"Sleepless City"

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times-bestselling author of over thirty novels—including six in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series—short stories, poetry, and essays.

In addition to his acclaimed series characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy, he has written the stand-alone novel Gun Church and collaborated with decorated Irish crime writer Ken Bruen on the novel Tower.

Coleman is a four time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories: Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, and Best Short Story. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Sleepless City, and reported the following:

“…As they approached the landing between the second and third floors, new smells—nothing to do with bacon fat or burnt coffee—scented the air. Marijuana. Urine. Feces. And something more subtle … blood. Nick Ryan was intimate with death. He didn’t have to see it to know it.”

I’ve done many of these Page 69 Tests, but none proves the point better than this. Nick Ryan has been offered the role to be essentially NYC’s fixer, a prince of the city with nearly unlimited resources who operates in the shadows. He has turned down the job numerous times, but he knows only duty and when the proverbial spit hits the fan, he answers the call. Here he comes upon a situation that has the potential to blow the lid off the simmering rage in the city.

Sprawled out on the third-floor landing was the body of a young Asian man in a dark blue NYPD uniform. His head was turned to the left, eyes open, unseeing. His hat lay upside down on the step above him. Inside were a wallet, a badge, and a college graduation ring. Nick knelt beside the body. The bullet had blown out a chunk of the young cop’s skull. The black hair around the exit wound was bloody and matted…

Nick noticed the nameplate on the dead cop’s chest. He turned to Ace. “Joon as in Chief of Detectives Joon?”

“His son.”

“He killed himself.”

“He did. The kid is only half of it. He’s shitstorm. Clusterfuck’s on the next set of stairs. Look for yourself.”

What Nick finds on those stairs is the smoldering fuse that might blow the city apart: the bodies of a young white girl and an African American teenage boy. And what Nick does to extinguish the smoldering fuse that ignites a whole series of other events that play out through the course of Sleepless City. Many of those events present challenges to Nick that would overwhelm most anyone else, but not Nick Ryan.

Visit Reed Farrel Coleman's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Hollow Girl.

The Page 69 Test: Where It Hurts.

The Page 69 Test: What You Break.

My Book, The Movie: Sleepless City.

Q&A with Reed Farrel Coleman.

--Marshal Zeringue