What is David Handler reading?

Featured at Writers Read: David Handler, author of The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb.

His entry begins:

The brutally long, cold winter is still hanging on here in Southern New England. The news headlines seem to be getting bleaker and more depressing every day. Me? I’m curled up with my favorite hard-boiled crime novel of all time, Build My Gallows High, by the late, great Geoffrey Homes, which was the pen name of a San Francisco newspaperman named Daniel Mainwaring.

If you don’t know Geoffrey Homes you really should. He was one of the very best hard-boiled crime writers of the 1940s. And if you don’t know Build My Gallows High -- a twisty, wicked tale of a detective who goes searching for a gangster’s treacherous girlfriend only to end up falling for her himself -- well, yes, you do. Or you do if you’re a fan of film noir. When Homes adapted Build My Gallows High as a screenplay for RKO in 1947 the title got changed to...[read on]

About The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb, from the publisher:

The historic New England village of Dorset has actually elected a living, breathing woman as its First Selectman. And now she’s about to undertake the Historic District’s biggest public works project in a generation–the widening and re-grading of Dorset Street. The job has needed doing for ages but the previous First Selectman, Bob Paffin, always opposed it. So did a lot of Dorset’s blue-blooded old guard.

The long put-off dig uncovers a body buried underneath the pavement in front of the Congregational Church. It belongs to Lt. Lance Paffin, Bob Paffin’s older brother, a dashing U.S. Navy flyer who went missing off his sailboat the night of the country club’s spring dance more than forty years ago. Everyone had assumed he just left town. But now it's clear Lance has been under Dorset Street this whole time, and that he was murdered.

Des and Mitch soon discover that there are deep, dark secrets surrounding Dorset's elite, and some very distinguished careers have been built on lies. Coal Black Asphalt Tomb is the tenth in David Handler's original and very funny Berger and Mitry mystery series featuring this engaging biracial couple.

Learn more about the book and author at David Handler's website.

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--Marshal Zeringue