"A wonderfully detailed treat!" Kirkus Reviews David Downie's Long Awaited ROMAN ROULETTE
The American book review magazine and cultural gatekeeper Kirkus Reviews raves about David Downie's new thriller, Roman Roulette, calling it "a wonderfully detailed treat" all while praising it as not just a remarkable thriller but a loving tour of Rome and Italian culture.
Roman Roulette is the continuation of Det. Daria Vinci's adventures first explored in Downie's Red Riviera. A new scene, a new adventure, a new case, follow the intrepid detective to the stunning conclusion of this riveting murder mystery.
For Commissioner Daria Vinci, it was supposed to be a night off, attending a benefit concert for the Institute of America in Rome. But little did the Institute’s wealthy, distinguished guests know that beneath their feet, in the ancient catacombs, a very different kind of gathering was being held. One that would end in murder…
Red Riviera, the first Daria Vinci Investigation, was set on the Italian Riviera. In Roman Roulette, the glamorous and high-principled police commissioner of DIGOS, Italy’s FBI, must investigate what at first seems a simple case of suicide and in so doing attracts the attention of her boss, the Questor of the Province of Rome. He wants her off the case. Why? Suddenly, Commissioner Daria Vinci must solve the murder in 36 hours, while risking her career and, possibly, her life.
Small Press Week 2018: Monday, a look back at the Inception of ASP
We’d been talking about founding a press for a few years. I was becoming increasingly frustrated and angry about what was happening to some of the books I’d edited, and to some of my writer friends. Some of the books I worked on already had committed publishers, who knew my work and wanted me involved, and that’s great. But sometimes I was hired by a writer who had a publisher but knew they were not going to give the book a thorough edit – there is less and less of that going on these days, as you can see from opening even a big-name title. And I think — we think — that that is awful. If you are published by ASP, you get a thorough and very fine edit…
Featured Audio: “The Lovesick Lake,” a Story by James J Patterson
“Lovers of the personal essay should be rejoicing in the streets at word of this collection. For readers and acquaintances of Jimmy Patterson, it is long overdue, but the author was born in Washington, D.C., where the machinery of progress is congenitally slow. So this book, in many important ways – is what all satisfying collections of autobiographical essays should be – a mirror of place.” Rick Walter
Armistice Day, known in the US as Veteran’s Day, is now a work week past, but for James J Patterson it is a memory and idea that refuses to restrain itself to a 24 hour period. Yesterday we published his moving account of those veterans of The Great War he knew growing up, memorializing and contextualizing them for an audience whose experience of the war may only be through the muddy, pained faces in old photographs…
The World of Yesterday (Armistice Day, 2018)
My father always said that his first memory was of standing on the couch in his parent’s living room, small hands on the back cushion, peering out a picture widow at a neighborhood street in Bend, Oregon. There is a slow-moving line of cars and horse-drawn carriages inching its way down the lane. The line of cars is there every day, and every day he stands there and watches. His street is a long one and at the end of it is the cemetery. He is not allowed to go outside to play. Death is all anyone talks about. Death from a great flu epidemic. Death from a great war just ending. Everyone has lost someone. Most have lost a few. It is 1918…