Dymaxicon author David Swinson gets a fantastic review of his new crime noir novel, A Detailed Man in the Press-Telegram of Long Beach. A former booker of punk bands in 1980s Los Angeles, as well as the producer of the iconic punk flick Roadside Prophets (starring X's John Doe and Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz), Swinson ditched the scene, and LA, to become a detective in Washington DC. For his third act, he's writing noir. A clip from today's review:
"And there's no reason to think that Swinson won't be as successful as a writer as he's been at everything else. While it's difficult to find a retired cop who hasn't written a book, it's rare to find one as beautifully written as 'A Detailed Man.'
"It doesn't fit cozily into any of the established subgenres of crime writing. It's not a stringing together of bawdy capers, that's for sure. It's as detailed (naturally) as police procedural novels, though without the maddening mystery. It's closer to the newish genre called Nordic crime, which has expanded beyond the geographical realms of Per Wahoo/Maj Sowell, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo and, sigh, Stieg Larsson...
"Swinson writes with the soul of a poet more than a policeman mining memories. His style is fluid and sharp, his protagonist, Detective Ezra Simeon, is, in the Nordic style, complicated, brooding and introspective."
A Detailed Man is available now on Kindle, early next year in paperback. I have a few of the latter for review copies. Let me know if you want one. And congratulations to David.