted to investigative reporting and other special projects. Earlier in his career, he was an investigative reporter and an editor at The Hartford Courant and The Providence Journal.

Stories edited by DeSilva have won virtually every major journalism prize including the Polk Award (twice), the Livingston (twice), the ASNE, and the Batten Medal. He also edited two Pulitzer finalists and helped edit a Pulitzer winner.

He has worked as a consultant on writing and editing at more than 50 newspapers including The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News, and he has been a sought-after speaker at professional journalism gatherings including the National Writers Workshops and the Nieman Foundation. He has also been a speaker at crime writers conferences including Thrillerfest, Bouchercon, and the Mystery Writers of America.

His reviews of crime novels have appeared in The New York Times book review section and continue to be published occasionally by The Associated Press. He is currently an adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

He and his wife Patricia Smith, an award-winning poet, live in Howell, NJ, with their granddaughter Mikaila, a huge mutt named Rondo, and an enormous Bernese Mountain Dog named Brady.

A "Tiny Roast" to celebrate Spotlighted Author Bruce DeSilva - Happy Halloween!

Image via Wikipedia

Book Reader's Heaven Has Been Thrilled to Host Well-Known Associated Press Columnist Bruce DeSilva...

But...

He had me arrange this Halloween Party to end the month...He explained I just needed some refreshments...and to let everybody know (women were only to be invited) that they should all wear this costume...

Puffing on that cigar he's never without so he looks like Mulligan (we all know that his lead is based upon himself), he told me he would provide the entertainment.




He would be showing and  reading all of his great writings, essays, excerpts, reviews, etc. during the evening...asking that all applause be held until the end! He has all of them taped, by the way, so we'll be watching on television, while he's watching that we are paying attention! (You can wear a mask to close your eyes once in awhile -- my personal suggestion, but don't tell anybody, like B....)

Bruce DeSilva Enriches Lives of Fans Sharing All Past Writings Including College Papers!

BYOB Party

Oh yeah, I'm supposed to have his book everywhere...so would you rush out and get your copy...It's a BYOB (Bring Your Own Book) party...


The Party will begin, of course, whenever Bruce gets here...And I'm sure he will have a wonderful time! Please come...otherwise, I have to wear that top above for the next month!

Where will it be? Please read Rogue Island...the address is somewhere there in the book...I'm just not sure where...

And a wonderful time will be had...By Bruce...





P.S. Thanks, Bruce, for allowing us to follow you around this month! I'm serious.....really...

Would Rogue Island Be as Great if Set in Another State?

Image via Wikipedia

I set my new crime novel in Providence, Rhode Island...because

 
By Bruce DeSilva
 
 
 
This essay first appeared on a great blog called The Outfit, a collective of Chicago crime writers. When Sean Chercover, author of “Trigger City,” invited me to write something as a guest, I decided to explain why I chose Providence instead of Chicago, a city I love, as the setting for my first crime novel.
The most memorable crime novels transport you to interesting places and let you hear, see, smell, and taste them.

Raymond Chandler, Walter Mosley, James Ellroy, and Michael Connelly have shown you Los Angeles through the decades. Read James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels and you have been to New Iberia, LA, even if you’ve never left your house. It is difficult to imagine Ken Bruen’s best novels set anywhere but in his native Galway.

As my friend, the crime novelist Thomas H. Cook, once said, “If you want to understand the importance of place, imagine Heart of Darkness without the river.”

The writers who regularly grace this blog provide a guided tour through the great city of Chicago—a city I have come to love. Through the years, I’ve gotten to know it from Wrigley Field to Comiskey Park and from Pilsen to the Loop. My wife, the poet Patricia Smith, grew up a West Side girl.

So when I wrote my first crime novel, Rogue Island, I decided to set the story in . . . Providence, Rhode Island.

Please allow me to defend myself.

This summer, Newsweek crowned New Jersey the most corrupt state in America. (Nice try, Illinois.) But the magazine declared that Rhode Island was the most corrupt per capita. There is nothing new in this. You can trace the smallest state’s culture of crime and political corruption all the way back to one of the first colonial governors dining with Captain Kidd.

