Terry Orr

Uncategorized

Created by Jim Fusilli

TERRY ORR is a New York City writer still devastated by the senseless death of his artist wife Marina Fiorentino and their young son, Davy, in Closing Time (2001). It seems some random looney pushed them in front of a subway train.

It was an powerful and impressive debut, a first novel that drew praise from people as varied as the New York Times‘ Marilyn Stasio and P.I.E.S.’ Gary Warren Niebuhr, and marked the debut of a stellar trilogy.

Frustrated, lonely, still mourning, and desperately seeking some sort of closure (or simple vengeance), he becomes a private eye, claiming it’s research for a book. In reality, however, he wants to develop the skills he will need to track down the man who destroyed his family, who so far remains at large. But along the way, Orr discovers he has a knack for the work, and is soon drawn into several other cases.

Meanwhile, he has a twelve-year-old daughter, Gabriella, to raise. Together, father and daughter try to come to terms with the violence that has ripped through their lives, and figure out how to live.

And all this is played out against a balls-to-the-wall love/hate portrayal of New York City reminiscent of Lawrence Block. The hardcover edition, in particular, featuring photos and silhouettes of skyscrapers on the cover and first page of each chapter, bring it all home. All in all, a poignant and often moving debut that bodes well for both author Jim Fusilli, a Wall Street Journal music critic, and his detective.

And in fact, in 2002, Terry returned in two more well-received novels.  A Well-Known Secret (2002), set against the ravaged lower Manhattan backdrop of a post 9/11 New York City (it’s hard to imagine Fusilli shying away from it), and Tribeca Blues (2003), in which Terry, which trying to find a recently departed friend’s widow, unexpectedly runs into the man he suspects is responsible for the death of his wife and son, thus bringing the trilogy to to heart-rending conclusion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Former Rock & Pop Critic for The Wall Street Journal and an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Jim Fusilli is the author of several other crime novels including The Mayor of Polk Street, Narrows Gate, and Hard, Hard City, and tellingly enough, Lawrence Block provided a new foreword for a reprinted edition of Closing Time. Fusilli’s short fiction, meanwhile, has appeared in a variety of magazines  and anthologies. He’s also the author of a couple of non-fiction books about music, including Pet Sounds, about Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’ classic album, and served as the editor of Crime Plus Music: Twenty Stories of Music-Themed Noir (2017). He and his wife, Diane Holuk, a global communications executive, currently reside in Washington, D.C.

UNDER OATH

  • “I would recommend this title to P.I. readers as one of the titles to be short listed for the Shamus for best first of 2001.”
    — Gary Warren Niebuhr (P.I.E.S.) on Closing Time
  • “Fusilli’s second Terry Orr thriller, set two years after his outstanding debut… is even better-the writing more focused, the characters sharper, the plot less diffuse… Fusilli’s sense of place is stunning; a tangible, poetically evoked Manhattan infuses this complex, haunting story.”
    — Publisher’s Weekly on A Well-Known Secret
  • “Jim Fusilli’s fine writing paints a vivid, noir-tinged portrait of New York’s streets and people, and only the most cold-hearted reader could fail to care about Terry, his daughter Bella, and many other vividly drawn, often damaged characters. Fusilli’s sense of place and pacing falter a bit in New Orleans–including a section near the end, which sags noticeably–but most of the story is set in the Big Apple, and is pitch-perfect. This is one of the most powerful, enjoyable crime tales of the season.
    — Nicholas H. Allison on Tribeca Blues (Amazon)

NOVELS

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

Published

Leave a Reply