Coleman, Reed Farrel 1956-

views updated

Coleman, Reed Farrel 1956-

PERSONAL:

Born March 29, 1956, in Brooklyn, NY; married; wife's name Roseanne (an occupational therapist); children: Kaitlin, Dylan. Education: Attended Brooklyn College, State University of New York, Stony Brook, and New School University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Lake Grove, NY. Agent—Wendy Silbert, Harvey Klinger, Inc., 301 W. 53rd St., New York, NY 10019. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Deliveryman for Gold Coast Fuel, Ronkonkoma, NY, 2000—; worked previously as a salesman, air freight manager, car leasing agent, restaurant trainer, cab driver, and truck driver.

WRITINGS:

"DYLAN KLEIN" DETECTIVE SERIES

Life Goes Sleeping, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 1991.

Little Easter, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 1993.

They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 1997.

"MOE PRAGER MYSTERY" SERIES

Walking the Perfect Square, Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 2001.

Redemption Street, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

The James Deans, Plume (New York, NY), 2005.

Soul Patch, Bleak House Books (Madison, WI), 2007.

OTHER

(Editor) Hardboiled Brooklyn, Bleak House Books (Madison, WI), 2006.

Coeditor of Poetry Bone.

SIDELIGHTS:

Reed Farrel Coleman began his writing career with detective novels featuring Dylan Klein. These books—Life Goes Sleeping, Little Easter, and They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee—established Coleman as a noteworthy talent, but he reached a wider audience with his "Moe Prager Mystery" series.

Coleman began writing as a high school student, balancing poetry with football. As an adult, he enrolled in a course on detective fiction where he met his future wife. Publishing poetry and fiction, Coleman devoted himself to writing and acting as a homemaker for his growing family. Eventually he took a job as a fuel oil deliveryman to help supplement the family income. "You'd think that writing and oil delivery would be vastly different, but in certain ways they're very similar," he told Brian Schiavo, a contributor to Suffolk Life. "Writing is a very lonely thing. You do it alone in a room by yourself. And when you're delivering oil you're in a truck, also alone by yourself all day."

Discussing his "Dylan Klein" books, Coleman told Jon Jordan, on the Books 'n' Bytes Web site, that while working on the series, "I was teaching myself to write prose and Dylan allowed me to do it." In Coleman's first book, Life Goes Sleeping, Dylan Klein, an insurance investigator, returns to his childhood home for his mother's funeral. Once there, Klein is hired to track down the man who the client allegedly saved during World War II. In the twisted plot that unfolds, the author "ambitiously attempts to recall pulp fiction of the thirties and forties," stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer, and shows skill by conjuring "the salty, quick-witted dialogue that readers expect from this genre." The reviewer concluded that while flawed, the book is nevertheless "compelling."

The next "Dylan Klein" novel, Little Easter, finds the protagonist tending bar in an establishment owned by his friend Johnny MacClough, a former policeman. When a woman comes into the bar looking for someone named Johnny Blue, they send her away; later, Klein finds her dead in the snow, her mouth stuffed with a bird. Klein struggles with some "literary pretensions," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, but "patient readers are rewarded with a somber and gripping crime story." Klein's third adventure, They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee, finds Klein engaged in a passionate liaison with a young Japanese girl who may or may not be spying on him while he attempts to locate his missing nephew. Rex E. Klett, in Library Journal, praised the book for its "crisp prose" and "entrancing plot."

Coleman introduces a new character in his book Walking the Perfect Square. The protagonist, Moe Prager, is a private investigator who has given up the profession in order to run a wine shop. However, Prager is haunted by a twenty-year-old case involving a vanished college student. When the case came up, Prager had just been pensioned out of the New York Police Department because of an injury. Hired to look for the missing Patrick Maloney, whose father has powerful political connections, Prager is drawn into an intricate plot, and discovers that Patrick was never really meant to be found. "Moe is a fine sleuth. Coleman is an excellent writer," observed a Publishers Weekly writer, who also noted that "the author makes us care about his characters and what happens to them, conveying a real sense of human absurdity and tragedy." Marilyn Stasio, writing for the New York Times Book Review, especially praised Coleman's skill in handling Patrick—a main character who is absent from most of the book. Walking the Perfect Square is, according to Stasio, "a mystery that would get under anyone's skin."

Prager investigates another old case in Redemption Street. In this story, he revisits the horrible episode of a resort fire that killed seventeen people, including his high school crush. This book "will please fans of both hard-boiled and traditional mysteries," advised a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who described the plot as a skillful blend of the "classic whodunit with a gritty, realistic procedural." Redemption Street brings greater depth to Prager's character, who struggles to reconcile his internal conflicts regarding his Jewish background. Prager is, advised the reviewer, "a fascinating creation."

In The James Deans, Moe Prager and his wife attend a society wedding, where the reason for their invitation soon becomes apparent; state senator Steven Brightman is looking for Prager's assistance in solving the disappearance of a young intern that railroaded his career years earlier, in a case similar to the real-life instance of Gary Condit and Chandra Levy. A contributor for Publishers Weekly remarked that "not everyone will go for the heavy-handed humor," but concluded: "All will cheer the likable, virtuous Prager."

Coleman has also served as editor on Hardboiled Brooklyn, a collection of short crime stories set in the New York borough, and featuring characters that vary from children playing back in the days of the Brooklyn Dodgers, to the plight of recent immigrants. Frank Sennett, writing for Booklist, called the anthology "uneven," and felt that "Coleman might have helped his book by salting a few classic tales among the new works." Michele Leber, in a review for Library Journal, remarked that the collection "will be relished by readers with a taste for the dark."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2006, Frank Sennett, review of Hardboiled Brooklyn, p. 33.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2001, review of Walking the Perfect Square, p. 1394.

Library Journal, December, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee, p. 158; February 1, 2004, Rex E. Klett, review of Redemption Street, p. 128; June 1, 2006, Michele Leber, "Mystery Anthologies," review of Hardboiled Brooklyn, p. 96.

New York Times Book Review, December 23, 2001, Marilyn Stasio, review of Walking the Perfect Square, p. 13.

Publishers Weekly, May 24, 1991, review of Life Goes Sleeping, p. 49; January 18, 1993, review of Little Easter, p. 453; October 20, 1997, review of They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee, p. 58; November 26, 2001, review of Walking the Perfect Square, p. 42; February 2, 2004, review of Redemption Street, p. 62; November 15, 2004, review of The James Deans, p. 44.

Suffolk Life, November 7, 2001, Brian Schiavo, "Delivering Oil … and Plot Twists," p. G6.