Annie's Bones
My 16th novel, Annie's
Bones, comes out in late April. Here's the very nice pre-pub review in Publishers Weekly:
Publishers Weekly March 16, 2018
Annie’s Bones by Howard Owen. Permanent, $29.95
(264p) ISBN 978-1- 57962-522- 1
In 1968, Grayson
Melvin, the protagonist of this moving, well-crafted standalone from Owen
(The Reckoning),
meets the love of his life, Annie Lineberger, when they’re both college
students in North
Carolina. When Annie breaks up with him, he tells her to get out of his car. She
scrambles out
and is never seen again. Grayson is the primary suspect in her disappearance, but
without any
evidence he moves on—always followed by a cloud. In 2016, Annie’s bones are
found
in Portman, Va., and Grayson’s nightmare begins again. He gets support from only a few
people,
including Richmond, Va., reporter Willie Black (the lead of Owen’s The Devil’s
Triangle
and five other mysteries). Arrayed against him are public opinion, seemingly every
lawman in the
area, and Annie’s unforgiving brother, Hayden. The discovery of Grayson’s high
school
senior class ring, which he last saw when he refused to take it back from Annie at the time
she
left him, puts Grayson on a tortuous path that eventually leads to answers that may or may
not
explain what happened. This tale of loss and redemption will resonate with many readers.
(Apr.)
Writing all the time
The sixth Willie Black novel, The Devil's Triangle, came out in June to really good reviews in Publishers
Weekly, Kirkus, Library Journal and Booklist. Willie deals with the aftermath of a small-plane crash into a popular drinking
spot that decimates much of the braintrust of a major Richmond law firm and leaves more questions than answers. Not
done, though. I've finished Annie's Bones, my 16th novel. It's set in Richmond and North Carolina and only peripherally
involves Willie. It will come out in April 2018. I've finished the seventh Willie Black mystery, Scuffletown, and
it'll be out in a year or so.
Finalist for Silver Falchion Award
Grace is one of the finalists for
Killer Nashville's Silver Falchion Award for Best Fiction Adult Mystery in the U.S.
Starred review in PW!
Publishers Weekly April 14, 2017
The Devil’s Triangle, by Howard Owen.
Permanent, $28 (240p) ISBN 978-1-57962-499-6
Here's the (starred) Publishers Weekly review of The
Devil's Triangle, my 15th novel and sixth Willie Black mystery, which comes out in June.
At the start of Owen’s superior sixth outing for Richmond, Va., reporter Willie Black (after 2016’s Grace),
a twin-engine Beechcraft plane crashes into the Dark Star bar, killing 22, injuring 29, and fueling wild speculation about
the cause of the crash. Was it a terrorist act, suicide, or an accident? The pilot is identified as David Biggio, a former
Richmond resident who was once arrested for stalking his former wife; the plane belonged to James “Chopper” Ware,
who owns a hardware store in a tiny town on the Chesapeake Bay. Black uses all his journalistic resources, including such
strong supporting characters as Peachy Love, the police media relations person, and elderly Jumpin’ Jimmy Deacon, who
gives him a lead to Biggio’s ex-wife. As usual, Black finds himself at odds with police chief Larry Doby Jones and with
his newspaper’s publisher, Rita Dominick. An unexpected insurance policy, the discovery of a murder victim, and a man’s
hidden past keep Black digging. Owen’s informed treatment of Richmond and its declining daily paper is perfect. (June)
First review of The Devil's Triangle
Good review from Kirkus on the latest Willie Black mystery, out in June. Here's the kicker:
"Owen produces another grim, tightly woven, and resolutely professional piece of work with a memorably nightmarish
payoff."
Howard Owen is a novelist and journalist...
Struck
by either an epiphany or a midlife crisis, Howard Owen wrote his first novel, "Littlejohn," at the age of 40. The
first draft took him about 100 days. At the time, Owen was a sports editor at The Richmond Times-Dispatch. He retired in April
as editorial page editor of The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg after 44 years in journalism. Before retirement, he never
took a sabbatical, adhering instead to a schedule that includes about an hour a day for writing or revising. He finds that
it is possible to do great things with an hour a day, every day. Now, in retirement, he has even more time to write. Owen's
tenth novel, "Oregon Hill," published in 2012, won the Hammett Prize for best crime literature in the U.S. and Canada,
given by the International Association of Crime Writers. The sequel, "The Philadelphia Quarry," came out in July
of 2013. The third Willie Black mystery, "Parker Field," was published in 2014. The fourth, "The Bottom,"
came out this year. The fifth, "Grace," came out in October of 2016. The sixth, "The Devil's Triangle,"
comes out in June and just got a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
Here's a brief summary
of my career so far:
Books by Howard Owen and their reception[edit]
Littlejohn (1992)[2] was the first novel[3][4] by Owen[5] and he was 43 years old when it was first published in 1992. It was followed by Fat Lightning in
1994,[6]and Answers to Lucky (1996).
