Writing Noir: Recreating 1970s New York for Frank Leland’s World.

New York, 1977. A city teetering between collapse and reinvention — terrorized by Son of Sam, beset by citywide blackouts, looting and violence. What a perfect place to set a murder mystery.

Why New York. It had to be. I didn’t just research the grit and shadows of Frank Leland’s world. I lived it. Born and raised in NYC – and not the fancy places when I lived on the Upper West Side and later, with more success, the upper East Side.  No, I came out of the tenements of the Bronx, where moms hung clotheslines from one window to another, and where my favorite uncle –a New York City cabbie – died after being hit over the head by the man robbing him. He died on the dance floor at my sister’s wedding.

New York is a city that remembers everything. We remember the .45 caliber killer, the $300 million in damages during the infamous citywide blackout and looting, the high unemployment rate and the citywide financial crisis.

In Working  Stiff, you enter the world of ex-cop Frank Leland when both man and city are somewhat broken… what could be a better place or time to tell his story?  I am drawn to these days because I lived them.  Still, I needed to immerse myself in the crimes, the newspapers and magazines, the clothing and music, the restaurants that are no longer there and those that survive to this day.

 Only someone who is a real New Yorker could write this book. In fact, bet you didn’t know this: One of the most famous tourism campaigns of all time came out of this, our darkest days: I LOVE NEW YORK.  And I do.

I hope you have as much fun reading it as I have had writing it.