For more than a hundred years, pirates slipped from Narragansett Bay’s hidden coves to prey on merchant shipping. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Rhode Island shipmasters dominated the American slave trade. During the French and Indian War and again during the Revolution, privateers skulked out of Providence and Newport to seize prizes with little regard for the flags they flew. After the Civil War, Boss Anthony kept his Republican machine in power by buying votes at the going rate of two bucks apiece. At the turn of the century, Rhode Island’s own Sen. Nelson Aldrich helped the robber barons plunder the country. In the 1950s and 1960s, a Providence mobster named Raymond L.S. Patriarca was the most powerful man in New England, deciding everything from who lived and died to what songs got played on the radio. And more recently, Providence Mayor Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr. did federal time for conspiring to operate a criminal enterprise, a.k.a. the city of Providence.

One of the many quirks of Rhode Island history is that no one knows how the state got its name, although historians have come up with several half-baked theories. According to one of them, the name derives from the fact that the state resembles the Isle of Rhodes. The only problem with that one is: It doesn’t.

My favorite theory is that “Rhode Island” is a bastardization of “Rogue Island,” a name the God-fearing farmers of colonial Massachusetts bestowed upon the nest of pirates, heretics, and smugglers who first settled the shores of Narragansett Bay. Hence, the title of my novel, Rogue Island. I decided not to go with the Cotton Mather’s pet name for Providence: “The sewer of New England.”

However, Rhode Island and its capital also share a culture of decency and integrity that began with its gentle founder, Roger Williams. The competing strands of good and evil wind all the way thorough the state’s history, and the tension between them makes for great storytelling.

But that’s not the only reason I set my tale in Providence.

Most crime novels unfold in big, anonymous cities like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and, of course, Chicago. There are also many fine mysteries set in rural areas. But Providence is something different.

The city is large enough to have the usual array of urban problems, and it’s surprisingly cosmopolitan; yet it’s so small that it’s claustrophobic. In fact, the whole state is so tiny that you can almost throw a baseball across it. Nearly everybody you meet on the street knows your name, and it’s almost impossible to keep a secret.

In Rogue Island, my main character, an investigative reporter named Mulligan, needs to have a face-to-face meeting with a cop. The two don’t want to be seen together, so they have a hard time figuring out where to go. Finally they pick a sleazy strip club in a bad part of town. No one there is likely to know them, they think; but as soon as they walk in, someone shouts: “Hey, Mulligan! How ya doin’?”

Mulligan is paid to root out corruption. But he was born in Providence. He is not just from but of this place. So while he digs to uncover the truth, he’s not above placing a bet with a mobbed-up bookie or paying a small bribe to get his decrepit Bronco through the annual state inspection. As Mulligan sees it, graft comes in two varieties, good and bad, just like cholesterol. The bad kind enriches greedy politicians and their rich friends at taxpayers’ expense. The good kind supplements the wages of underpaid state workers, putting braces on their kids’ teeth. Without the lubrication of good graft, Mulligan says, not much would get done in Rhode Island, and nothing at all would happen on time.

I strove to make the city of Providence and the state of Rhode Island not just the setting but something more akin to characters in Rogue Island. According to one reviewer, my portrayal of the place is “jaundiced but affectionate”—and that puts it exactly right.

I just finished the sequel, tentatively titled Cliff Walk, and it, too, is set in Rhode Island. But once the third book in the series is written, I’m going to co-write a crime novel with my wife. It’s going to be set in Chicago—on the West Side.












Used by Permission
of Author

Related articles

• Rhode Island To Vote On Name Change (npr.org)
• Can a Name Change for Rhode Island Heal Old Wounds? (theroot.com)

Review: Rogue Island Once Again Receives Rave Review

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Many of Liam's friends were being killed in the fires

 Funniest and

 Best-Written

  Suspense...
















Howard Frank Mosher has long been one of my favorite writers. I loved his latest novel, “Walking to Gatlinburg,” and I consider “Waiting for Teddy Williams” a masterpiece. So I was both thrilled by and grateful for what he wrote in his blog today about my new crime novel, “Rogue Island”:

“Here’s a piece of very good news. Long-time Associated Press reporter and book reviewer, Bruce DeSilva, has written an absolutely terrific literary thriller. Right out of the ever-so-hardboiled, ever-so-good-hearted tradition of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, DeSilva’s Rogue Island is the funniest and best-written suspense novel I’ve read in years.