His fourth novel, The Measured Man,[7] was published in hardcover by Harper Collins in 1997. It was praised in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times,Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, the Raleigh News & Observer, the Orlando Sentinel, and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. Chosen as one of the Los Angeles Times Book Reviews’ "Recommended Titles" for 1997, it was also included
in The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide.[8]
His fifth
novel, Harry and Ruth, was published by The Permanent Press in September of 2000 to critical acclaim from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly and various weekly publications.
His sixth novel, The Rail, was published in April of 2002. It is about (among other things)
baseball and the parable of the talents. Owen won Richmond Magazine's 2002 Theresa Pollak Award for Words. His seventh novel, Turn Signal, came out in 2004 and was a Booksense selection for July of 2004. His eighth novel, Rock of Ages, is a sequel to his first novel, "Littlejohn."
It was a Booksense pick for July of 2006. His ninth novel, The Reckoning,'[9] about ghosts of the ’60s, came out in late 2010 and received very positive reviews from, among others, Publishers Weekly and the New York Journal of Books.
An Owen short
story, "The Thirteenth Floor," part of Richmond Noir, came out in early 2010. The protagonist of “The
Thirteenth Floor,” Willie Black, also is at the center of Owen’s 10th novel, Oregon Hill,' which
was published in July of 2012 to positive reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus.Oregon Hill has also been released as an audio book. Willie was a central character in future Owen novels: The
Philadelphia Quarry[10] (2013), "Parker Field" (2014) and "The Bottom" (2015). The fifth of the Willie Black novels,[11] Grace,[12][13] was published in 2016. The Devil's Triangle (The sixth novel in the Willie Black series) is
scheduled for release in 2017.[14]
Regarding Oregon
Hill,[15] a New York Times critic said Howard Owen is "a writer we can't wait to hear again. . . .Owen knows his setting, his dialogue is
spot-on, and his grasp of the down-and-dirty work of the police and news reporters lends authenticity to the narrative. This
is Southern literature as expected, with a touch of noir and with a touch of Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River." Another NYT writer in the Sunday Book Review said, "Owen has recruited his sick, sad and creatively crazy characters
from a rough neighborhood cut off from the rest of the city when the expressway was built. If anyone is watching out for the
forgotten citizens of Oregon Hill, it’s Willie, who grew up there and speaks the local language, a crisp and colorful
urban idiom we can’t wait to hear again.[16]
Littlejohn was
nominated for the (American Booksellers Association) Abbey Award and the (Barnes & Noble) Discovery award for best new fiction. Littlejohn has sold more than 50,000 copies and has been printed
in Japanese, French and Korean. The book has also been a Doubleday Book Club selection, and audio[17]and large-print editions have been issued. Movie option rights for the book have been sold. All his subsequent books
have continued this initial popularity and have garnered additional awards and favorable reviews. Littlejohn,[18] The Philadelphia Quarry,[19] The Bottom,[20] and Parker Field[21] are available to read free as online books.
Biography[edit]
Howard Owen was born March 1, 1949, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He and his wife since 1973, Karen Van Neste Owen[22] (the former publisher of Van Neste Books), live in Richmond, Virginia, a city which is the setting for much of his writing and the residence of one of his favorite fictional characters, Willie
Black.
He was
a 1971 journalism graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he earned a master's degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1981.
Owen
was a sports editor at The Richmond Times-Dispatch[23] and editorial page editor of The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He spent 44 years as a newspaper reporter and editor. He wrote his first novel, Littlejohn, in 1989, when
he was 40. Littlejohn was bought by The Permanent Press and published in 1992.Random House bought it from The Permanent Press and reissued it as a Villard (imprint) hardcover in 1993 and a Vintage Contemporary paperback in 1994.
He was awarded the Hammett Prize in 2012.[24] He was a featured guest at the "Festival of the Written Word" in Chesterfield, Virginia in 2015.[25]
First pre-pub review of Grace
Grace, the fifth Willie Black mystery, comes out in October. Here is the first pre-publication review,
by veteran book critic Joan Baum.
by Joan Baum
With Grace, veteran Richmond, VA
newspaper editor, reporter and feature writer Howard Owen, still sticking with investigative journalist Willie Black who continues
to bite the hand that feeds him, has arguably created the best book so far in the Willie Black murder mystery series. Where
the earlier four books garnered well-deserved critical acclaim and awards, Grace exhibits a tighter, more
confident craftsmanship, as Owen shows that he knows how to work exposition into an engaging plot while training a jaundiced
eye on his protagonist, keeping Willie the same but not quite the same. Willie, now 54, whose black father disappeared at
birth and who still delights in being the good bad boy of print journalism at his paper (his nasty, venal publisher has pushed
him into the late-night crime beat), has evolved into an even more sardonic chaser of the justice and truth. Hilarious at
times and always cynical and selectively foul mouthed, he seems aware of time’s winged chariot – the press of
time and his history of being a fuck-up. But he’s not afraid to use the L word for his lady love, whom he just might
make number four, if he can rout or, more realistically, diminish his demons. He loves to drink, fight, stand pat when
the dam breaks and, go where angels fear to tread. A half bro, he can mix and mix it up with whites and blacks, people of
all classes, professions and vocations and relationships to the law, earning the admiration of the innocent and the criminal.
