TOWER Born into a rough Brooklyn neighborhood, outsiders in their own families, Nick and Todd forge a lifelong bond that persists in the face of crushing loss, blood, and betrayal. Low-level wiseguys with little ambition and even less of a future, the friends become major players in the potential destruction of an international crime syndicate that stretches from the cargo area at Kennedy Airport to the streets of New York, Belfast, and Boston to the alleyways of Mexican border towns. Their paths are littered with the bodies of undercover cops, snitches, lovers, and stone-cold killers. In the tradition of The Long Goodbye, Mystic River, and The Departed, TOWER is a powerful meditation on friendship, fate, and fatality. A twice-told tale done in the unique format of parallel narratives that intersect at deadly crossroads, Tower is like a beautifully crafted knife to the heart. Imagine a Brooklyn rabbi/poet -- Reed Farrel Coleman -- collaborating with a mad Celt from the West of Ireland -- Ken Bruen -- to produce a novel unlike anything you've ever encountered. A ferocious blast of gut-wrenching passion that blends the fierce granite of Galway and the streetwise rap of Brooklyn. Fasten your seat belts, this is an experience that is as incendiary as it is heart shriven. * Nominated for a Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel * * Nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original * * Nominated for the 2010 Spinetingler Award for Best Novel * * Nominated for a Crimespree Award for Favorite Book of 2009 * * Film rights optioned by Brad Weston (Bad Santa), Gil Adler (Valkyrie) & Shane McCarthy * Rights Information Publisher: Busted Flush Press, Paperback (September 2009) Territory: Rights Available: Translation Reviews: "Brutally poetic... Bruen and Coleman shine... displaying all the literary chops that have made their novels such cult favorites among mystery fans." - Publishers Weekly "one of the finest and most powerful novels of the year...[TOWER is] most highly recommended and should immediately be added to your 'must read' list" - Bookgasm Busted Flush Press has just released its first original novel... billed as a crime tale, and what a tale it is.... Tower is a brutal, and sometimes tender, noir novel that careens through Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston and Philadelphia, leaving you breathless and stunned." - Shelf Awareness "One student compared [Tower] to the collaboration between Jay-Z and Linkin Park on the album Collision Course, so naturally, we had to christen Reed with a new title: “The Jay-Z of Noir.” (Ken is stuck with being Linkin Park, I guess.)...[Another student commented] 'It was like a hybrid of a Guy Ritchie movie like Snatch and Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas.'" - Kenneth Wishnia, Suffolk Community College "a story as old as hard-boiled fiction, but Bruen, the prolific and gifted Irishman, and Coleman, his new partner in crime, have given it new life. Bruen's prose is some of the leanest, meanest writing crime fans will find, and Coleman's more discursive style amplifies and explicates the story, in the same way that John Coltrane's lyrical saxophone built on the clipped trumpet ideas of Miles Davis. The result is more than the sum of its parts, and it brings to mind Dennis Lehane's brilliant Mystic River (2001). Readers who like their streets mean, and their criminals and cops meaner, will love Tower." - Booklist "[TOWER has] sharply etched characters relayed in a prose style that frequently lands a punch to the gut...These two writers have amassed a mantle full of prizes and bevies of fans; much of the fun they must have had playing off each other comes across in this successful collaboration." - Library Journal Blurbs: "Tower goes off like a slo-mo explosion, a raging blast of white-heat light. It's a compelling study of pathologies, and style, and friendship and fate. Fueled by tenderness and murderous hate, it's as tender as it is brutal, tender as a savage wound, ragged and raw. Here be monsters, crippled monsters: Nicky and Todd are the truest angels and demons of our mean streets I've read for some time. Be afraid." - Declan Burke, author of The Big O "Tower is spare, powerful, surprisingly tender. And as seamless a piece of two-author writing as you'll ever find." - S. J. Rozan, Edgar Award-winning author of The Shanghai Moon "This book has everything going for it, and I think it's going to be a big seller. Grab it in September and see if you agree." - Bill Crider, Edgar Award-nominated author of Murder in Four Parts "Taking up the storied themes of crime fiction -- loyalty and betrayal, temptation and treachery -- Tower lifts and elevates them, forging a tale both barbaric and baleful, swaggering and broken-hearted. Brutal, soaring street poetry to take your breath away." - Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Queenpin "[A] small, intimate book with a limited cast and compact, explosive plot—and it is seamless… gritty, with sharply drawn characters and an unstoppable pace." - Linda Brown, The Mystery Bookstore (Los Angeles, CA) "A nasty as hell, ultra-speedy read...Moody, brutal, and full of switchblade sharp prose, this one will reach in and grip your guts. And you know how much you love that. Nab a copy asap." - Tom Piccirilli "Tower is the crime fiction equivalent of Joe Strummer and Lou Reed collaborating on a concept album and going way past the concept. In fact, the story wouldn’t carry the emotional gravity of the two protagonists if only one writer was telling both their stories. It’s difficult to picture any other two craftsmen, besides Bruen and Coleman, doing this and balancing the book’s lyrical mood and crisp pace. I couldn’t wait to get a copy to read. Now that I have read it, I’m even more impatient to get copies to sell to the fans of both authors and to introduce them to a whole new audience." - Scott Montgomery, BookPeople (Austin, TX) Purchase at Amazon.com

TOWER

Born into a rough Brooklyn neighborhood, outsiders in their own families, Nick and Todd forge a lifelong bond that persists in the face of crushing loss, blood, and betrayal. Low-level wiseguys with little ambition and even less of a future, the friends become major players in the potential destruction of an international crime syndicate that stretches from the cargo area at Kennedy Airport to the streets of New York, Belfast, and Boston to the alleyways of Mexican border towns. Their paths are littered with the bodies of undercover cops, snitches, lovers, and stone-cold killers.

