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$2.99 Ebook Deal: The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch

The ebook edition of The Devil’s Half Mile by Paddy Hirsch is on sale now for only $2.99! Get your copy today!

About The Devil’s Half Mile:

Seven years after a financial crisis nearly toppled America, traders chafe at government regulations, racial tensions are rising, gangs roam the streets and corrupt financiers make back-door deals with politicians… 1799 was a hell of a year.

Thanks to Alexander Hamilton, America has recovered from the panic on the Devil’s Half Mile (aka Wall Street), but the young country is still finding its way. When young lawyer Justy Flanagan returns to solve his father’s murder, he exposes a massive fraud that has already claimed lives, and one the perpetrators are determined to keep secret at any cost. The body count is rising, and the looming crisis could topple the nation.

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This sale ends 12/18/19.

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Six Mysteries That Kept Us On Our Toes In 2019

Six Mysteries That Kept Us On Our Toes In 2019

By Alison Bunis

How was your 2019? Did you hit your Reading Challenge goal of 25 books by the end of the year? Or however many books you wanted to read? If so, color me impressed! If not, we’ve got a few suggestions here with enough spine-tingling, page-turning mojo to make sure you rip right through them. And since you won’t be able to put these mind-bending mysteries down until you’ve finished them, you’ll definitely be able to pad your end-of-the-year reading numbers.

 

Redemption Point by Candice Fox

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A disgraced former cop and a convicted murderer don’t sound like the P.I. dream-team, but Candice Fox is so good, she not only makes it work—she makes you wonder why you didn’t think of it first. In Redemption Point, the follow-up to Crimson Lake, Ted and Amanda are pulled in separate directions. As Amanda investigates the murders of two young bartenders, Ted desperately tries to prove, once and for all, that he was not the man who brutally abducted Claire Bingley. If Ted can’t prove his innocence, he’ll be the victim of a brutal revenge plot orchestrated by Claire’s devastated father. As Ted and Amanda circle closer to the truth, redemption appears to be on the cards—but it may cost them their lives.

 

Tell Me No Lies by Shelley Noble

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Lady Dunbridge—Phil to her friends—has no intention of sitting around and missing out on all the fun just because she happens to be a widow. She got into some wonderfully scandalous adventures in Ask Me No Questions, and now she’s back with her signature brand of stylish sleuthing in Tell Me No Lies. Murder and scandal abound in Gilded Age Manhattan, after all. This time, a handsome young business tycoon has been murdered. His death could send another financial panic through Wall Street and out into the country beyond. Someone simply must do something. And Lady Dunbridge is happy to oblige.

 

The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

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Rachel North loves her life. Her hard work and dedication in law school have paid off in the form of a top-notch internship with the Boston DA’s office. She’s in a loving, happy marriage, and her handsome, devoted husband just happens to be a successful defense attorney. Rachel knows that it’s her smarts and her determination to do the right thing got her here, and she’s got a clear picture of what the future will bring. 

Problem is, of course, she’s wrong. And in this cat-and-mouse game, the battle for justice is about to become a fight for survival.

 

Hudson’s Kill by Paddy Hirsch

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When Justy Flanagan became a city marshal at the end of The Devil’s Half Mile, he thought he’d seen the worst New York City had to offer. Now, in 1803, the city continues to surprise him with worse depravities than anyone could have imagined. When a young black girl is found stabbed to death in an alleyway, Justy and his old friend Kerry O’Toole, now a schoolteacher, each follow the girl’s murder down separate paths to the same shadowy community on the edge of the growing city. There is a craven political conspiracy in the heart of the city, and it’s tied up with a stunningly depraved criminal enterprise—and Justy and Kerry must fight to save the city, save themselves, and bring the girl’s killer to justice.

