50 Must Read Books
Kustomrama Encyclopedia has chosen Cool Cars, High Art: The Rise of Kustom Kulture as one of the 50 must-read books for auto enthusiasts....
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JACK DEWITT
NOIR IS DARK
JACK DEWITT
MYSTERY WRITER
ESSAYIST
POET
OUT NOW
varian pike mysteries
a classic noir detective series
WWII veteran Varian Pike returned from the war to become a private detective. He gets swept up in tracking down a friend's missing daughter in Delicious Little Traitor, only to find her disappearance has ties to something much deeper lingering after the war. In Beat Bop, Varian is swept up in a murder plot that threatens to take him and his new friend Fly, a member of the Stamford club The Vagabond Jesters, for a ride through conspiracies and coverups that they can't handle. By the time Hoochie Coochie Man begins, Pike has a reputation that precedes him. But his methods get him involved with an insurance adjuster and a beautiful psychologist when bombs start going off across Stamford.
There are only a few people working in this utterly unadorned, unsung blue-collar vein, and Jack DeWitt is the master of the genre.
Steve Berg, founding editor of the American Poetry Review
I love this book… The fifties culture is evoked with authenticity and not nostalgia. The war hovers in the background and reminds us when the fifties were. This is so engaging—the Northeast winter landscape, the brilliant dialog, the jazz track. Good stuff.
Bobbie Ann Mason, author of Shiloh & Other Stories
This book is great, punchy, quick-moving, sassy and sensitive simultaneously, love the detailed history and the jazz, makes me feel like I'm there, the frost on the inside of the windshield, the cop psychology, the sex scenes will rattle your bones. WOW.
Marilyn Jackson,
Philadelphia dance critic (on Delicious Little Traitor)
More given to flights of philosophy than to fast-paced car chases, this exceptional read is a thinking man's or woman's noir mystery[...]
Don Sloan, for Midwest Book Review
ABOUT JACK
After living and teaching in Philadelphia for nearly 40 years, Jack moved back to his home territory of New England. He was born in Connecticut, which inspired many of his poems and the Varian Pike novels, but now he lives in Massachusetts where he writes, follows politics, and seeks out the perfect food trip.
He continues to this day to hunt for a cherry 1953 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop.
CONTACT ME
I am available for readings, interviews, & book clubs.
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