Like some others in the hard-boiled detective genre, Willie attracts
because he is flawed and heroic, but he has limits about what he will do and not do to get the story, the bad guy, the girl.
His honesty, integrity and ethics endear him to the various oddball men and women he interacted with in the earlier books
who are back again. These include Peggy, his reefer smoking mom, Awesome Dude a former homeless derelict, his ex-wife
Kate, a lawyer who is his landlord, an Indian he has befriended, his admiring colleagues both at the paper and in the police
department, and his slightly estranged but beloved daughter, Andi, now an unmarried mom herself. Not to mention all
those bartenders who know him well. Willie also knows himself. Of his ability to judge others, which he thinks he usually
does well, he adds, “I’m my biggest fan, so maybe I’m a tad biased.” Unlike many modern day protagonists,
Willie believes in “social justice, the Golden Rule, cold Millers, and forgiving women, in no particular order.”
In other words, Owen is not in the downer camp of contemporary noir. But he does know how to read literary tea leaves. These
say that the hot topics today that inform best sellers include racial tension, class divide, pederasty in the church, failed
marriage and alcohol and drug abuse.
As with all the Willie
Black books, Owen lets Willie speak for his creator’s values, which are admirable, especially at a time when good old-fashioned
print journalism is dying, if not already dead, and when so-called reporting, especially in social media and on certain channels
makes no pretense at accuracy, fairness or intelligence. As Willie says, “First-person stories by reporters give
me the heebie-jeebies. They smack too much of the kind of `look-at-me’ journalism that some of my compatriots seem to
prefer to actually digging and sticking to the facts.” As for the state of the world, it’s easy to take a nihilist
line, but Willie is more nuanced that that. He sees that the world is divided “into two equally reprehensible groups,
both earnestly involved in their life’s work: judging and affixing blame while assiduously eschewing spell check.”
If there is a God, he finds himself thinking, he wonders “ why the hell are we still here? Isn’t it about time
for another flood?” But he knows why he is here, and that it to make things right. He has for all his agnosticism a
good smattering of . . . grace.
Latest review for The Bottom (Aug. publication)
New York Journal of Books August 31, 2015
The Bottom by Howard Owen (Willie Black Series, Book 4)
Reviewed by D. R. Meredith
“The Bottom by Howard Owen races along
at breakneck speed, hardly pausing long enough to allow one to catch a breath.”
Willie Black, hard-smoking and hard drinking crime reporter for a
Richmond, Virginia, newspaper is trying to reform after a drunken argument with girlfriend Cindy. “I hardly drink anymore,
and I’ve cut way back on the Camels.” Willie is exaggerating as he admits to himself. “Of course, this means
two drinks a day instead of six and maybe six cigarettes instead of a pack.”
The point is that Willie is trying to be a better person, but one
area where he has no intention of changing is his obsession to track down a story, tackle it to the ground, and write it up
for the front page. “I just want to get a story and sink my teeth into it like a pit bull with anger issues.”
His current story is the Tweety Bird Killer,
a serial killer who in the last eighteen months has killed four young women and tattooed the cartoon character on their ankles.
Willie is not above lying to get his story. Perhaps lying is the wrong word. When he interviews the guard of the train station
where the body is dumped, Willie doesn’t lie, not technically anyway.
“I tell him I have a few more questions about the dead body that somehow materialized
just outside the lobby, on his watch. I somehow forget to mention that I’m asking on behalf of our shrinking readership
rather than the police.”
Thanks
to this oversight on Willie’s part, he learns the guard was lured from his post to a bar by a phone call from Willie’s
own daughter, Andi. This is not good news. Willie is not happy to see Andi involved even in a small way in the Tweety Bird
Case.
“I got this call,
on my cell. The guy said there was an envelope under the napkin at the bar. . .there were two twenties and a note. The guy
said one twenty was for me and the other one was for drinks for this guy I was supposed to call.”
Willie’s problem is to track down whoever made the phone call,
a difficult job since he has no idea who he is looking for. Neither do the police until a low life photographer named Ronnie
Sax started showing his neighbor some porn shots of underage girls. The neighbor calls the cops, who find photos of two of
the victims on Ronnie’s computer.
This is not Ronnie’s first arrest on porn charges. On the previous occasion Willie was blunt about his feelings.