 

They All Fall Down by Rachel Howzell Hall

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A group of sinners. An isolated island. A mysterious force picking them off one by one. If it sounds familiar, no, this is not And Then There Were None, although you’d be forgiven for thinking that—Rachel Howzell Hall was inspired by Agatha Christie’s classic when she sat down to write They All Fall Down. In this case, ten sinners become seven, and we’re updated to present day, where Miriam Macy receives a surprise invitation and sails off to a luxurious private island off the coast of Mexico with six other strangers. Surrounded by miles of open water, everyone soon learns that they have been brought to the remote island under false pretenses—and that they all harbor a secret. Danger lurks in the lush forest and the lonely mansion. Sporadic cell-phone coverage and miles of ocean keeps the group trapped. And strange accidents stir suspicions, as one by one . . .they all fall down

 

Heart of Barkness by Spencer Quinn

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No offense to all the human narrators in the crime fiction genre, but Chet the dog might just take the cake as our very favorite crime narrator. He’s a dog who solves crime—along with his P.I. pal Bernie, of course. Chet & Bernie are both music lovers, so when former country superstar Lotty Pilgrim turns up at a local bar, they drive out to catch her act. Bernie’s surprised to see someone who was once so big performing in such a dive, and drops a C-note the Little Detective Agency can’t afford to part with into the tip jar. And then the C-note is stolen right from under their noses—even from under Chet’s, the nose that misses nothing. Soon they’re working the most puzzling case of their career, and Chet & Bernie find themselves sucked into a real-life murder ballad where there’s no one to trust but each other.

 

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On the Road: Tor/Forge Author Events in November

Your favorite Tor/Forge authors are hitting the road in November! See who’s coming to a city near you this month.

Alison Wilgus, Chronin, Volume 2: The Sword in Your Hand

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Thursday, November 7
Kinokinuya Books
New York, NY
6:00 PM

Shannon Price, A Thousand Fires

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Saturday, November 9
Books Inc Campbell
Campbell, CA
4:00 PM

Jenn Lyons, The Name of All Things

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Thursday, November 7
Half Price Books
Dallas, TX
6:00 PM

Friday, November 8
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
7:00 PM

Sunday, November 10
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
4:00 PM

Monday, November 11
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
5:00 PM

Kel Kade, Fate of the Fallen

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Thursday, November 7
Half Price Books
Dallas, TX
6:00 PM

Friday, November 8
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
7:00 PM

Sunday, November 10
Mysterious Galaxy
San Diego, CA
4:00 PM

Monday, November 11
University Bookstore
Seattle, WA
5:00 PM

Hank Phillippi Ryan, The Murder List

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Saturday, November 2
Bouchercon
Dallas, TX
2:30 PM

Saturday, November 16
Holiday Inn, New Orleans Airport
Metairie, LA
8:30 AM

Paddy Hirsch, Hudson’s Kill

Saturday, November 16
Camarillo AAUW Author’s Luncheon
Ventura, CA
10:00 AM

W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog’s Promise

Saturday, November 9
Horizon Books
Traverse City, MI
12:00 PM

Tuesday, November 12
Riverstone Books
Pittsburgh, PA
7:00 PM

Saturday, November 16
Changing Hands
Tempe, AZ
7:00 PM

Sue Burke, Interference

Thursday, November 21
Mages & Quinn
Minneapolis, MN
7:00 PM

Naomi Kritzer, Catfishing on CatNet

Mages & Quinn
Minneapolis, MN
7:00 PM

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Listen to an Audiobook Excerpt of Hudson’s Kill by Paddy Hirsch

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Place holder  of - 73New York in 1803 is rife with tension as the city expands, and whoever knows where the city will build can control it. And violence builds as a mysterious provocateur pits the city’s black and Irish gangs against each other.

When a young black girl is found stabbed to death, both Justy Flanagan, now a City Marshal, and Kerry O’Toole, now a school teacher, decide separately to go after the killer. They each find their way to a shadowy community on the fringes of the growing city, where they uncover a craven political conspiracy bound up with a criminal enterprise that is stunning in its depravity.

Justy and Kerry have to fight to save themselves and the city, and only then can they bring the girl’s killer to justice.

Hudson’s Kill, the thrilling sequel to The Devil’s Half Mile, is now on sale. Please enjoy the following excerpt from the audiobook, narrated by Euan Morton, who currently stars as King George in Hamilton.

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Three Murders That Transformed New York City

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Paddy Hirsch’s upcoming novel, Hudson’s Kill, tells the story of the murder of a young black girl in 1803 New York City. While Hirsch’s book is fictional, he did a lot of research on the real murders that happened in the city at the turn of the 19th century. Below he shares what he learned.


By Paddy Hirsch

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783 and the King’s soldiers departed for England, the King’s laws went with them. Good riddance, most people said. British rule had been oppressive, restrictive and expensive.