“Meet Liam Mulligan, a newspaperman’s newspaperman, who covers the gritty, often-horrifying underside of Providence, Rhode (Rogue) Island. Mulligan’s a wonderful character. He’s on the run from his half-crazed, estranged wife, at odds with his boss (and, come to think of it, just about everyone else), and as anarchical – and ethical – as they come. He’s got a car named Secretariat that barely runs, a girlfriend who won’t sleep with him until he goes for an AIDS test, and a string of unsolved, murderous arson cases to investigate in the neighborhood he grew up in.

“Liam Mulligan’s whole life seems to be an illustration of Murphy’s Law writ large. But he is determined to get to the bottom of the fires that are literally burning up his home town before his eyes. Fire, in Mulligan’s beloved Providence, has become an absolute force of evil: ‘I heard the fire before I felt it, the flames sounding like a thousand flags snapping in the wind. I felt it before I saw it, the heat like a backhand slap from the devil.’


“Don’t be fooled, though, by the non-stop drama, horror and black humor of DeSilva’s first novel. For all its merits as a thriller, Rogue Island is a highly serious work of fiction combining a fascinating and authentic evocation of a 21st-century American city with a lyrical tribute to the dying newspaper business.”


Reblogged
Used with Permission...

Review: Reviewer DeSilva Gets Reviewed by Peer...

Reviewer Becomes Author
Bruce DeSilva

When Bruce DeSilva became an author, getting rave reviews from all over, he couldn't very well do a review for the Associate Press for his own book so another was assigned! Jonathan Lopez is the author of the Edgar-nominated true-crime book "The Man Who Made Vermeers."

Here's what he said...



Ahhhh, I think I'll have to go back and read this again...did you see what his opinion was? Well, he might have written a better review than I did (maybe) but I have to say...this reviewer, meaning, G.A. Bixler, loved Rogue Island. And so do a lot of others!

Review: DeSilva Discusses Work of Thomas H. Cool And Latest Novel...

Whodunit? Who Cares

By Bruce DeSilva (A Reblog)








A contributor to Goodreads, one of those websites where people comment on the books they’ve read, was baffled by The Last Talk with Lola Faye, the latest literary crime novel by Thomas H. Cook.
“I did not understand the point,” she said. “Who did it? I’m so lost!”

The point, I want to tell her, is that Cook doesn’t much care who did it. He does not write whodunits. He is much more interested in victims than in murders and the cops who investigate them. His books are disturbing, convoluted tales of families haunted by past acts of violence that they don’t fully comprehend, either because important details have been hidden from them or because they are good at deceiving themselves. He puts his characters into situations that compel them to reexamine the past, peeling it back day by day or year by year. Each layer reveals a painful and shocking surprise.

Cook is a great storyteller and an insightful observer of human nature. He is a superb stylist, his prose both exacting and lyrical. And his books have vividly-drawn settings, usually a southern town like the one he grew up in or New England where he now lives for much of the year. “Imagine Heart of Darkness without that river,” he once said, and you’ll understand what sense of place means to a novel.

His best work—Red Leaves, The Cloud of Unbecoming, The Fate of Katherine Carr, and, yes, The Last Talk with Lola Faye—rank with the best in contemporary American fiction.

Despite his brilliance—or perhaps partly because of it—Cook never makes the best-seller lists.

The books of many of the most popular crime writers, including James Patterson and Janet Evanovich, are the intellectual equivalent of popcorn and a Spiderman movie. Even the work of critically acclaimed crime novelists such as Elmore Leonard and the late Robert B. Parker tend to go down easy. Cook asks that readers pay closer attention; his stories require a greater investment, both emotionally and intellectually. Not every reader welcomes the commitment.

The reaction of that Goodreads contributor suggests another reason why Cook’s popularity lags.

When a reader plucks a novel from a bookstore, the book carries with it a set of expectations based on where it was shelved and the blurbs on the back cover. The Last Talk with Lola Faye includes a blurb from Harlan Coben, a best-selling thriller writer. And you’ll find Cook’s novel shelved in the mystery section beside the detective novels of Robert Crais, the police procedurals of Michael Connelly, and the whodunits of Carol Higgins Clark.
Where else would a bookseller put it? After all, Cook’s novels always involve crimes. He won an Edgar, the Academy Award of mystery writing, for The Chatham School Affair; and his work frequently makes the short list for the Dagger Award, the Anthony Award, and other crime fiction honors. He’s been nominated for the Edgar alone nine times.