“As the father of a daughter, I think now that, in a similar situation, I might have shot Ronnie Sax.” Still,
as a serial killer Ronnie Sax is not a serious suspect as far as Willie Black is concerned.
A better suspect is Wat Chenault, a fat, aging former state senator,
whose political career was torpedoed when Willie discovered that Chenault was cavorting with a 14-year-old girl in a hotel
room, and wrote a story about it, with an accompanying photo.
Chenault is suing the newspaper because Willie resurrected the story after the sleazy Chenault
announces plans to develop The Bottom, a section of old Richmond where an unmarked slave cemetery is supposed to exist. Willie
is bi-racial, and it’s possible some of his father’s ancestors are buried in that cemetery.
Putting aside Chenault’s plans for real estate development,
the slave cemetery, and his penchant for underage girls, there is the fact that Willie can find no trace of the teenager who
originally ripped away the former state senator’s mask of respectability. She disappeared shortly after Willie originally
broke the story and has not been seen since.
Ronnie Sax is arrested. The Tweety Bird Killer is in jail. Richmond women are safe. When Willie receives letters
from someone claiming to be the real killer, and furthermore reveals details about the victims that the police have withheld
from the public, Willie knows the murderer is still free. “Sax looks like a natural. I was pretty much ready to pull
the switch myself. Now, with the letter, I’m not so sure.”
If the Tweety Bird Killer isn’t Ronnie Sax, and it isn’t Wat Chenault, and
Willie now has a good reason to believe that Wat may be a scumbag, but not a killer, then who is raping and murdering the
young women of Richmond?
The Bottom by Howard Owen
races along at breakneck speed, hardly pausing long enough to allow one to catch a breath. Written in sparse journalistic style, with few adjectives and no unnecessary words,
The Bottom features wonderful characters who are just eccentric enough to be amusing without being stereotypes. While
some mystery fans may not care for Willie’s use of profanity, it is appropriate to his character. This is a perfect
read for those who like their mysteries blunt and to the point.
The Bottom
Here are some nice
pre-publication reviews for The Bottom, the fourth Willie Black mystery. It comes out in August.
Publishers Weekly
Howard Owen. Permanent, $28 (208p) ISBN 9781579623920
Willie Black has the tenacity of a bulldog when chasing a story or a bad guy, as shown in Owen’s satisfying
fourth mystery featuring the Richmond, Va., newspaper reporter (after 2014’s Parker Field). A serial
killer dubbed Tweety Bird has just claimed his fourth victim, a 14year old girl, probably a runaway, found in Richmond’s
rundown Main Street train station. On her ankle is the killer’s signature tattoo of a cartoon bird. After the police
arrest sleazy photographer Ronnie Sax for the crime, Willie starts receiving threatening handwritten letters with information
only the killer could know. Meanwhile, a former state senator is pushing an ambitious development plan for the Richmond neighborhood
known as the Bottom, much to its residents’ dismay. Willie carries a lot of personal baggage, including a fractured
(but not broken) family, three divorces, a couple of rocky romances, and a drinking problem sort of under control, but readers
can count on him to deliver in the end. (Aug.)
Booklist
June 1, 2015
Aug 2015. 208 p. Permanent Press, hardcover, $28. (9781579623920).
Newspaperman Willie Black was born 60 years too late, and he’s unhappy about
it. His century’s
reporters were bourbon soaked, and when they weren’t playing
poker, they were bringing down
scoundrels. Nowadays, the birdcage liner—his term—Willie
works for in Richmond, Virginia, is
staffed by sycophants and run by weasels, and he loves
to tell us all about it. His rants are
interrupted by murders he must solve. This time (following
Parker Field, 2014), someone is
killing teenage girls, and after the cops jail a former
newspaper photographer, Willie still has his
doubts. After all, he keeps getting letters
from someone claiming to be the real killer. And he has
inside dope. As the story unfolds,
Willie faces the killer, battles a greedy developer’s plan to
junk up the landscape,
and installs a spine in the newspaper’s publisher—all the while displaying
an
easy humor and a sweet good nature that belies his cynicism. At one point, he wonders if his
woman
could really care about, “a 53-year-old bald man who needs to lose weight.” Of course,
she could. We do. — Don Crinklaw
Kirkus Reviews Review Issue Date: June 15, 2015; Online Publish Date: June 4, 2015
THE BOTTOM Author: Howard Owen
Publisher:Permanent Press Pages: 208; Price ( Hardcover ): $28.00; Publication Date: August 31,
2015; ISBN 978-1-57962-392-0;Category: Fiction; Classification: Mystery
Willie Mays Black, reporter/drinker/police
gadfly, searches for a serial killer in Owen's (Parker
Field, 2014, etc.) fourth crime caper.