But at the turn of the 19th Century, New York was under pressure: every month, thousands of people decanted from transatlantic ships onto the wharves of the East and Hudson River. But there weren’t enough jobs, and many of the newcomers turned to crime: theft, prostitution, protection, arson, counterfeiting and thuggery.

The city’s merchants cried out for some kind of police force to protect their investments and livelihoods, but a majority of the power brokers in New York refused. They remembered how the British kept a standing army within the city’s limits, and used it to keep the people in line. What was the difference between that and a uniformed police? It was an infringement of liberty, they argued.

And then the murders began.

The Murder of Guilelma Sands

It’s unlikely that Gulielma Elmore Sands was the first woman murdered in post-colonial New York, but the killing itself, the discovery of her body and the subsequent trial were all firsts for the city in their own ways.

From the moment Sands’ body was discovered on a cold January morning in 1800, stuffed into a well, strangulation marks around her neck, the case was a media sensation. All of New York’s newspapers – all relatively new at the turn of the century – fought to cover The Manhattan Well Murder in all its lurid detail. Rumors abounded about the character of the woman and the identity of her killer, but a narrative quickly emerged: 21-year-old Sands, a Quaker, lived in a boarding house owned by a cousin on Greenwich Street; she had developed a friendship with a fellow boarder, Levi Weeks; over time the friendship had developed into a secret romance; Sands had become pregnant; they were planning to elope on the evening of December 22, 1799; Sands had left the boarding house, wrapped up against the freezing cold in a shawl, hat and earmuffs; she was never seen alive again.

Weeks was promptly arrested. His trial was set for March 31, 1800. New York’s newspapers – and its populace – were full-throated and almost unanimous in their conviction that Weeks was guilty. Not quite unanimous, because there was a handful of New Yorkers who believed in, and held out for, due process and the presumption of innocence. They included Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, both of who defended Weeks in court in the first American murder trial to be entirely documented by a stenographer.

It later emerged that Burr and Hamilton may have agreed to defend Week’s for rather grubbier reasons than their love for the law. They were both in debt to a man named Ezra Weeks, a powerful and wealthy contractor who also happened to be Levi Week’s brother. Perhaps it was that whiff of cynicism that galvanized the newspapers. Perhaps it was the courtroom trickery practiced by Burr and Hamilton’s partner, a specialist in criminal law named Brockholst Livingston who eventually became a Supreme Court jurist. Whatever the cause, when the jury returned with a verdict of not guilty, and the judge announced an acquittal, the newspapers howled. The people howled louder. Fearing for his life, Levi Weeks had to flee the city.*

The media coverage of the Manhattan Well Murder lent weight to arguments that New York, as it grew, was becoming increasingly lawless. The city was essentially unpoliced, other than by a night watch that kept an eye out for fires, and a small team of marshals and constables, who assisted the courts in rounding up witnesses and carrying out judgments. It wasn’t enough, but there was still considerable resistance to creating a police force. Instead, the Mayor, Edward Livingston, expanded the Marshals service, and in 1802 appointed a High Constable, Jacob Hays.

Hays rotated into and out of the post of High Constable several times until 1810, when he was appointed for a term that ended up lasting 35 years. As the crime rate increased in the early 1800s, Hays was able to apply increasing pressure on the Mayor’s office to expand the constabulary. But in 1836, his efforts were given a particular boost in by something that was by no means exceptional at the time: the murder of a prostitute.

The Murder of Helen Jewett

Prostitution was a common form of employment for women in New York in the early 1800s. It was also very high risk. Prostitutes were more likely to die of disease, alcohol abuse or starvation than murder, but violent death wasn’t uncommon. What made the murder of Helen Jewett so remarkable was the media coverage. And the coverage by one publication in particular.

James Gordon Bennett had founded the New York Herald in 1835, and he was desperate to make his newspaper stand out in a crowded field. When Helen Jewett – born Dorcas Doyen in Augusta Maine – was found murdered in her boudoir, the penny press flocked to tell the story. Instead of covering the story the usual way, giving it shared space with other news of the day, Bennett decided to do something different with the Herald. He put every reporter he had on the story, and blanketed coverage. His people interviewed everyone and anyone with the flimsiest connections to the case; he wrote opinion, published exclusives, indulged in speculation, exaggeration, even fabrication.

The tactic paid off. The Herald became a must-read. And, in a way, the murder itself was less important than what came after. Jewett was a celebrated, high-end prostitute who was killed by a blow to the head. Her alleged assailant, a man named Richard Robinson, was arrested, tried and acquitted on the basis of an alibi. Like Levi Weeks, 35 years before, Robinson fled the city. He died not long after.

