In just three short years, Jim Fusilli has garnered the kind of praise for which writers wait their entire careers: “ Superior …This courageous and orginal writer works against the grain the grain of expectations, look-ing to make our experience not easy but illuminative and true,” The Boston Globe proclaimed. And Publishers Weekly wrote: “Fusilli's sense of place is stunning: a tangible, poetically evoked Manhattan infuses this complex, haunting story.”

In the latest installment of Fusilli's critically acclaimed series, enigmatic hero and occasional private eye Terry Orr has been asked by his preco-cious daughter, Bella, and her friend Daniel Wu to search for a gifted student who has suddenly dis-appeared. Terry quickly discovers that documents and cash have been stolen from the home of an elderly family friend with whom the boy had been staying. When Terry travels to the adolescent's New Jersey hometown, he meets with unexpected vio-Ience. And when he returns to the city, the trail leads to murder, as his own life hangs in the balance.

But Terry can't say no to this case; something about this damaged boy reminds him of his own dif-ficult youth, as well as his constantly challenging relationship with Bella, who has begun to push her desperate father away.

Filled with brilliantly drawn characters and imbued with Fusilli's vivid evocation of New York , Hard, Hard City is a revelation.

 

Jim Fusilli, a music critic for Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio's All Things Considered, lives in New York . This is his fourth novel.