Young women, each corpse marked with a distinctive
tattoo, have been discovered in Richmond,
Virginia. Ronnie Sax, one-time photojournalist, full-
time pornographer, possessed all the right
perversions, and the cops jailed him. Even Willie
thinks he's guilty until he begins getting
threats that his single, pregnant, bar-tending, college-age
daughter, Andi, will be targeted
unless Sax is released. Sax's sister provides an alibi, and he's
freed. Willie's suspicions
turn to an ex-pol he exposed for bedding an underage girl. Now
lobbying to desecrate a slave
burial ground with big box stores, that fellow, Wat Chenault, is
"fronting for a bunch
of bright-eyed hustlers who claim they'll grow the tax base." Owen drops
deft characterizations
page upon page: Willie as "a busybody who loves getting paid to snoop,"
and the
true killer as "something out of the latest chainsaw movie." Clean and clear, not an
extraneous
word or scene, Owen's plot flashes along like a tense edition of Law & Order: SVU.
A
former reporter, Owen enjoys knifing the newspapers business's bean counters, eager to ignore
breaking
news in pursuit of the bottom line. A little black comedy provides the knife twist when
a
former publisher makes the obits after an unfortunate meeting of Segway and city bus. Owen
incorporates
regulars like Willie's mother, the dope-smoking Peggy; Awesome Dude, Peggy's
part-time lodger
and part-time street wanderer; and Sarah, a young female reporter Willie fears
may give
up the news beat to chase a bigger paycheck. Owen has a solid grip on people and
lace and
the social and racial tensions buzzing through a city haunted by history—a perfect
milieu
for nuanced crime capers.
Pulp
Den http://pulplair.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-bottom.html, Night To Dawn Magazine
The
Bottom (Murder Mystery) by Howard Owen Rating 5-Stars
“A Masterful Tale
of Murder and Mystery.”
Richmond, Virginia is going through
some growing pains at the moment, as an ex-senator, now
a building contractor, is trying
to build a business center on the site where slaves were buried
and the black community
is up in arms. Newspaper crime reporter, Willie Mays Black is on their
side, but he and
the ex-senator have a past connection that goes back to when the ex-senator
was caught in
bed with a 14-year-old girl, and Willie helped ruin his political career. The ex-
senator is looking
for reasons to sue the newspaper because of Willie and their stand against
his building
project. But Willie has other problems at the moment. The fourth victim of the
Tweety Bird
killer was just found at the train station, and Willie is working on that case. The
victims
are all young girls, runaways, raped and tortured, then tattooed with the image of
Tweety
Bird on their ankle before they were killed. Willie thinks that maybe the ex-senator is
the
guilty party due to his preference for underage girls. Now, the lawsuit may bring a stop to
his
investigation.
This was another fantastic Willie Black murder mystery in his little community
of Richmond. The
author recently retired after 44 years as a veteran newspaper man, and
knows the inside and
outs of newspaper work The reader is pulled into the story, and the
characters come alive; the
reader may even want to drop by Penny Lane for a couple of beers
and a Camel with Willie,
listening to his tales of growing up on The Hill, while he’s
taking a break from the office. This is a
masterful tale of murder and mystery, and Willie
Black isn’t afraid of stepping on
toes—publishers, police or perps. Highly recommended.
Tom Johnson, Detective Mystery Stories
Woo-hoo!
OREGON
HILL NAMED WINNER OF NORTH AMERICAN HAMMETT PRIZE
The North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers is pleased to announce
that Oregon
Hill, by Howard Owen (Permanent), has been named the winner of the organization's annual HAMMETT PRIZE for a work of
literary excellence in the field of crime writing.
The winning title was chosen by a group of three distinguished outside judges: Rob Dougherty, Manager of the Clinton Book Shop, in New Jersey; Janet Groth, author of The
Receptionist: An Education at The New Yorker;
and Edward D. Miller, professor of Film and Theatre (CUNY),
and author of Tomboys, Pretty Boys, and Outspoken Women: The Media Revolution of 1973. The judges selected
from among five finalists nominated from the hundreds of crime books published in 2012. These five titles were selected by
the organization's nominations committee headed by J. Madison Davis.
Other books nominated for the 2012 HAMMETT PRIZE were Defending
Jacob: A Novel(Delacorte), by William Landay; Truth Like the Sun: A Novel (Knopf), by Jim Lynch; Patient Number 7 (McClelland
& Stewart), by Kurt Palka; and Alif the Unseen (Emblem/Canada; Grove/US), by G. Willow Wilson.
Mr. Owen was awarded a bronze trophy, designed by West
Coast sculptor, Peter Boiger. The award ceremony took place on October 1, in Somerset, New Jersey, during the New Atlantic
Independent Booksellers Association’s (NAIBA) Fall Conference.
Willie Black is back in "The Philadelphia Quarry" a sequel to be released
in 2013
The Philadelphia Quarry |

|
To be published July 2013 |
Black is back. Willie Black was last seen, in Oregon Hill, risking
the final tattered remnants of his checkered career – and his life – to free a man almost everyone else believed
was guilty of one of Richmond’s most heinous murders.