But the Herald was not finished with the crime. A year later, Bennett published a front page story using the Jewett murder as a benchmark to measure the rising murder rate in the city. As the article put it: “…the Demon or Fiend of Murder has stalked through the streets of our beautiful city, unchecked, unscathed.” The article detailed recent murders: of “a young German girl, innocent and virtuous”, killed and hurled off the Battery; of “a respectable white man, murdered by four negroes”; of “an industrious stevedore”, murdered and thrown into the river. The story hinted at corruption, of connected offenders protected by people in high office, and warned that if things carried on thus, “the young and “innocent” boys about town will begin to think they can commit murders with impunity.”

Other newspapers piled on, and the pressure on the Mayor’s office became intense. And then, on July 28, 1841, the body of a young woman was found floating in the Hudson river, near Hoboken, and the pot – and the city – boiled over.

The Murder of Mary Rogers 

Mary Rogers was a young Connecticut-born woman who worked in a New York tobacconist. She was a noted beauty, such that the New York Herald published several pieces about her, including a letter from a customer saying he had spent an entire afternoon exchanging teasing glances with her, and a poem written by an admirer extolling the heavenliness of her smile and the starriness of her eyes. In 1838, the New York Sun reported she had gone missing, and left a suicide note. The next day, however, after a spurt of media attention, Rogers reappeared, saying she had merely been visiting a friend. Reports suggested the entire event was a publicity stunt perpetrated by the tobacconist, John Anderson.

Three years later, Rogers was in the headlines again. But this time there was no hoax. “The Beautiful Cigar Girl” was found dead in the water, with bruises around her throat. It wasn’t merely her comeliness that attracted attention: the tobacconist was patronized by several prominent literary figures, including Edgar Allan Poe, as well as large number of New York’s newspapermen. The latter worked themselves into a furious lather, publicizing rumor after rumor as the case dragged on. The killer was one man, Rogers’ fiancé, Daniel Payne; it was several men, members of a New York street gang; it was a spurned customer; an unidentified officer. No story, no matter how unlikely, was left untold, and updates on the murder occupied the front pages of the papers for weeks.

No one was arrested. Then Daniel Payne killed himself. The newspapers published editorials castigating the mayor and the courts for their negligence, which had allowed New York to become a sink of lawlessness, in which a criminal community operated with almost complete freedom, unmolested by a skeleton crew of half-drunk watchmen and poorly-paid constables.

The barbs sunk home.  Within two years, the New York State Government had passed the Municipal Police Act, abolishing the old night watch system and allowing cities to create a police force. A year later, in May 1845, the New York Police Department was born.

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True crime fans can still visit the final resting place of poor Guilelma – maybe. On the frozen morning in January 1800 when her body was found, the well was located in the middle of a damp area of wasteland, known as Lispenard’s Meadow. The meadow was soon to be reclaimed, filled in and developed into what is now called SoHo. For many years, the owners of a restaurant located at 129 Spring Street in Soho claimed that a brick well in the basement of their building was the very same well that Guilelma’s body had been found in. People still trek to the building – now the site of a clothing store called COS – to visit and photograph the well. But experts are skeptical. The structure is too small to be a well, they say – it’s more the size of a cistern. Moreover, wells built in 1799 were generally made of stone, not brick. Still, it’s a great story, and COS has done a great job of maintaining the structure. Basement floor. Beside the sweaters.

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Hank Phillippi Ryan & Paddy Hirsch Sit Down for a Conversation On Journalism & Writing Fiction

Hank Phillippi Ryan & Paddy

Place holder  of - 8Two of our favorite authors at Forge are journalists, and what better way to get the scoop on NPR star Parry Hirsch’s historical financial thriller Hudson’s Kill (now available in paperback) than to ask our TV investigative reporter star Hank Phillippi Ryan (The First to Lie) to interview him! As always, Hank uncovers exactly what readers need to know.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So much of your life has been just-the-facts journalism (and more about that coming up) but when you decided to take on fiction, did you worry that you’d have trouble making stuff up?

