Sunday, March 17, 2013

What is Stephan Talty reading?

The current featured contributor at Writer Read: Stephan Talty, author of Black Irish.

His entry begins:
I just finished Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest Everest, a sprawling, jolting epic about the men who survived WWI and how they turned their attention to the mountains of the Himalayas. The book is terrific, and the scenes of large-scale violence on the battlefield is painted with this delicate precision. It's not only a great book, it's a reminder that a hundred years ago we passed through one of the high periods of violence in Western civilization. It makes you wonder if men today could...[read on]
About Black Irish, from the publisher:
In this explosive debut thriller by the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Blue Water, a brilliant homicide detective returns home, where she confronts a city’s dark demons and her own past while pursuing a brutal serial killer on a vengeful rampage.

Absalom “Abbie” Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn’t keep Abbie’s troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective’s badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she’s sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts.

When Jimmy Ryan’s mangled corpse is found in a local church basement, this sadistic sacrilege sends a bone-deep chill through the winter-whipped city. It also seems to send a message—one that Abbie believes only the fiercely secretive citizens of the neighborhood known as “the County” understand. But in a town ruled by an old-world code of silence and secrecy, her search for answers is stonewalled at every turn, even by fellow cops. Only when Abbie finds a lead at the Gaelic Club, where war stories, gossip, and confidences flow as freely as the drink, do tongues begin to wag—with desperate warnings and dire threats. And when the killer’s mysterious calling card appears on her own doorstep, the hunt takes a shocking twist into her own family’s past. As the grisly murders and grim revelations multiply, Abbie wages a chilling battle of wits with a maniac who sees into her soul, and she swears to expose the County’s hidden history—one bloody body at a time.

With Black Irish, Stephen Talty stakes a place beside Jo Nesbø, John Sandford, and Tana French on the cutting edge of psychological crime thrillers.
Learn more about the book and author at Stephan Talty's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

My Book, The Movie: Black Irish.

Writer Read: Stephan Talty.

--Marshal Zeringue