Rogue Island

Rogue Island is the 2010 Edgar Award-winning first novel of Bruce DeSilva. You can read a sample chapter at the author's web site. This was a fast, fun, easy read. I enjoyed the writing, which I found reminiscent of some of the older hard-boiled crime fiction I've read, but this had a lighter touch and a great sense of humor without detracting from the crime and corruption.

from the back of the book:

Liam Mulligan is as old school as a newspaper man gets. His beat is Providence, Rhode Island, and he knows every street and alley. He knows the priests and prostitutes, the cops and street thugs. He knows the mobsters and politicians —who are pretty much one and the same.

Times are changing fast. Corruption runs amok, and what a reporter has to do in the name of competition is becoming laughable. But when Mulligan realizes someone is systematically burning down his old neighborhood, he ignores his bosses and his budding relationship to try to figure out the firebug's identity. People he knows and loves are perishing in the flames and the public is on the verge of panic. With the whole city of Providence on his back, Mulligan must weed through a wildly colorful array of characters to find the truth.

favorite quotes:

As my favorite philosopher, Kinky Friedman, once said, "In the sky of every love affair are little tickets to hell, falling like confetti from the stars."

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Preachers say forgiveness is good for the soul. That it does more for the person who forgives than for the one who is forgiven, cleansing the mind of anger and resentment. What a load of crap.

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Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and The Washington Post have positive reviews. NPR has an interview with the author.