PADDY HIRSCH: Not really – I’m Irish after, all! No, but seriously, how does that old saying go … there is nothing new under the sun? Combine that with another old saying, truth is stranger than fiction, and you have all you need to make stuff up: just keep an eye on the news. Journalists are very well placed to write fiction, because part of our job is to read or listen to or watch everything that happens in the news, which means taking a ringside seat to the human circus and observing the entire panoply of crazy human behavior. Some of the stories I’ve come across in 20 years of journalism are far more brutal, hair-raising and bizarre than anything I’ve read in fiction, so all I really need to do to create a good story is mash a few real events together and change a few details. The real challenge is grafting that storyline onto characters, who way too often have their own ideas about what should happen. In short, making it up is not an issue: making it fit is a whole other kettle of fish.

HANK: The thing I love about training in journalism to write fiction is that both are all about story-telling. And no matter if the story is true or imagined, it’s still has the same necessary elements. Have you found that to be true?

PADDY: Absolutely. I work as an editor at NPR, producing a daily show called The Indicator from Planet Money. That means I help reporters shape news stories about business, finance and the economy. And it’s remarkable how the same questions I ask myself about my fiction work come up over and over when I’m editing these news stories about the economy: Where’s the drama? Where’s the tension? What’s the arc of this story? Why should the listener care about this? What’s at stake? And then the mechanics of storytelling: Use active verbs; write short; make every word count; don’t let the story slow down; find good characters and let them speak; don’t use too much exposition at any one time; be creative about helping the listener understand the complicated parts of the narrative. The same things that keep you glued to a news story about a financial fraud or a merger gone bad are the same things that keep you turning the pages of a thriller.

HANK: And you’ve made such a wonderful name for yourself with your Whiteboard videos–cleverly and brilliantly explaining complicated concepts in a relatable and entertaining way. How does complicated-into-entertaining inform your fiction?

PADDY: That’s so kind of you, Hank, thank you! I loved producing those Whiteboard explainers, and in fact my debut novel, The Devil’s Half Mile, actually started out as a non-fiction extension of that work. I’d already written a book called Man versus Markets, explaining how markets work, and wanted to write a follow up about stock exchanges, and how and why the New York Stock Exchange was created. I found the research process fascinating, but I didn’t find it easy writing a compelling narrative. In fact, frankly, what I was writing was deadly dull, and I found myself writing less and less. So, to keep my hand in –  and to spice things up – I decided to write a murder into the story. It was much more fun to write, of course, and it gave me a way to put some color into the otherwise rather colorless topic of financial regulation! This isn’t a new thing, to be sure: fables do exactly the same thing, by using a simple fictional narrative as a vehicle to deliver a moral or practical message. I do the same thing with my explainers, and I’m enjoying doing the same thing in my novel series, each of which has some kind of business shenanigans at its core.

HANK: Your newest book, Hudson’s Kill, is getting rave reviews… Congratulations! You transport the reader to what one reviewer called “the powder keg” of New York in 1803. I always start with one gorgeous core of an idea for my books, do you? What was that core for Hudson’s Kill?

PADDY:  The aim of the series is to have some kind of business or financial wrongdoing at the core of very book. In Hudson’s Kill, it’s the wild speculation that went on when the plans for the development of the island of Manhattan were being drawn up in secret in the early 1800s. While I was researching the effects of that speculation on marginal communities in New York, I stumbled upon a story about what was likely the first Muslim community in America – made up of men and women sold into slavery in West Africa, and sold to plantation owners in the Carolinas. These slaves were particularly valuable to owners in that area because they had a very specific skillset – the ability to farm rice. So valuable to one plantation owner, in fact, that he allowed them to practice their religion  – or at least turned a blind eye to it. This story fascinated me, and became the germ of an idea that became a central part of Hudson’s Kill.

Poster Placeholder of - 23HANK: I started to say: “the research must have been so much fun!” And then I realized… Some people don’t like research. But you do, don’t you?

PADDY: Oh I love it. I get lost in it. I love the big stuff, like who did what, and how, and when, but I’m particularly attracted to the research of what the British historical novels Antonia Hodgson calls “street history”, that is winkling out the details of how people lived at ground level back then: what they wore under their clothes, how much sugar they put in their tea; how often they bathed; what they used to clean their teeth; where they went to the loo when they were caught short in the middle of the day etc etc.  I love those details, and I think they really bring a story alive. I also love researching how people used to speak: argot and slang are fascinating to me, which is why I love Lyndsay Faye’s work so much: her book The Gods of Gotham is in some ways all about language. And again, argot is another way to really transport a reader and add color to a narrative. It does make a glossary vital, however!

