New Jersey Noir

<p>On the bridge over Paterson's Great Falls a retired state trooper is murdered by a girl in a grammar school uniform. The victim was the beloved uncle of Jack Colt a private investigator descended from the inventor of the revolver. While investigating his uncle’s murder Colt realizes that it is intertwined with two other cases of his. These involve the family secrets of extremely powerful New Jersey figures including the governor a judge and a mob boss.<br />  In <em>New Jersey Noir</em> William Baer reinvigorates the detective genre while exploring the Garden State's rich cultural history glamor and gore. Baer's novel is fast-paced and utterly gripping brimming with intrigue and suspense.</p><p><strong>PRAISE FOR</strong><strong> </strong><em><strong>NEW JERSEY NOIR:</strong></em></p><p>An accomplished poet playwright and short-story writer William Baer has turned to crime creating a brilliant debut novel the hard-boiled whodunit <em>New Jersey Noir.</em> If you’re looking for classic noir elements you’ll find them here in spades. And you’ll find fine literary elements here as well: precise prose perfect pacing stunning imagery complex characterization grand historical and cultural contexts and a superb sense of place. More than anything else <em>New Jersey Noir</em> is a loving tribute to the Garden State by a writer who appreciates its grime as much as its glory.<br />  - Hollis Seamon (Jersey girl born and raised) author of <em>Somebody Up There Hates You</em></p> <p>Not since Donna Tartt’s <em>The Secret History</em> have I read a novel as mesmerizing engrossing and delectable as William Baer’s <em>New Jersey Noir-</em>a book so compelling that I was forced to drop everything and commit myself for several hours to experiencing vicariously the strange and haunted darkness that is the shadow world of this novel. In prose as fast-moving as a bullet Baer compels the reader to keep flipping pages more and more rapidly. Baer’s writing is taut and gut-wrenching. <em>New Jersey Noir</em> and Baer’s talent presage a brilliant career for this wonderfully gifted writer.<br />  - Terri Brown-Davidson author of <em>Marie Marie Hold On Tight</em></p><p>Jack Colt the private investigator in William Baer’s <em>New Jersey Noir</em> romances the genre to the suspenseful effect that JJ “Jake” Gittes achieves in Roman Polanski’s acclaimed <em>Chinatown.</em> In place of technicolor LA however Baer evokes a cinematic chiaroscuro New Jersey specifically Paterson its history and politics limned over a baseline of Springsteen doo-wop and Whitney Houston. In the early pages of this compelling mystery when Colt muses that his fellow detective Luca Salerno “was tough all right but not tough enough to look into the heart of darkness” the allusion to Joseph Conrad alerts us that we are in for a more trenchant narrative than a gumshoe and dames thriller. Baer fulfills by deftly executing the universal themes of incest adultery madness and undisguised evil rising out of the swamps of the Meadowlands and beyond.<br />  - Dennis Must author of <em>Hush Now Don’t Explain</em></p><p><strong>ABOUT THE AUTHOR:</strong></p><p><strong>William Baer</strong> a recent Guggenheim fellow is the author of twenty-two books including <em>Times Square and Other Stories Classic American Films Lu��s de Cam��es: Selected Sonnets</em> and <em>The Unfortunates</em> (recipient of the T. S. Eliot Award). A former Fulbright in Portugal he’s also received the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award and a Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information visit him at williambaer.net.</p>