Contemporary crime noir novelist and award winning journalist Wallace Stroby will be at the Easton Area Public Library at 7:00 pm on Thursday, September 26, to talk about crime and his novel Kings of Midnight. Named one of the Best Books of 2012 by Kirkus Review, the novel was released in paperback this month.
Readers first meet Stroby’s protagonist Crissa Stone in the acclaimed Cold Shot to the Heart. Crissa is a successful professional thief who never works too close to her New York home, rarely signs on to work with the same crew, and never rushes a job. Her mentor and lover Wayne – also a professional thief and career criminal – is serving a long sentence in a Texas prison. Crissa learns that his parole can be hastened if she bribes the right people. Crissa needs big money fast, so when she’s recruited for the robbery of a high stakes card game, she accepts the job with a smaller crew than usual. The robbery turns into a homicide when a crew member kills a participant in the card game. The victim turns out to be mob-connected, and a hitman is hired to track down the crew.
Crissa returns in Kings of Midnight looking for one last big score – enough to buy Wayne’s way out of prison and reclaim the daughter she once gave up. She partners with Benny Roth, a mob figure who claims he knows where to find several million dollars from a decades-old heist. Unfortunately, some of Benny’s former cronies also believe he knows where the money is.
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The third Crissa Stone novel, Shoot the Woman First, will be released in December 2013. Showtime has optioned the Crissa Stone novels for development as a series with Oscar winner Ted Talley (Silence of the Lambs) writing the adaptation.
A Long Branch, N.J. native, Stroby is a lifelong resident of the Jersey Shore. A graduate of Rutgers University, he was an editor at the Star-Ledger of Newark, Tony Soprano’s hometown newspaper, for 13 years.
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Copies of Kings of Midnight are available for purchase at the Main Library and the Palmer Branch and at the book talk. This trade paperback edition sells for $10 (regularly $14.99). Stroby will sign books at the conclusion of his talk.
The program is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided.
The program will be held in the Catherine Drake Room at the Main Library located at 515 Church Street. The room is handicapped-accessible from the lower level entrance. Doors open at 6:00 pm.
Call 610-258-2917 ext 310 to pre-register and for more information. Visit www.wallacestroby.com for information about all things noir: film, music, and books.
Author Bill Pronzini explains crime noir fiction at http://www.noircon.info/2009/07/what-is-noir-crime-fiction.html.