But Cook doesn’t write the kind of books that Coben does. Cook’s novels aren’t much like Crais’, Connelly’s, or Clark’s either. Truth be told, Coben, Crais, Connelly, and Clark also aren’t all that much alike, aside from the fact that they all write about crime.

The mystery section of the bookstore is home to a gaggle of very different sub-genres including thrillers, espionage, police procedurals, forensics, private detectives, historical crime novels, whodunits, and the often misunderstood category of “noir,” which means, as the great Dennis Lehane once put it, “Everyone is dirty.”

Readers of crime fiction tend to be quite particular about these sub-categories. Most noir aficionados loathe whodunnits. Fans of espionage novels are unlikely to dip into private detective stories. And so on. The Goodreads contributor who was confused by Cook’s latest can hardly be blamed. The Last Talk With Lola Faye was not the whodunit she was expecting.

The fact is, Cook’s novels are too idiosyncratic and literary to fit into any of the many mystery sub-categories. And because his books are shelved alongside mysteries, readers who browse the literature section are unlikely to find them. Most lovers of literary novels are not inclined to give the mystery section a look, even though the work of many of our finest contemporary writers including Cook, Lehane, Kate Atkinson, Richard Price and George Pelecanos is shelved there.

Although Cook has been favorably reviewed for 20 years, his work continues to be overlooked by millions of readers who would adore it.

Cook was born in 1947 in Fort Payne, a northern Alabama town that was known as “The Sock Capital of the World” before most of the mills closed. The house he grew up in was devoid of books. He acquired his love of reading and writing from his teachers. Cook studied English and philosophy at Georgia State College and won advanced degrees in American history from Hunter College and Columbia University. He’s worked as an advertising executive for a chemical company, an English and history teacher at a community college, and a book reviewer for The Atlantic Monthly. He quit all that in 1981 to devote all of his time to writing and travelling. He is currently working on a non-fiction book about the saddest places on earth—a book he says will be more inspiring than sad.


Disclaimer: Cook wrote a blurb for my new crime novel, Rogue Island (Forge, Oct. 12). I got an e-mail from him recently, right after my novel received a flurry of glowing pre-publication reviews. “I swear that if you become a bestseller,” he wrote, I will ****ing KILL YOU!”

I first met him several years ago and have come to think of him as a wise and charming friend. But my reputation as a book reviewer is too valuable to be squandered by praising bad work. If I didn’t love The Last Talk with Lola Faye, I’d just keep my mouth shut.

As the novel opens, a historian named Lucas Page is about to deliver a tedious lecture to a small audience in a St. Louis museum. Once, he had been “the smartest kid” in Glenville, a little Alabama town of abandoned storefronts, deserted sidewalks, and “a trailer park perpetually pulsing in the light of a police cruiser, diesel trucks sitting like exhausted mastodons in red-dirt driveways.”

As a boy, Lucas despised his daddy, a local variety store owner with no head for anything including business. But he adored his mother, who doted on him and fed his dreams of escaping the depressing little town, graduating from Harvard, and writing great works of history.

Lucas did escape, and he did, despite long odds, graduate from Harvard. But ever since, his life has been a disappointment. In middle age, he sees himself as a dull college teacher who’s written a handful of mediocre books.
Sitting in Lucas’s audience on this St. Louis evening is Lola Faye Gilroy, a woman he hasn’t seen since he left Glenville. It’s bad enough that she has come, but afterward she wants to talk to him. Everything bad that happened to him, he thinks, began when she had an affair with his father.

Because her husband found out. And then both men ended up dead.

Unable to shake her, Lucas reluctantly agrees to have a drink with her in the restaurant of his hotel. As one drink leads to another, their conversation forces Lucas to reflect on his past. And as they continue to talk, Lucas gradually discovers that there was much he didn’t know about his father and the events that led to his death—and much that he has failed to understand about himself.

Usually I read a Thomas H. Cook novel slowly, savoring each carefully constructed paragraph. But I found myself racing through The Last Talk with Lola Faye, compelled to discover the secrets and lies behind those old violent deaths and the Lucas that had been born of them.

But in most respects, the book is exactly what I’ve come to expect from Cook: not a thriller or a police procedural or a detective novel or a whodunit—just another great book.
(This post first appeared on the website thenervousbreakdown.com)

Bruce also reviews for the Associated Press

Review: Library Journal Declares Rogue Island a Winner...