In the tradition of The Long Goodbye, Mystic River, and The Departed, TOWER is a powerful meditation on friendship, fate, and fatality. A twice-told tale done in the unique format of parallel narratives that intersect at deadly crossroads, Tower is like a beautifully crafted knife to the heart. Imagine a Brooklyn rabbi/poet -- Reed Farrel Coleman -- collaborating with a mad Celt from the West of Ireland -- Ken Bruen -- to produce a novel unlike anything you've ever encountered. A ferocious blast of gut-wrenching passion that blends the fierce granite of Galway and the streetwise rap of Brooklyn. Fasten your seat belts, this is an experience that is as incendiary as it is heart shriven.

* Nominated for a Macavity Award for Best Mystery Novel *
* Nominated for an Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original *
* Nominated for the 2010 Spinetingler Award for Best Novel *
* Nominated for a Crimespree Award for Favorite Book of 2009 *
* Film rights optioned by Brad Weston (Bad Santa), Gil Adler (Valkyrie) & Shane McCarthy *

Rights Information

Publisher: Busted Flush Press, Paperback (September 2009)

Territory:

Rights Available: Translation

Reviews:
"Brutally poetic... Bruen and Coleman shine... displaying all the literary chops that have made their novels such cult favorites among mystery fans." - Publishers Weekly

"one of the finest and most powerful novels of the year...[TOWER is] most highly recommended and should immediately be added to your 'must read' list" - Bookgasm

Busted Flush Press has just released its first original novel... billed as a crime tale, and what a tale it is.... Tower is a brutal, and sometimes tender, noir novel that careens through Brooklyn, Manhattan, Boston and Philadelphia, leaving you breathless and stunned." - Shelf Awareness

"One student compared [Tower] to the collaboration between Jay-Z and Linkin Park on the album Collision Course, so naturally, we had to christen Reed with a new title: “The Jay-Z of Noir.” (Ken is stuck with being Linkin Park, I guess.)...[Another student commented] 'It was like a hybrid of a Guy Ritchie movie like Snatch and Martin Scorcese’s Goodfellas.'" - Kenneth Wishnia, Suffolk Community College

"a story as old as hard-boiled fiction, but Bruen, the prolific and gifted Irishman, and Coleman, his new partner in crime, have given it new life. Bruen's prose is some of the leanest, meanest writing crime fans will find, and Coleman's more discursive style amplifies and explicates the story, in the same way that John Coltrane's lyrical saxophone built on the clipped trumpet ideas of Miles Davis. The result is more than the sum of its parts, and it brings to mind Dennis Lehane's brilliant Mystic River (2001). Readers who like their streets mean, and their criminals and cops meaner, will love Tower." - Booklist

"[TOWER has] sharply etched characters relayed in a prose style that frequently lands a punch to the gut...These two writers have amassed a mantle full of prizes and bevies of fans; much of the fun they must have had playing off each other comes across in this successful collaboration." - Library Journal

Blurbs:
"Tower goes off like a slo-mo explosion, a raging blast of white-heat light. It's a compelling study of pathologies, and style, and friendship and fate. Fueled by tenderness and murderous hate, it's as tender as it is brutal, tender as a savage wound, ragged and raw. Here be monsters, crippled monsters: Nicky and Todd are the truest angels and demons of our mean streets I've read for some time. Be afraid." - Declan Burke, author of The Big O

"Tower is spare, powerful, surprisingly tender. And as seamless a piece of two-author writing as you'll ever find." - S. J. Rozan, Edgar Award-winning author of The Shanghai Moon

"This book has everything going for it, and I think it's going to be a big seller. Grab it in September and see if you agree." - Bill Crider, Edgar Award-nominated author of Murder in Four Parts

"Taking up the storied themes of crime fiction -- loyalty and betrayal, temptation and treachery -- Tower lifts and elevates them, forging a tale both barbaric and baleful, swaggering and broken-hearted. Brutal, soaring street poetry to take your breath away." - Megan Abbott, Edgar Award-winning author of Queenpin

"[A] small, intimate book with a limited cast and compact, explosive plot—and it is seamless… gritty, with sharply drawn characters and an unstoppable pace." - Linda Brown, The Mystery Bookstore (Los Angeles, CA)

"A nasty as hell, ultra-speedy read...Moody, brutal, and full of switchblade sharp prose, this one will reach in and grip your guts. And you know how much you love that. Nab a copy asap." - Tom Piccirilli

"Tower is the crime fiction equivalent of Joe Strummer and Lou Reed collaborating on a concept album and going way past the concept. In fact, the story wouldn’t carry the emotional gravity of the two protagonists if only one writer was telling both their stories. It’s difficult to picture any other two craftsmen, besides Bruen and Coleman, doing this and balancing the book’s lyrical mood and crisp pace. I couldn’t wait to get a copy to read. Now that I have read it, I’m even more impatient to get copies to sell to the fans of both authors and to introduce them to a whole new audience." - Scott Montgomery, BookPeople (Austin, TX)

Purchase at Amazon.com