Abramo, J(oe) L.

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ABRAMO, J(oe) L.

PERSONAL: Born in Brooklyn, NY.

ADDRESSES: Home—Central Vermont. Agent—c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Author, actor, educator, and journalist; theater director, producer, and set designer.

MEMBER: Screen Actors Guild, Private Eye Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: St. Martin's Press/PWA Best Private Eye Debut, 2000, for Catching Water in a Net.

WRITINGS:

Catching Water in a Net, Minotaur Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Clutching at Straws, Minotaur Books (New York, NY), 2003.

A Second Helping of Murder, Poisoned Pen Press (Scottsdale, AZ), 2003.

Counting to Infinity, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: Raised in Brooklyn, J. L. Abramo has worked in stage, film, and television, and his books, which feature private investigator Jake Diamond in stories that abound with the most hallowed of conventions for hard-boiled detective fiction, reflects that background. Yet the setting for Diamond's capers is San Francisco, not New York, and Abramo's tales often involve details that could never have been part of worlds of classic PI novelists such as Dashielle Hammett or Raymond Chandler. For example, a major facet of Catching Water in a Net, Abramo's first Diamond mystery, is a Web site run by bounty-hunting partners.

When Harry Harding, co-owner of ExCon.com, is murdered, his widow, Evelyn, contacts Diamond for help. Harding's partner, Jimmy Pigeon, was once Diamond's mentor as a PI, and Diamond feels compelled to become involved. However, when Pigeon is murdered as well, Diamond himself becomes a suspect. Now Diamond must avail himself of Mob connections to evade capture, shuttling between San Francisco and Los Angeles as he attempts to find the real killer. Winner of the St. Martin's/PWA Best Private Eye Debut prize in 2000, Catching Water in a Net set the tone for Abramo's Diamond stories, whose liberal use of standard devices—for example, the hard-drinking detective with a sultry ex-wife and too many bills to pay—did not escape reviewers' notice.

According to Rex E. Klett in Library Journal, Diamond "easily fits the traditional hard-boiled, whiskey-in-a-drawer, office-on-a-shoestring private eye mold," and a Publishers Weekly critic observed that "a whole lot of retro gumshoe patter brightens up" the book. Gary Niebuhr in Booklist, while indicating that Catching Water in a Net "exhibits every PI cliche in the book," concluded that it is "solidly written, and captures the mood of the genre." David Lazarus in the San Francisco Chronicle called the book "a refreshingly old-school treat," and a commentator in Kirkus Reviews described it as "Fast-paced, convoluted, and comfortably familiar—all of which ought to please pulp diehards and fans who can never get enough roughage."

A murder for which the wrong man has been accused also forms the focal point of Clutching at Straws, only this time Diamond is not the one on the hot seat. Hired by Vie Vigoda to break into a judge's bedroom and steal an envelope, Lefty Wright finds himself in deep trouble when he discovers the judge's dead body lying on the floor. He hires Diamond, who must prove Wright's innocence before the district attorney, Lowell Ryder, manages to make Wright's conviction the jewel in the crown of his campaign for a bigger and better office. Along the way, Diamond pays the bills by investigating the alleged kidnapping of the son of a wealthy finance writer—the appropriately named Jeremy Cash. A former actor, he also returns to acting to get close to Ryder's brother, an actor and former con man with valuable information about Ryder. Along the way, Diamond finds time to read from Alexandre Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo, which storyline mirrors events in his own life.

A critic in Kirkus Reviews called Clutching at Straws "Gabby, with a slew of pulp-derived complications and quirky sidekicks" and recommended the book "for the middlebrow (and lower-brow) crowd who like to flex their retro, macho reflexes." Frank Sennett in Booklist noted an "appealing supporting cast" headed by Diamond's secretary Darlene, and commented that "Diamond is refreshingly direct with his questioning." A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book "A worthy successor to Catching Water in a Net."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2001, Gary Niebuhr, review of Catching Water in a Net, p. 2094; March 15, 2003, Frank Sennett, review of Clutching at Straws, p. 1277.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2001, review of Catching Water in a Net, p. 1067; February 15, 2003, review of Clutching at Straws, p. 270.

Library Journal, September 1, 2001, Rex E. Klett, review of Catching Water in a Net, p. 238.

Publishers Weekly, September 24, 2001, review of Catching Water in a Net, p. 71; March 31, 2003, review of Clutching at Straws, p. 46.

San Francisco Chronicle, November 18, 2001, David Lazarus, review of Catching Water in a Net, p. 5.