HANK: In true Paddy Hirsch style, you include an explainer in Hudson’s Kill, a way to make sure that readers understand the language differences. What was it like to live back then, do you think?

PADDY: I think it must have been incredibly hard to live back then – especially if you were poor, as most people were. The pace of life would have been a lot slower, of course, so that might have been a bit nicer, but staying alive to enjoy that slower pace would have been a challenge. If you didn’t die early from some disease that no-one understood, you still had to navigate a world that was cruel and unstable for those without some kind of financial cushion. There were hardly any rules governing commerce or the workplace; there were no protections for the poor; and the rule of law was capricious and wielded in favour of the rich. One mistake could tip you out of your dwelling and into the street, and if you didn’t have money to buy your way out of a problem, your life would likely become severely truncated.

HANK: In historical fiction, there is always the balance —in that you know what actually happened, and the characters don’t. How does that inform what you write, if it does?

PADDY: I think it depends on the frame you’re writing in. You always know what the timeline of events was, but how your characters react to those events and the way they interact is the most important part of a work of historical fiction, just as it is in any other novel and you have almost completed freedom there. It does mean that you can’t frame your story too tightly, of course. I try to have as accurate a frame as possible, but I keep the boundaries pretty wide and don’t hem in the characters too much. It also helps that there’s not much written about the early 1800s in New York, so I can get away with a lot more!

HANK: How does Hudson’s Kill–the experience of it, the writing of it, the research for it— color how you see financial New York now?

PADDY: I was stunned when I saw the first map for the development of New York, produced by a man named Joseph Mangin in 1801. At that time, New York hadn’t even been but as far as Canal Street. But Mangin envisaged a city that occupied the whole of the island of Manhattan, and apart from the addition of landfill and the city’s parks – including Central Park – his plan looks almost identical to the map of New York today. It’s incredible to me that politicians then had kind of foresight and courage, when it came to making long-term plans. Today politicians can’t think beyond the next election cycle, which precludes that kind of planning on a grand scale. As for financial New York, it showed me that little has changed on Wall Street. The lack of transparency in any business or civic plan inevitably results in speculation, and without any kind of check or balance, speculation can lead to individual ruin and institutional collapse. That’s an argument for simple but firm regulation in financial markets, something that was being wildly debated then, and continues to be debated today.

HANK: We always talk about how a book’s main character must change in a good novel. But how do you want your readers to change?  After they read the book’s final words, close it, and think about it?

PADDY: I’d like my writing to raise questions in people’s minds about the big themes in my books: slavery, immigration, gender equality, religious tension, financial regulation. The tension in these issues is what drives my characters, so I’d love to hear whether they make people see a side to those issues than they might not have considered before.

HANK: Do you remember how you felt about writing fiction before you started, and how you feel now? Are you… Proud of yourself? Surprised? Thrilled?

PADDY: I’m a bit stunned, to be honest. I’ve always loved fiction – everything from spy thrillers to classic murder mysteries – and I’d tried my hand at writing a novel a few times before. Those efforts were….not very good, to be honest. So I convinced myself that I’d never be able to sell anything as a novelist, and I focused on my non-fiction work. But the creative work just kept calling, like an itch I had to scratch, and eventually I quit my job to see if I could complete a manuscript and sell it. I would never have been able to do that without the support of a host of people, in particular my wife, who gave me the space and encouragement I needed, and the occasional spur. Now that my second book is going out, I feel proud and grateful and excited all at the same time. This has opened a door for me that I never thought would open, and that’s an incredible gift. Frankly, I feel more lucky than even an Irishman has any right to be!

HANK: Yes, we’re both lucky to be living the writing—and reading—life! Congratulations, Paddy, on a wonderful novel!


HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN is on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV, winning 36 EMMYs and dozens more journalism honors. Nationally bestselling author of 11 thrillers, Ryan’s also an award-winner in her second profession—with five Agathas, three Anthonys, the Daphne, and the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. Critics call her “a master of suspense.” Her novels are Library Journal’s Best of 2014, 2105, and 2016, and her highly-acclaimed TRUST ME was chosen for numerous prestigious Best of 2018 lists. Hank’s newest book is THE MURDER LIST. The Library Journal starred review says, “Masterly plotted—with a twisted ending—a riveting, character-driven story. A must-read.”

