Summer Reviews

It's been a busy Summer here at The Permanent Press. Here's what critics are saying about some of out biggest new releases:

THE PHILADELPHIA QUARRY - Howard Owen

"Owen is particularly good at character development and takes a familiar race and class struggle plot to a new level. His second entry featuring crime reporter Willie Black (after the Hammett Prize finalist Oregon Hill) is a stellar mystery deserving of a wide readership." --Library Journal, Starred Review

"Narrator Willie, who charmed readers in Oregon Hill (2012), is a hard drinking, old-style newsman who still takes notes with pen and pad and takes his chances with the powers-that-be to get at the truth. A well-plotted mystery elevated above the norm by Owen's mastery of character development and his creation of a compelling hero." --Booklist

"Against a backdrop of advertising-suppressed investigative print journalism, Owen uses race and class, coupled with a Faulkner-ian family tragedy, to provide a powerful narrative engine. While the complex noir drama keeps the pages turning, the murderer and motivation complete the storyline perfectly. A quick-flowing crime drama that will have fans eager for Willie Black to right another injustice." --Kirkus

"A modern noir mystery with convincing characters, evocative locations, and a wonderful feel for the changing world of news, ,The Philadelphia Quarry offers a plot that's neither overly complex nor too simple, while exploring the relationships of parents and children through families rich and poor, black and white, and in-between." --Café Libre

PAINT THE BIRD - Georgeann Packard

"Packard's book layers symbolism on its pages, but it's also an entrancing exercise in employing language to explore and define the nature of love and the meaning of life framed against death. The lyrical narrative edges toward the surreal, however, beginning to end, the novel is a deeply poetic meditation 'About life, about trust. About God. About death.'Brilliantly imagined and rendered." --Kirkus, Starred Review

"The story reads like a prose poem. Emotional significance comes across in the sparsely told daily machinations of the lives of a few intentionally but tenuously connected New Yorkers. Packard (Fall Asleep Forgetting) weaves a dreamy yet well-paced narrative with richly developed characters who gradually come to discover that life is always going on, whether they're watching or not." --Publishers Weekly

"Highlighting a unique intersection of the gay, artistic, and religious communities, Packard challenges readers to look closely at their beliefs about death, sexuality, and the constructs of family. Rich descriptions of art and overt sensuality lend beauty to this provocative story of loss and hope." --Booklist

RAIN DOGS - Baron R. Birtcher

"Birtcher combines a gritty, action-filled thriller with a nuanced, almost contemplative character drama... Thoroughly entertaining."   ---Booklist

"Combining vivid scenes, sympathetic characters, and graphic descriptions, Birtcher catapults readers to the center of the action."   ---Entertainment Realm (2013 Summer Book Picks)

"Rain Dogs is a is a thriller with genuine shocks and chills. A combination of gritty realism and lyrically descriptive prose draws the reader in. The danger is plausible and palpable. But an anchor of humanity remains...  a novel that keeps [you] enthralled and uncertain from beginning to end."   ---Cafe Libri

"Rain Dogs proves to be a taut and exciting read. Overall, you can't ask for a better thriller than this..."   

---Thinking About Books

White-knuckle tension and crisp, clean prose distinguish this outstanding standalone from Birtcher (Angels Fall and two other Mike Travis mysteries). In 1976, Colombian and Mexican criminals are turning cocaine smuggling into a major industry, while the U.S. war on drugs is beginning to produce serious casualties. The nameless narrator is running a small-scale marijuana operation in California s Humboldt County, until bandits raid his farm and a shiftless kid rats him out. The narrator flees to a small Mexican town, where he collides with the schemes of local drug lord Miguel Zamora, who s spiraling out of control as he feeds his coke addiction and who foolishly plots to rip off both the Colombians and his partners in the government. Meanwhile, two corrupt border cops discover that they re way over their heads in their dealings with Zamora. Unable to trust anyone around them, the two must learn how far they can trust themselves. Many books call themselves thrillers, but this is the real deal. --Publishers Weekly Starred Review

THE TENTH WITNESS - LEONARD ROSEN

"This is a complex, dark, and disturbing story, beautifully told and based in part on history. Poincaré s character is deeply developed, as Rosen combines a probing Holocaust story with elements of an action thriller. A fine novel and further indication that Rosen is a writer of immense talent."--Booklist, starred review


"In Rosen's strong prequel to his 2011 debut, All Cry Chaos, Henri Poincaré, not yet an Interpol agent, uncovers a startling secret that brings back the ghosts of WWII...Rosen writes with polish and confidence."--Publishers Weekly

"This is a prequel to Rosen's acclaimed mystery debut, All Cry Chaos, which was set 30 years later when Henri was working as an Interpol investigator. Rosen relies on literary background and considerable research skillfully to portray Henri's confrontation with the nature of evil and his developing detective talents in investigating both dead Nazis and living ones. Another winner." --Library Journal

"If it's hard to wring new headlines from Nazi industrialists, Rosen uses this familiar background to tell a story as heartfelt as it is ambitious."--Kirkus Reviews

"The Tenth Witness offers a thoughtful treatise on what it is to forget, to forgive, and to take responsibility for the past. In Henri Poincaré, readers of all ages can appreciate the terrible beauty of a life lived with love for others.--ForeWord Reviews

"If every author's primary responsibility is to keep the reader turning the page while mumbling the mantra just one more chapter . . . just one more chapter then Leonard Rosen has more than accomplished this goal with The Tenth Witness...You will not be disappointed." --NY Journal of Books

"Only the very best writers can weave a compelling story from a maze of complicated ideas.... Len Rosen has proven himself to be one of them." 
--Arthur Golden, New York Times bestselling author of Memoirs of a Geisha

"The Tenth Witness is a brilliant follow up to Rosen's first thriller. Here is an author who cares as much about the pained human heart as a page-turning plot and manages to infuse this book with pathos, wit, wonder, fabulous historical detail, mystery and breathless anticipation. If you're looking for a smart thriller - look no further - Rosen is stupendous!" --International bestseller, M.J. Rose

Library Journal proclaims Leonard Rosen's The Tenth Witness "another winner."

In 1978, 28-year-old Henri Poincaré launches an engineering consulting business by salvaging a sunken treasure ship off the Dutch coast. By chance, he falls in love with Liesel Kraus, whose family’s steel he uses in his work and whose history increasingly draws him into their Nazi roots. Henri’s beloved uncle was a slave laborer for Liesel’s father and one of ten witnesses who swore he was good to Jews. To understand his uncle’s life, Henri pursues the witnesses, but they are dying and only he suspects murder. Racing to find the last one still alive and the killer who seems to be protecting the Kraus family’s reputation, Henri is forced to pit love against justice at great personal peril. VERDICT This is a prequel to Rosen’s acclaimed mystery debut, All Cry Chaos, which was set 30 years later when Henri was working as an Interpol investigator. Rosen relies on literary background and considerable research skillfully to portray Henri’s confrontation with the nature of evil and his developing detective talents in investigating both dead Nazis and living ones. Another winner.—