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Soft Money
Author: Ken Wishnia
Introduction by Gary Phillips
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-680-3
Published March 2013
Format: Paperback
Size: 8 by 5
Page count: 288 Pages
Subjects: Fiction/Mystery
$15.95
Even the best cops burn out. 23 Shades of Black’s Filomena Buscarsela returns, having traded in her uniform for the trials of single motherhood. Once a cop, always a cop. She may have left the department, but Filomena’s passion for justice burns as hot as ever. And when the owner of her neighborhood bodega is murdered—just another “ethnic” crime that will probably go unsolved and unavenged—Filomena doesn’t need much prodding from the dead man’s grieving sister to step in. Secretly partnered with a rookie cop, she hits the Washington Heights streets to smoke out the trigger-happy punks who ended an innocent life as callously as if they were blowing out a match.
From the labyrinthine subway tunnels of upper Broadway to the upscale enclaves that house the rich and beautiful, from local barrio hangouts to high-priced seats of power, Filomena follows a trail of dirty secrets and dirtier politics, with some unexpected stops in between. In a town big enough to hold every kind of criminal, crackpot, liar, and thief, from ruthless gangsters to corporate executives drunk on greed and power, she tracks a killer through the city’s danger zones.
Praise:
“Great fun…Fil is a hyperbolic character, spewing enough acerbic opinions to fill half a dozen average mysteries. A spirited sequel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Wishnia’s world is like a New York subway train—fast, loud, dirty, and dangerous—but it’s well worth the ride with Filomena Buscarsela in the driver’s seat. A hard-edged story gracefully told.”
—Booklist
“Sharp and sexy... Hilarious and exciting... [Wishnia] has a perfect ear for female urban angst.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Nonstop activity, wry humor, mordant characterizations, and a solid dollop of police procedure make this a hugely appealing follow-up to 23 Shades of Black.”
—Library Journal
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23 Shades of Black
Author: Ken Wishnia
Introduction by: Barbara D’Amato
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-587-5
Published June 2012
Format: Paperback
Size: 8 by 5
Page count: 300 Pages
Subjects: Fiction/Mystery
$17.95
23 Shades of Black is socially conscious crime fiction. It takes place in New York City in the early 1980s, i.e., the Reagan years, and was written partly in response to the reactionary discourse of the time, when the current thirty-year assault on the rights of working people began in earnest, and the divide between rich and poor deepened with the blessing of the political and corporate elites. But it is not a political tract, it’s a kick-ass novel that was nominated for the Edgar and the Anthony Awards, and made Booklist’s Best First Mysteries of the Year.
The heroine, Filomena Buscarsela, is an immigrant who experienced tremendous poverty and injustice in her native Ecuador, and who grew up determined to devote her life to helping others. She tells us that she really should have been a priest, but since that avenue was closed to her, she chose to become a cop instead. The problem is that as one of the first Latinas on the NYPD, she is not just a woman in a man’s world, she is a woman of color in a white man’s world. And it’s hell. Filomena is mistreated and betrayed by her fellow officers, which leads her to pursue a case independently in the hopes of being promoted to detective for the Rape Crisis Unit.
Along the way, she is required to enforce unjust drug laws that she disagrees with, and to betray her own community (which ostracizes her as a result) in an undercover operation to round up illegal immigrants. Several scenes are set in the East Village art and punk rock scene of the time, and the murder case eventually turns into an investigation of corporate environmental crime from a working class perspective that is all-too-rare in the genre.
And yet this thing is damn funny, too.
Praise:
“Packed with enough mayhem and atmosphere for two novels.”
—Booklist
“From page-turning thriller to mystery story to social investigation, 23 Shades of Black works on all levels. It’s clear from the start that Wishnia is charting a unique path in crime fiction. Sign me up for the full ride!”
—Michael Connelly, author of Lost Light
“Wishnia cuts a different path with his stories and novels, choosing subjects, settings, and characters of a sort the reader is unlikely to encounter in the mainstream of mystery and crime fiction. His fine sensibility and skillful prose will appeal to discriminating readers.”
—Janet Hutchings, editor of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine
“With her sharp tongue, quick mind, and stubborn will, Filomena Buscarseal is the ultimate New Yorker: a cop, a woman, an immigrant who has made the city her own.”
—Linda Landrigan, editor of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine
“Ken Wishnia’s Filomena Buscarsela is one hell of a woman fighting the good fight in politicized bad-to-the-bone stories where the point is not merely to interpret the world, but to change it... one goddamn block at a time.”