Willie’s
still employed by the city’s daily newspaper, still covering the night police beat with its DDGBs and dirt naps, still
avoiding the hawk that periodically swoops down to pluck away a few more of his colleagues in a business that was foundering
even before the Great Recession. He still drinks too much, smokes too much and disobeys too much. The only thing that keeps
him employed: He’s a damn fine reporter. Even his beleaguered bosses would concede that.
In The Philadelphia Quarry (which will be published in July of 2013), Willie puts himself
on a collision course with a part of Richmond that a boy growing up in Oregon Hill could only experience through illicit midnight
sorties 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 at a stoplight en route to her gym.
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 quash the story, he only becomes more determined to get at the thing
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 where the truth lies, waiting
to pounce.
The New York Times said Willie "speaks the local
language, a crisp and colorful urban idiom we can’t wait to hear again." Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Willie Black
deserves a sequel." Publishers Weekly added, "Readers will hope that Willie will soon return."
By popular demand, Willie’s back, and he’s not backing down.
Here's what the pre-pub reviewers are saying about The Philadelphia Quarry
Kirkus Reviews
Owen’s (Oregon Hill, 2012, etc.) hard-drinking Richmond reporter Willie Black has an inside
track on a blockbuster crime story that’s "red meat for the on-the-airheads."
Richard Slade, a 17-year-old African-American, spent three decades incarcerated for the 1983 rape
of debutante Alicia Parker Simpson, daughter of an old-money Commonwealth Club family. It was a he-said, she-said case relegated
to an incompetent public defender. Slade ended up in prison.
Now
Slade is proven innocent by DNA technology. Free only days, Slade is jailed again, charged with Simpson’s murder. It’s
another quixotic case for Willie Black, the perfect flawed hero, too often with the bottle, too often defying his bosses.
Willie long ago lost a prime beat and was shuffled to night duty,
but when
an innocent guy takes the fall, Willie thinks first
with his wrong-side-of-town, chip-on-the-shoulder mindset. Owen’s secondary characters are superb. Kate, an attorney
and Willie’s ex-wife No. 3, allows Willie to rent her Prestwould condo and keeps him out of court when he picks up a
DUI. She’s also on Slade’s case, seconding spotlight-hound Marcus Green, eager to prove "the racist system
can’t do it."
Willie’s marijuana-loving
mother, Peggy, reappears, as does venerable Clara Westbrook, one of the Richmond elite and now a resident of Prestwould. Peggy
offhandedly reveals that Willie and Slade are distantly related through Willie’s light-skinned African-American father,
and Clara gives him the down low on Alicia’s society-maven sister and schizophrenic brother.
Against a backdrop of advertising-suppressed investigative print journalism, Owen uses race and class,
coupled with a Faulknerian family tragedy, to provide a powerful narrative engine. While the complex noir drama keeps the
pages turning, crime-fiction buffs might identify the actual rapist early in the narrative, but the murderer and motivation
complete the storyline perfectly.
A quick-flowing crime
drama that will have fans eager for Willie Black to right another injustice.
Booklist
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.
Publishers Weekly
Richmond, Va., reporter Willie Black proves himself a dogged, flawed,
and tarnished knight of the Fourth Estate in Owen’s strong sequel to 2012’s
Oregon Hill, a Hammett Prize finalist. Owen
has a knack for creating quirky but credible characters, from homeless “Awesome Dude” to Simpson’s aristocratic older sister, Lewis Witt.
Virginia Living TV Interview
(Howard Owen is the first interview on both the Virginia Living and Germanna Today TV shows.
You may see a short commercial first.)
Germanna Today TV Interview
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Hammett Prize finalist Oregon Hill...
Oregon Hill |

|
Newest Release |
Willie Black has squandered a lot of things
in his life - his liver, his lungs, a couple of former wives and a floundering daughter can all attest to his abuse. He's
lucky to be employed, having managed to drink and smart-talk his way out of a nice, cushy job covering (and partying with)
the politicians down at the capitol.
Now, he's back on the night cops beat, right where he started when
he came to work for the Richmond paper almost 30 years ago. The thing Willie's always had going for him, though, all the way
back to his hardscrabble days as a mixed-race kid on Oregon Hill, where white was the primary color and fighting was everyone's
favorite leisure pastime, was grit. His mother, the drug-addled Peggy, gave him that if nothing else. He never backed down
then, and he shows no signs of changing.
When a co-ed at the local university where Willie's daughter is a perpetual
student is murdered, her headless body found along the South Anna River, the hapless alleged killer is arrested within days.
Everyone but Willie seems to think: Case Closed. But Willie, against
the orders and advice of his bosses at the paper, the police and just about everyone else, doesn't think the case is solved
at all. He embarks on a one-man crusade to do what he's always done: get the story.