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Rogue Island is a Winner"


– Library Journal






I have to switch up the type of books I read from time to time to broaden my thoughts as well as keep me on my toes. That was the goal when I picked up Bruce DeSilva's debut novel, Rogue Island, (October 2010), and, boy, did it deliver.

The story follows Liam Mulligan, a newspaper reporter in Providence, RI.

Mulligan, as he's known around town, was born and raised in Providence, so he knows the lay of the land and is an old pro at his job. He's used to covering the usual stories: tales of small government corruption, mafia wars, and local dog profiles. That all changes when a string of unexplained fires plague the city, killing innocent people and destroying a way of life.

DeSilva has a way of making you feel as if you are right there with Mulligan as he searches for the criminals. His writing draws you in and will keep you wanting more. I also appreciated the way he carefully described the novel's setting—it gives you a true feel for New England culture, which for me was very important in framing the entire story.
 
Finally, I felt the characterizations were vivid and extremely real. If I went to Rhode Island today, I would undoubtedly run into some people who fit DeSilva's descriptions.


Long story short: Rogue Island is a winner, and I hope you think so, too.

--Reviewed for Library Journal by Bobby Brinson, Senior Manager of Library Marketing, HarperCollins Publishers )

Used by Permission of
Author Bruce DeSilva
http://www.brucedesilva.com/

Review: The Book Reviewer Gets Rave From Author of Dope...

 
This just in:




“Bruce DeSilva’s Rogue Island is just my kind of book: beautifully written, to the point, very nasty, and with a hell of a twist.”

 – Sara Gran, critically-acclaimed author of Claire DeWitt & the City of the Dead.








That meant a lot to me because I’m a great admirer of Sara Gran, and especially of her hellacious noir novel, Dope. When it was published in 2006, my review for The Associated Press started this way:





“Suppose Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson return from the dead, go on a month-long drinking binge and then hole up in a boarding house to write a book together. Chandler, pipe clenched in his teeth, hunches over a battered Smith-Corona, tapping out the prose. Thompson, one fist strangling the neck of a Rebel Yell bottle, paces behind him, dictating lurid plot twists for a wretched cast of con men, pimps and junkies. Six months later they’d emerge, stinking of whiskey and tobacco, with a manuscript that would look a lot like Dope.”



You can read my review by clicking here...

Bruce DeSilva Reviewing for the Associated Press

Review: DeSilva Says "Buy It For The Wisdom; Read It For Pleasure"

Image by Pesky Library via Flickr

The Glamour of

  Grammar

By Roy Peter Clark


A Reblog from Bruce DeSilva's Blog

Roy Peter Clark, one of the finest writing teachers on the planet, has written a new book about the most unglamorous of subjects—grammar. I cracked it open for its advice, but I found myself reading it for pleasure.

Hard to believe? Of course. I can hardly believe it myself. The Glamour of Grammar, A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, is a remarkable achievement.

Disclaimer: I’ve known Roy for about twenty-five years and consider him a friend. He’s quite the raconteur: glib and witty, with the perfect anecdote for every occasion. Roy was trained as a medieval scholar; played piano in a rock ‘n roll band; teaches writing at the Poynter Institute, a prestigious school for journalists; and loves baseball. He may be a medievalist, but he’s definitely a Renaissance man.

His new book has the appeal of a great conversation. It’s wise and witty, practical and inspirational, and laced with bits of arcane yet fascinating tidbits. Every page vibrates with his love of language.

In my forty years as a newspaper reporter, wire service editor, writing coach, college teacher, and novelist, I’ve read—or skimmed—scores of books about writing; and I’ve developed a quick and easy system for determining which ones are worth my time. I sample the opening chapter and toss aside the ones that aren’t well-written. If writers can’t practice what they preach, why should I pay attention to them? Some of these books, including William Zinsser’s On Writing Well and Stephen King’s On Writing, are beautifully written. Many others (no names here) read like they were written by the guy who did the manual on how to put together that Swedish-modern chair I bought at IKEA.

The writing in The Glamour of Grammar is superb from beginning to end.

Best of all, Roy doesn’t present his advice as a series of rules to be followed. Instead, he offers tools we can all use to write clear and engaging prose, and challenges us to “live inside the language.”

