MBTB's Noir Night II
Monday, May 8, 2006, 6:00 p.m.
Ken Bruen, Steve Brewer, Reed Farrel Coleman, Bill Crider, Peter Spiegelman, Jason Starr

FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF THE BOOKS FOR SALE ON NOIR NIGHT, SCROLL DOWN... QUANTITIES ARE LIMITED, SO RESERVE YOURS A.S.A.P.!

KEN BRUEN

Ken Bruen, known as "The Pope of Galway Bay" by his peers, is the 2004 Edgar Award-nominated author of The Guards and thirteen other crime novels. He will sign & discuss A Fifth of Bruen (Busted Flush Press), a collection of his impossible-to-find five early novels and two story collections. Visit Busted Flush Press's website here. Ken will also discuss Dublin Noir (Akashic; $14.95). Irish crime-fiction sensation Bruen and cohorts (Laura Lippman, Eoin Colfer, Gary Phillips, and more) shine a light on the dark streets of Dublin. Dublin Noir features an awe-inspiring cast of writers who between them have won all major mystery and crime-fiction awards. This collection introduces secret corners of a fascinating city and surprise assaults on the "Celtic Tiger" of modern Irish prosperity. (Other authors who have stories in Dublin Noir include Reed Farrel Coleman, Peter Spiegelman, Jason Starr, and Duane Swierczynski, all of whom will be at Noir Night, too!) Ken will ALSO sign Priest (U.K. import; trade paperback; $22.95), the latest Jack Taylor novel; Bust (Hard Case Crime; paperback original; $6.99), a novel he co-wrote with Jason Starr; and several anthologies in which he has stories, including Murder at the Racetrack (edited by Otto Penzler; Mysterious Press; hardback, $24.95; trade paperback, $13.95)!

Visit Ken Bruen's website here.

STEVE BREWER

Steve Brewer is the very tall author of 13 books, as well as a humor writer whose weekly column, "The Home Front", runs in newspapers all over the country. Brewer's latest novels are the standalones Bank Job, Boost, and Bullets. Among his other novels are the comic Bubba Mabry private eye series (currently being adapted for the big screen, starring Jay Mohr [Jerry Maguire] and Robert Patrick [Terminator 2]) and two books featuring sportswriter Drew Gavin. Brewer grew up in Arkansas, but called New Mexico home for nearly two decades before moving in 2003 to Redding, CA. He spent 22 years in the newspaper business and still writes a weekly column that's distributed to newspapers nationwide by Scripps-Howard News Service. Brewer is a member of the national board of directors of Mystery Writers of America and served as a judge for the Edgar Awards in 2000. He was Fiction Guest of Honor at Cluefest in Dallas that same year, and regularly speaks at mystery conventions around the country. He will sign & discuss his new thriller, Whipsaw ($24). Whipsaw is missing. LaCosta refuses to call the cops. Delatek stands to lose millions. Why should Matt Donahue care? He's retired—forced out—no longer in charge of security for anyone but himself. LaCosta can go screw himself. He's already screwing Matt's wife. But the bad guys insist on Matt. He's supposed to make the ransom drop or the biggest game this side of Tetris gets released online—for free.

Visit Steve Brewer's website here.

REED FARREL COLEMAN

Reed Farrel Coleman, the youngest of three sons, was born on March 29th, 1956 in Brooklyn, New York. He was named after the B-movie actor, Reed Hadley. The F in Farrel was for some dead relative. Reed attended Abraham Lincoln High School and played offensive tackle and center on the JV football team. It was also during this time that he began writing run-of-the-mill overwrought, teenage poetry. When he snapped the ball over the punter's head during the championship game against South Shore, Reed decided he probably had more of a future in bad poetry. At Brooklyn College, Reed worked on the school literary magazine and continued to publish. Reed transferred to SUNY Stony Brook for a brief period before moving to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to pursue a relationship with an artist he'd met at Summerfest '76. He was back home in Brooklyn by the summer of '77. That summer also played a central role in shaping his writing. That was the year of Son of Sam, the July blackoutand Elvis' death. Reed returned to Brooklyn College as well. When, out of boredom, Reed took an evening class in detective fiction at Brooklyn College, his fate was sealed. In 2001, deciding he'd never make a sufficient income as a writer, Reed went into the home heating oil business. Just at this precise moment, his fourth novel Walking the Perfect Square was receiving rave reviews in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times Book Review. The Moe Prager series has continued with Redemption Street and The James Deans. He will sign & discuss the third in the series, The James Deans (Plume; $13), which was just nominated for the 2006 Edgar Award for best paperback original. It's the summer of 1983. Moe Prager, ex-NYPD cop and reluctant P.I., is once more cajoled into putting his life on hold in order to untangle the web of a long unsolved mystery. Reed will also sign Hard-Boiled Brooklyn (Bleak House Books; trade paperback original; $14.95), which he edited. Hard-Boiled Brooklyn features stories by Peter Blauner, Charlie Stella, Ken Bruen, Jason Starr, and more!


Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website here.

BILL CRIDER

Bill Crider is the chair of the English Department at Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas. He is the author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series; two mystery series set at small-town colleges - the Professor Sally Good novels and the Carl Burns books; several oter mystery series; and three stand-alone mystery novles. He lives in Alvin with his wife , Judy. Bill will sign his new Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery, A Mammoth Murder (St. Martin's Minotaur; $23.95). Spring rains uncover mammoth bones, Bigfoot is roaming Blacklin County, and a clue to an long-unsolved disappearance emerges. Sheriff Dan Rhodes is on the case(s).

Visit Bill's website here.

PETER SPIEGELMAN

Peter Spiegelman is a veteran of over twenty years in the financial services and software industries, and has worked with leading banks, brokerages and central banks around the world. In the mid-1990's, Peter left his position as a Vice President at a major Wall Street firm to become a partner in a banking software company. The company's product soon became a leader in its marketplace, and in the late-1990's Peter and his partners sold their business to a larger firm. Peter retired from the software industry in 2001, to write. Peter was born in New York City and, aside from a brief stint in Los Angeles, grew up in the New York metropolitan area. He is a graduate of Vassar College, where he majored in English. He lives with his family in Connecticut. His debut novel, Black Maps, was published by Knopf in August, 2003 and won the 2004 Shamus Award for Best First Novel. He will sign & discuss his second John March private eye novel, Death's Little Helpers (Knopf; $22.95). After the slaying of his wife, New York private investigator John March made an uneasy peace with grief and guilt. But his truce came at a price: a life of solitude and rigid self-discipline. Working his cases with a ruthless, dispassionate zeal, running mile after mile through the city streets, and avoiding relationships like the plague, March isolated himself emotionally, even as he insulated himself from the traumas of his past. It was a hard bargain, but one he was willing to make—until he met Jane Lu.


Visit Peter Spiegelman's website here.

JASON STARR

Jason Starr is the author of seven crime novels which have been published in nine languages. His lives in Manhattan with his wife and daughter. His novel Tough Luck won the 2004 Barry Award for Best Paperback Original and he just won the 2005 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original (Twisted City). Jason will sign & discuss Bust (Hard Case Crime; paperback original; $6.99), a novel he co-wrote with Ken Bruen! Everything goes wrong when cheating husband Max Fisher hires a psychotic hit man to murder his wife. David HIGHLY RECOMMENDS Bust... this crime novel is among the best work of both authors! He will also sign his hardback debut, Lights Out (U.K. import; $37.95). Millionaire baseball star Jake Thomas is returning to Brooklyn to announce his engagement to his school sweetheart, Christina. Jake knows it’s time to settle down – and a big news story will help mask the scandal lurking in his past. Ryan Rossetti isn’t in the mood to celebrate. He grew up with Jake and now paints houses for a living. But Ryan has the one thing that Jake needs: Christina. Now Christina Mercado has a choice to make, and when she makes it, three lives are going to collide with shattering consequences. "Jason Starr is hypnotically good - if you miss him, you're missing some of the best new writing there is." -- Lee Child

Here's the Publisher's Weekly review of BUST:
This first-time collaboration between two rising crime fiction writers is a full-tilt, rocking homage to noir novels of the 1950s, taking full advantage of the neo-pulp Hard Case Crime imprint. Wealthy, successful New York City business owner Max Fisher finds himself in a delightfully familiar scenario: he wants to get rid of his nagging wife so he can shack up with his sexy secretary, Angela Petrakos. When Angela introduces Max to Dillon, a former IRA hit man, Max thinks he's found his man; what Max doesn't know is that Dillon is already Angela's man--and the two plan to double-cross Max as soon as it becomes profitable. Dillon, however, proves to be less a professional than a psychotic: he'd just as soon kill "for the price of a pint" as he would for Max's wealth. Rolling in on the action is wheelchair-bound Bobby Rosa, an ex-con with a taste for lewd photography, guns and blackmail. As it tends to do, the murderous plot goes awry, sending Bruen and Starr's delicious, despicable characters scrambling for their money and their lives. A seamless blend of Bruen's dead-on Irish underworld and Starr's hellish vision of the Big Apple, Hard Case's latest release is smart, trashy fun, fulfilling ably the series' irresistible promise.

Visit Jason Starr's website here.

Noir Night 2006 will also serve as a Launch Party for the publication of Fifth of Bruen (Busted Flush Press).

Visit Busted Flush's website here.

BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR SALE ON NOIR NIGHT!