On the way, Willie runs afoul of David Junior Shiflett, a nightmare from his youth who's now
a city cop, and awakens another dark force, one everyone thought disappeared a long time ago. And a score born in the parking
lot of an Oregon Hill beer joint 40 years ago will finally be settled.
The truth is out there. Willie Black's going to dig it out or die trying.
Raves for Oregon Hill:
Willie Black
is all business — newspaper business. In OREGON HILL (Permanent Press, $28), Howard Owen’s world-weary
crime reporter covers the night beat for a hard-pressed daily in Richmond, Va. When Willie’s number comes up for downsizing,
he wins a reprieve by chasing the terrific story he’s working on here — about a headless corpse tossed in the
South Anna River. Owen has recruited his sick, sad and creatively crazy characters from a rough neighborhood cut off from
the rest of the city when the expressway was built. If anyone is watching out for the forgotten citizens of Oregon Hill, it’s
Willie, who grew up there and speaks the local language, a crisp and colorful urban idiom we can’t wait to hear again.
-- The New York Times
Owen knows his setting, his dialogue is spot-on and his grasp of the down-and-dirty work of the police
and news reporters lends authenticity to the narrative. This is Southern literature as expected, with a touch of noir, and
with a touch of Dennis LeHane’s Mystic River. Willie Black deserves a sequel. -- Kirkus The deft and surprising plot builds to a satisfying ending. Readers will hope that Willie will soon return in
a sequel. --Publishers Weekly
Owen is a careful, precise writer, creating characters
so real that we have to keep reminding themselves they’re fiction, and stories so haunting that they stay with the reader
long after the books are back on the shelf.--Booklist
Oregon Hill is a wondrous
trip into the world of sarcastic newspaper reporters, bad cops, and murder most foul. Mr. Owen writes in a captivating voice,
his acute observations granting authenticity to the bullet-speed pace of the story. Newspaperman Willie Black is masterfully
created, ink and dark humor coursing through his hardboiled veins. It is hoped that this is the beginning of a series of books
starring Willie and crew. Bring on the sequel!--New York Journal of Books
Reminiscent
of Carl Hiaasen’s Basket Case, Oregon Hill is as smart as it is thrilling, a true literary page-turner.--Small
Press Reviews
Littlejohn |

|
1992 |
Littlejohn McCain, humbled by age and haunted by tragedy, goes out on the
hottest day of his 82nd year to put himself in God’s hands and reflect on a life in which tragedy and redemption lie
hidden beneath an exterior as quiet and humdrum as a Presbyterian hymn. Saddled with a learning disability, scarred
by his role in his brother’s death, deeply affected by the horrors of World War II, Littlejohn tells the reader everything,
including the secret of the beautiful Sara.
“Littlejohn is a beautifully written
novel, and Howard Owen has created a character as fully rounded in his quirks and imperfections, his quiet determination and
bravery, as any in recent fiction.” --Washington Post
“A warm and generous novel, a heartfelt celebration of the human spirit.”
--The New York Times
Rock of Ages |

|
2006 |
Eleven years after her father’s death, Georgia McCain is back in East
Geddie, North Carolina, racked with Baby Boomer guilt and stumbling along between marriages. In this return to the terrain
of the best-selling Littlejohn, Littlejohn McCain’s daughter, here to sell the family farm, tries to come to grips with
the place she couldn’t wait to escape. She’s brought along her drifting son, Justin, and his pregnant girlfriend.
Making her life more interesting will be an overweight psychopath, taboo-flouting lust, a murder mystery and a tall, thin
ghost wandering the perimeter of her once and now-again home.
“Rich
in character and place, this murder mystery is also a haunting odyssey toward redemption and repatriation.” --Publishers Weekly
“This sequel to Littlejohn is beautifully
written and should appeal to readers of Southern fiction and to genre fans who favor character-driven crime stories.”
--Booklist
Fat Lightning |

|
1994 |
Lot Chastain, who has dreams of eating the oily, flammable pine kindling known
as fat lightning, is generally avoided by the people of Monacan. He is, in the local parlance, full of meanness.
But when the image of Jesus appears in the moss-covered boards of his barn, thousands of tourists flock there. Soon, seduced
by a flimflamming female gospel preacher, Lot begins to capitalize on Jesus on the Barn and heads down a dark path that will
cause his smoldering core to burst into flames.
“A wise,
warm, deeply satisfying story that resonates with imagery invoking the spiritual tradition of such Southern writers as Faulkner
and Flannery O’Connor.”--Publishers Weekly
“Owen is a master
storyteller and a writer to be watched.”--Library Journal
The Measured Man |

|
1997 |
Walker Fann is from the right family. He married the right girl. He lives on the
right street on the right side of town. But something’s gone wrong. Maybe he could have gone on forever enjoying
the world that three generations of Fanns had built for him and his progeny. But the voice of Mattie Gray, the shy,
pretty girl who shared his life and then left it, haunts him, pressing to win his soul. When a 13-year-old boy dredges up
a ghost from Walker’s past, he knows he must at last be measured. He will have to decide between the expedient thing
and the right thing.