PADDY HIRSCH has worked in public radio at NPR and Marketplace for ten years. He came to journalism after serving for eight years as an officer in the British Royal Marines, and lives in Los Angeles. While The Devil’s Half Mile is his fiction debut, Hirsh has also written Man vs. Markets, a nonfiction book explaining economics.

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The Devil’s Half Mile: Interactive Map

As the release date for Hudson’s Kill by Paddy Hirsch approaches we couldn’t help but reminiscence on the first book in his thrilling series about Justice Flanagan. So travel back in time with us as we revisit The Devil’s Half Mile with this interactive map.


Explore downtown New York in 1799 as seen in Paddy Hirsch’s new historical novel The Devil’s Half Mile with this interactive map, including photos and clips from the audio book.

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Crime and Punishment in 1799

Placeholder of  -96In honor of the upcoming release of Hudson’s Kill, the riveting sequel to The Devil’s Half Mile, we’re revisiting author Paddy Hirsch’s blog post about crime and punishment in 1799.

Hudson’s Kill hits shelves on September 17.


New York in 1799 wasn’t exactly a civilized haven: murder, corruption, gangs, and general chaos were just a part of daily life. The constitution was only twenty years old, and the Bill of Rights, including the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, was only ratified in 1791. So what happened if you got caught committing a crime? Some of that depended on how much money you had, or if you were unlucky enough to end up in Bridewell Prison. Of course, there was always the chance of escape…

Paddy Hirsch provides some information on what life might look like for a criminal at the end of the eighteenth century in New York City.

Written by Paddy Hirsch

  • The city had three prisons. The New Gaol was reserved as a debtors’ prison, and stood just north of the Common, on the south eastern edge of what is now City Hall Park. The Bridewell Prison was located on the north west edge of the same piece of ground, along Broadway. A new State Prison, known as the Newgate, was situated up the Hudson, in Greenwich.
  • The Bridewell Prison was notorious for having no windows. Imprisonment in the Bridewell was considered tantamount to a death sentence, which is why Aaron Burr fled New York after his duel with Alexander Hamilton, fearing he might be incarcerated there.
  • The debtors’ prison was essentially self-governed. The inmates lived in wildly different conditions, depending on how much support they could expect from family and friends. Some lived in the cellars in filth and misery, while others had comfortable rooms on the upper floors, and even servants.
  • On the afternoon Thursday June 13, New York was shaken by reports of a prison break from Newgate. A group of 50 or 60 convicts employed as shoemakers “seized upon their keepers” and made “a most daring attempt” to escape from the state prison. The attempt started well, but “they were soon discovered by the guards and fired upon, wounding several, and the rest gave up.” The would-be escapees were locked up, but three or four days later, seven of them managed to get out “under the cover off the darkness and storm.” The Gazette reported, “They were naked when they left the prison walls behind them.”

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St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland and America

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By Paddy Hirsch

When I was a lad, growing up in the Republic and the North of Ireland during the 80s, St. Patrick’s Day was almost a non-event. It was a saint’s day, which meant you went to church if that was your thing, and if not, you just went about your business as usual. There were no parades, no all-day drinking, no corned beef and cabbage, no wearin’ o’ the green or any of that malarkey.

So you can imagine my surprise when I moved to New York City. I worked in a building on Madison Avenue, in an office that overlooked St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I remember one clear, cold day in March being surprised by the sound of bagpipes. When I peered out of the window at Fifth Avenue, I saw a phalanx of police horses. Back then, mounted cops were firmly associated in my mind with soccer match crowd control, so it wasn’t until I saw a cluster of pompous-looking men in green bowler hats that I realized what day it was.

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An Irish American thriller by Paddy Hirsch

I hurried downstairs with a friend to get a proper look at this curious American ritual, and as we rounded the corner onto 52nd street, I saw two apparently naked men, both painted from head to toe in green body paint, obviously drunk and trading punches on the sidewalk.

“Plastic Oirish,” I told my companion. “Pissed as a pair of Galway priests. They’ll be down on the train from Poughkeepsie or wherever, no doubt, telling everyone how their great grandfathers were off the boat from Kerry.”
We closed in on the pair, who had preserved their modesty with a pair of New York Jets workout towels and some bits of string. They had stopped fighting and were now abusing each other, loudly. They were impossible to comprehend. At first I thought this was because they were so drunk. Then I realized it was because their accents were so thick. Irish accents. North Dublin accents, to be precise. We got talking, and it was with a very red face that I learned that these lads weren’t even immigrants. They were students, come across on a cheap Aer Lingus special to sample the delights of a real St. Patrick’s celebration, the like of which was not available in Ireland at the time. Needless to say I had to cover my embarrassment by taking us all for a pint.

