The Philadelphia Quarry - Hardcover

Owen, Howard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1579623352 ISBN 13: 9781579623357

Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co, 2013

Synopsis

Black is back. Willie Black was last seen, in Oregon Hill, risking the final tattered remnants of his checkered careeer - and his life - to free a man almost everyone else believed was guilty. Willie's still covering the night police beat with its DDGBs and dirt naps, still avoiding the hawk that periodically swopps down to pluck away a few more of his colleagues in a floundering business. He still drinks too much, smokes too much. The only thing that keeps him employed: He's a damn fine reporter. Even his beleaguered bosses would concede that.

Willie finds himself neck-deep in a part of Richmond that a boy growing up in Oregon Hill could only experience through illicit midnight stories at the city's most exclusive swimming hole. The Quarry was where Alicia Parker Simpson identified Richard Slade as her rapist, 28 years ago. Then, five days after DNA evidence freed Slade from the prison system in which he had spent his adult life, Alicia Simpson is shot to death.

Hardly anyone doubts that Richard Slade did it. Who could blame him? But Willie has his doubts. When the full weight of the city's old money falls on him, trying to crush the story, he only becomes more determined to chase the things that always seems to get him in trouble - the truth. The fact that Richard Slade is his cousin, a link to his long-dead African-American father, only makes Willie more tenacious.

In the end, Willie will be drawn back to the Philadelphia Quarry, where it all started so long ago and in whose murky waters the truth lies.

About this title

About the Author

HOWARD OWEN grew up near Fayetteville, North Carolina. He and his wife, Karen, live in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This is his 11th novel. His earlier works include, in addition to Oregon Hill, Littlejohn, Fat Lightning, rock of Ages, and the Reckoning.

Willie Black first appeared in a short story, The Thirteenth Floor, which was part of Richmond Noir.

Reviews

Nearly 28 years after a 17-year-old black youth, Richard Slade, is convicted of raping white 16-year-old Alicia Simpson, from a prominent Richmond, Virginia, family, Slade is freed on the basis of DNA evidence. But when his accuser, Alicia, is shot five days later, Slade, whose alibi is shaky, finds himself back in jail. Nearly down-and-out reporter Willie Black, who works the night-cops beat on his financially struggling newspaper, is ordered off the story when he questions the guilt of Slade (who, Willie has just learned, is his second cousin). But Willie has tracked some of his best stories when he disobeyed editors’ orders, so even the threat of losing his job doesn’t keep him from digging into what proves to be the dysfunctional Simpson family. 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. --Michele Leber

Edition details

• Publisher: Permanent Pr Pub Co
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1579623352
• ISBN 13: 9781579623357
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 223