“A journey of the soul that warms and cheers.” --Kirkus Reviews
"[A] nicely plotted novel inhabited by real people living in a real--and
thus complex--world. Fann's struggle to come to grips with his own limitations is well and plausibly detailed." --The New York Times
Answers to Lucky |

|
1997 |
Tommy Sweatt, a North Carolina trucker driver with a fifth-grade education, has
a teeth-grinding desire to amount to something. In his twin sons, he sees the vehicle for his family’s deliverance,
and he pushes them toward his concept of greatness. When Lucky is crippled by polio in 1954, he becomes a non-person to his
father, who turns all his attention on the unscathed twin, Tom Ed. Forty years later, with Tom Ed running for governor and
Lucky working as his unpaid driver, all that Tommy Sweatt sowed is about to be reaped.
“The spiritual
progeny of Robert Penn Warren’s Willie Stark is alive and charming the pants off everyone in the wonderful new novel
“Answers to Lucky,” a 1990s version of “All the King’s Men.” --GQ
“A completely engaging story about the family ties that bind—tight—and the ego-pricking legacy
of growing up poor.” --Kirkus Reviews
“A quietly powerful narrative, a poignant study of sibling rivalry and family dysfunction.” --Publishers Weekly
Harry and Ruth |

|
2000 |
Ruth Crowder Flood has always told Harry Stein not to torture himself, not to
let his life be ruined by what might have been. But he can’t help it, and neither can she: They both know just
how much can be lost by one bad decision. Now, late in the game, Harry is dying, and he wants to tie up a few loose ends.
As the second defining hurricane of Ruth’s life closes in, the time seems right.
“A winning story of human frailty and renewal.” --The New York
Times
The Rail |

|
2002 |
Before he sabotaged his life, Neil Beauchamp was special, the glorious Virginia
Rail who terrorized American League pitchers. He lived and flourished in the world of privilege, adored and accommodated.
Then, it was gone. The only thing worse than spending your life earthbound, he would learn, is landing hard and knowing you’ll
never fly again. Now, long after the fall and just out of prison, the Rail has a chance at redemption, a chance to,
for once, not fail those who love him.
“The
pace is leisurely, the revelations apt and unexpected, and the coverage of professional baseball rings absolutely true.”
--Publishers Weekly
“With this rich, multi-layered
narrative focusing on a major league baseball star fallen from grace, Owen adds another volume to a remarkable body of work.”
--Richmond Times-Dispatch
Turn Signal |

|
2004 |
No one thought Jack Stone of Speakeasy, Virginia, was the kind of man who would
try to solve his problems with a .38. But here he is, on a train to New York, armed and dangerously determined that
somebody is going to read his damn novel. Jack once had dreams of bigger things, but here he is, a long-distance trucker with
a shaky home life and one last chance to be special. All that New York editor needs is a little persuasion.
“A poison-pen letter to the publishing industry from Owen, whose loser protagonist hits the big time
once he stops playing by the rules.” --Kirkus Reviews
Richmond Noir |

|
2010 |
"Richmond Noir" is a
collection of all-new stories by a variety of accomplished authors. Each story is set in Richmond, Virginia. In Howard
Owen's The Thirteenth Floor, a political reporter reassigned to the night police beat investigates a murder-by-gunshot
in his own apartment building.
About Owen's story, "...a well-done contemporary
fair play whodunit..." -- Publishers Weekly
Howard Owen Biography...
Award-winning writer Howard
Owen was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a journalism
degree and earned a master’s degree in English from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Howard's first novel, "Littlejohn," was
published by The Permanent Press in 1992. Random House bought and reissued it as a Villard hardcover in 1993 and a Vintage
Contemporary paperback in 1994. It was nominated for the Abbey Award (American Booksellers) and Discovery (Barnes & Noble)
award for best new fiction. It has sold, in all, more than 50,000 copies. It has been printed in Japanese, French and Korean;
it has been a Doubleday Book Club selection; audio and large-print editions have been issued, and movie option rights have
been sold.
Other
kudos for Howard Owen and his books:
· Starred reviews from Publishers'
Weekly.
·
Included in "The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide."
· Included
in the LA Times Book Reviews’ "Recommended Titles" for 1997.
· Several of his novels have
been Booksense selections.
·
Owen won the 2002 Theresa Pollak Award for Words.
· His short story, "The Thirteenth Floor," was
included in "Richmond Noir” in 2010.
Howard lives in Richmond,
Virginia, with his wife Karen who is also an award-winning writer and editor.