—Gary Phillips, author of Monkology
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Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail: Stories of Crime, Love and Rebellion
Editors: Gary Phillips and Andrea Gibbons
Publisher: PM Press
ISBN: 978-1-60486-096-2
Published August 2011
Format: Paperback
Size: 8 by 5.5
Page count: 256 Pages
Subjects: Anthology
$19.95
Burn, Baby, Burn.
An incendiary mixture of genres and voices, this collection of short stories compiles a unique set of work that revolves around riots, revolts, and revolution. From the turbulent days of unionism in the streets of New York City during the Great Depression to a group of old women who meet at their local café to plan a radical act that will change the world forever, these original and once out-of-print stories capture the various ways people rise up to challenge the status quo and change up the relationships of power. Ideal for any fan of noir, science fiction, and revolution and mayhem, this collection includes works from Sara Paretsky, Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Cory Doctorow, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Summer Brenner.
Samples from the Table of Contents:
“
I Love Paree” by Cory Doctorow & Michael Skeet: The story of a business consultant living in revolutionary Paris during an anti-corporatist uprising, and what he does after he's conscripted into the Communard Army.
“
One Dark Berkeley Night” by Tim Wohlforth: In a story spanning decades, the ambush shooting of a cop one lonely night in Berkeley in the ‘70s echoes into the present for several people who have a lot to lose should the truth come out.
“
Orange Alert” by Summer Brenner: A disparate group of elderly women get together at their local café, and plan a radical act the world won’t soon forget.
“
Poster Child” by Sara Paretsky: Is a murder mystery where the sides are archly drawn when an anti-abortion activist is beaten to death near a pro choice fundraiser.
“
Two Days in June” by Rick Dakan: A young internet salesman on his rounds in today’s Berlin is drawn into a clouded past via personal and cyber memories when East Berlin wasn’t just a geographic designation.
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Noir Alert: Guess what? Power corrupts: Anthony Mann’s Reign of Terror (1949) On the recommendation of the Czar or Noir, Eddie Muller, I watched Anthony Mann’s Reign of Terror (a.k.a. The Black Book, Eagle-Lion, 1949), with Rober...
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23 Shades of Black: A Review
Thinking about books
By David Marshall
July 1st, 2012
One of the perks of reviewing is I get to read the work of many writers I’ve never heard of. Even at my advanced age, it’s actually fun to add new “persons of interest” to the Ten Most Wanted posters on my walls. So imagine my joy in picking up 23 Shades of Black by Kenneth Wishnia (PM Press, 2012). I read the title verso (doesn’t everyone) and discover this presumptuous author has included the words of the Tenth Psalm “Reprinted by permission of God”. This is auspicious and suggests we share the same world view. The introduction by the redoubtable Barbara D’Amato fills in the gaps in my knowledge (ask me about science fiction, fantasy and horror and I’m reasonably encyclopaedic, but American police procedurals are a relatively new territory for me). It seems our author grew tired of rejections and self-published this book in 1997. It was immediately shortlisted for both the Edgar Allan Poe Award and the Anthony Award. Which just goes to show that, sometimes, authors are an excellent judge of the quality of the work they produce and know more than the agents and publishers. Indeed, within ten pages, I’m hooked and sad that I’ve missed out on the four books in the series that have followed this.
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Back to top 23 Shades of Black: Mystery Preview 2012
By Kristi Chadwick, Director, Emily Williston Memorial Library, Easthampton
Library Journal
April 13, 2012
While events of 30 years ago may not seem particularly “historical,” PM Press cofounder/publisher Ramsey Kannan disagrees. The early 1980s of Reagan’s America, he explains, were “the beginning of the ‘take back what’s ours’ trickle up economic onslaught of the neocons, the Rockefeller Drug Laws, and the assault on the social gains (from trade unions to welfare) ushered in from the New Deal through civil rights.”
The socially conscious press highlights this era with the republication of Kenneth Wishnia’s 1998 Edgar and Anthony Award–nominated debut, 23 Shades of Black (Jun.). Set in 1980s New York City, it introduces Latina police officer Filomena Buscarsela. An immigrant single mother stepping into a white man’s world, Buscarsela must not only deal with betrayal from her fellow cops but also enforce unjust laws relating to drugs and undocumented immigrants in her own community.
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Back to top 23 Shades of Black: A Review
by Bruce De Silva
Bruce De Silva.com
April 4th, 2012
Who wants to read a novel about a Hispanic female police officer who spends half of her time high on drugs and alcohol, the other half fending off fellow cops who want to play grab-ass, and all of it in a left-wing-politics-fueled assault on a conglomerate that is hell-bent on committing environmental and cultural genocide?
Me, that’s who.
For one thing, this guy can write. The prose is as tight as my favorite band, the humor bites like a Great White, and the mood is as angry and bitter as The New Black Panther Party on a bad day.