That was then, and this is now, and today there’s no need for Dublin students to fly across the Atlantic for a proper saint’s day session because St. Patrick’s celebrations in Ireland knock those in America into a cocked hat. Chicago has its green river, New York has its huge parade, but in Dublin St. Patrick’s is no longer a day. It’s an entire festival, as many as five days long, with dancing, singing, art displays, hurling contests, rugby matches, road races, food stalls, cooking competitions, live music and literature.

On St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, it can feel as though the entire population of the city is wearing green. The streets of the center of town throng with people clutching pints and clad in risqué and/or ridiculous costumes in various shades of emerald. You’ll probably find entire battalions of young lads covered in green body paint and wearing Jets towels. In 1994, though, you’d have seen nothing of the kind. Back then, the North of Ireland was still in the grip of the Troubles, the Republic was in the doldrums and Dublin wasn’t much of a place to party. Still, a few enterprising city officials who had visited America were glancing over the Atlantic and wondering whether it might be possible to replicate the massive (and massively profitable) New York or Chicago St. Patrick’s Day parades in the saint’s adoptive land (he was born in Scotland).

A campaign began and a festival was born. It was an immediate success, spurred by the end of the Troubles and a growth spurt in the Celtic Tiger economy. Today the Dublin St. Patrick’s Festival attracts more than a million people and has spawned a whole brood of mini-events throughout Ireland, with each individual town offering its own kind of saint’s day craic.

Observing the enthusiasm with which the Irish turn out (and turn up) for their saint’s day today, it’s hard to believe that they didn’t celebrate it much before 1994. The truth is that there have been St. Patrick’s Day parades and such in the past in Ireland, but they started late and were muted by religion, the law and sectarian tensions. The city of Waterford held Ireland’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade in 1903, after the 17th of March was designated a national holiday. Dublin didn’t follow suit until it held its first parade in 1931. And these were generally short, sober affairs. The church preferred people to celebrate their patron saint on their knees at mass, and lawmakers appeared to concur: pubs were closed by law on March 17th until the 1970s, and stores were banned from selling alcohol of any kind on the day between 1927 and 1961.

America is often unfairly thought of as a young country without much history, that borrows its traditions from its forebears. In the case of St. Patrick’s Day, the reverse is true. The first recorded St. Patrick’s Day parade took place not in Ireland but in America, 300 years before the burghers of Waterford got their act together. The year was 1601, and the marchers were Irish members of the Spanish colony in St. Augustine, Florida. The man who organized the celebration and the march was the Irish vicar of the colony. It was the start of a tradition that has lasted more than four centuries: Irish immigrants to America, rallying on their saint’s day as a way to build community.

Unlike in Ireland, these observances have not been spoiled by tension between Catholics and protestants over the years. New York’s first St. Patrick’s Day celebration was held in 1762 in the home of John Marshall, an Irish protestant. The first recorded parade in New York was a British Army affair, held in 1766 by Irish soldiers who would have been both protestant and Catholic. The men and women who came over from Ireland in the mid-to-late 1800s were overwhelmingly Catholic, but they were happy enough to march alongside their protestant countryfolk – in reassuringly large numbers, of course.

St. Patrick’s Day parades started as a way for the Irish-Americans to build community, but they eventually became a way for them to show their political muscle. When the Irish first started coming across the Atlantic after the Revolutionary war, they were vilified and spurned. But demographics worked in their favour, and within a century, the Irish had come to dominate the big industrial cities of Boston, New York and Chicago. The size of the parades in those cities reflected the extent of Irish political and economic power, culminating in the decision in 1961 – unimaginable a century before – to dye the Chicago River emerald green.

Small wonder that these great St. Patrick’s Day parades inspired those Dublin City officials in 1994. All of which goes to say that if you’re an American in Ireland on the day itself, you’re well within your rights to suggest that the fella at the bar there stand you a pint. After all, were it not for you Yanks Ireland wouldn’t have a St. Patrick’s Festival in the first place: it was your lot showed the rest of us the way.

 

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