“Living inside the language,” he writes, “requires a love of words: the sound of words in the air, the sight of words on the page or screen, the feelings and images created by words in our hearts and heads. Words can even stimulate our senses; I can almost smell pungent, taste honeycomb, touch sandpaper.”

If you are a writer, or want to be, you owe it to yourself to buy this book. Crack it open for the advice and you’ll find yourself reading it for pleasure.

Related articles

• The Glamour of Grammar (languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu)
• Valeria Maltoni: Book review: On Writing Well (communicatrix.com)
• Book Review - The Glamour of Grammar - By Roy Peter Clark (nytimes.com)

Raves for Rogue Island - New Novel Out This Month!

Rogue Island is a tense, terrific thriller and a remarkably assured debut from Bruce DeSilva, an author to watch.

-- Dennis Lehane, best-selling author of Mystic River and Shutter Island.



The Rhode Island of Bruce DeSilva’s imagination is a claustrophobic little state where everyone knows your name, secrets are hard to keep, and corruption has ruled since the first colonial governor dined with Captain Kidd. In this vivid landscape peopled by colorful mobsters, brutal cops and sleazy politicians, a droll hero named Mulligan fights long odds to find a measure of justice. Rogue Island is a stunning debut in the noir tradition.

-- Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Long Lost and Hold Tight.



Rogue Island is a blast! Writing with genuine authority, a dose of cynical humor and a squinting eye on the world, Bruce DeSilva delivers a newspaper story that ranks with the best of them.

-- Michael Connelly, best-selling author of the Harry Bosch crime novels.



Not since Dennis Lehane's A Drink Before the War have I read a first novel as compelling and sure-handed as DeSilva's Rogue Island. Investigative reporter Liam Mulligan has the tough-talking charm, the old school street smarts, and sexy chivalry of a Marlowe or Spade. He needs all these skills to navigate a world where vigilantes prowl the neighborhood with baseball bats, and everyone from sleazy politicians to mafia losers are out to slice off their pound of flesh. I hope Mulligan is around for years to come. He’s funny, fallible, and real.

-- James W. Hall, Edgar-Award-winning author of Hell’s Bay and Magic City



Fans of Michael Connelly and Robert B. Parker, rejoice. L.S.A. Mulligan is on the case. Rogue Island is full of high spirits, low cunning and barbed wit. A wry and entertaining debut in the grand hard-boiled tradition from Bruce DeSilva.

-- Peter Blauner, critically acclaimed author of Slow Motion Riot and Slipping Into Darkness.



Bruce DeSilva knows exactly how thrillers work, and he pulls out all the stops in this impressive debut. With a powerful and authentic sense of place, DeSilva peels back the curtain and shows us the real deal; a Providence as gritty and corrupt as any big city, and deadlier than most.

– Sean Chercover, award-winning author of Trigger City.



Bruce DeSilva puts it all out there: a gripping plot, memorable characters, and terrific writing. Rogue Island is a stunning debut, and DeSilva is a writer to watch.

-- Alafair Burke, author of 212.

Review: By Bruce DeSilva for the Associated Press...

With Bruce DeSilva as a guest reviewer, we get to "double-click" to read! Bruce writes reviews for The Associated Press, thus they own the copyright...But we sure didn't want our readers not to have the opportunity of reading some of his reviews... Soooo, here's all you have to do... Read the opening from Bruce and if you are interested in the book, click on over to the full review!

Bruce DeSilva Writing for the Associated Press...

The Hanging Tree: A Starvation Lake Mystery

By Bryan Gruley

In Praise of Bryan Gruley...

Bryan Gruley, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, was an Edgar Award finalist in the debut novel category for his first novel, “Starvation Lake.” The second, which is just out, is every bit as good. I reviewed the book …Take a Look!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• Links: BREAKING: Book Review Outlet May Publish Review of Book (americanfiction.wordpress.com)
• The Reader's Advisor Online Blog (readersadvisoronline.com)
• West Seattle Bookshelf: August's first best-seller lists (westseattleblog.com)

What People Are Saying about Rogue Island...



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One of the Year's Top Debuts!

 I was the first early reviewer to read Rogue Island...back in May! And I realized today that I hadn't even posted it on Amazon yet...so I decided I'd give you the link to go back to the first review that Bruce received from "readers" Take a look!


Review on Book Readers Heaven in May - Take a Look!








“A Masterpiece of Irreverence and Street Savvy”
– Publisher’s Weekly

“The serial torching of Mount Hope, a deteriorating Providence, R.I., neighborhood, sparks an investigative reporter's mission to smoke out the firebug in DeSilva's promising debut. Journalist Liam Mulligan, a Mount Hope native, smells arson in the ashes of tenement fires that have claimed the lives of several friends. The deeper he digs into suspicious circumstances surrounding the blazes, though, the more resistance he meets from police, politicians, landlords, and lawyers. Soon, Mulligan himself is fingered for the fires by the same sleazy authorities he's investigating. Smart-ass Mulligan is a masterpiece of irreverence and street savvy, and DeSilva does a fine job of evoking the seamy side of his beat through the strippers, barkeeps, bookies, and hoodlums who are his confidantes and companions. They all contribute to the well-wrought noirish atmosphere that supports this crime novel's dark denouement. A twist in the tale will keep readers turning the pages until the bitter end.”

And later from PW...

One of the Year's Top Debuts
- Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly has included Rogue Island in its "First Fiction" feature, naming it one of the best debut novels of 2010. The list is drawn from both genre and literary fiction, so it's quite an honor.



“A Blistering Debut”
– Kirkus Reviews

The smallest state bursts with crime, corruption, wisecracks and neo-noir atmosphere in DeSilva’s blistering debut. Someone’s set seven fires in the Mount Hope section of Providence. Arson for profit is all too common in the city’s history, but these buildings were owned by different people and insured by different companies. So Ernie Polecki, indolent Chief Arson Investigator, and his incompetent assistant Roselli, the mayor’s cousin, assume that they’re the work of a firebug. So do the DiMaggios, the vigilante crew who patrol the nighttime streets with baseball bats. But not seen-it-all reporter Liam Mulligan. His festering ulcer, estrangement from his harpy wife Dorcas and romance with his young Princeton-trained colleague Veronica Tang, who won’t have sex with him till he gets tested for HIV, haven’t absorbed all his energy. Shrugging off the insistence of city editor Ed Lomax that he file a story on a dog who ran across the country from Oregon to rejoin his relocated owners (a hilarious episode that shows just how desperate his professional situation is), Mulligan homes in on the developing story. His interest is fueled by the number of interested parties he just happens to be close to—from his prom date Rosella Morelli, now Battalion Chief of the fire department, to his burned-out bookie, Dominic “Whoosh” Zerilli—and by the arsonist’s apparent determination to torch every structure in Rhode Island’s capital. At length the mounting toll includes homes, storefronts, people and Mulligan’s questionable peace of mind. When the lead he’s supplied investigators goes sour and his own life is threatened, he has no choice but to trust the cub reporter he’s been saddled with—the publisher’s son, whom he calls Thanks-Dad—and the mobsters who’d be perfectly willing to set fires themselves, but who draw the line at killing women and children. Mulligan is the perfect guide to a town in which the only ways to get things done are to be connected to the right people or to grease the right palms.”



“Definitely One of the Best of the Year”
- A Starred Review in Booklist

Born and raised in the Mount Hope section of Providence, Rhode Island, journalist Liam Mulligan won’t simply report on the rash of arsons killing lifelong friends and loved ones in his old neighborhood. He wants to know more and launches an investigation.

Along the way, he’s threatened, beaten, arrested on suspicion of arson and murder, suspended from his newspaper, and targeted with a mob contract on his life. Mulligan must turn to some unlikely allies to save his tired old neighborhood and secure justice.

Rogue Island has everything a crime fan could want: a stubborn, street-smart hero with a snarky sense of humor; more than a baker’s dozen of engaging characters; a fast-paced plot; a noirish style; a realistic post millennium newspaper setting; mean, pot-holed streets; and, best of all, a knowing portrait of a small city and a tiny state famous for inept government, jiggery-pokery, and corruption.

Debut novelist DeSilva began a four-decade career in journalism as a reporter for the Providence Journal, and his take on the city and state is harsh but also affectionate, as when he describes graft as Rhode Island’s “leading service industry,” noting that “it comes in two varieties, good and bad, just like cholesterol.”

This tremendously entertaining crime novel is definitely one of the best of the year.
(This review was slightly abridged to remove a spoiler.)



You May Have Heard About It first here...
But I don't mind all these affirmations of my thoughts...LOL
Love you Bruce!