Do you love a good mystery? If so, the new acclaimed book by local writer Ariel Winter may be just the title you’ve been looking for. Former bookseller Winter’s debut novel, The Twenty-Year Death, was inspired by three of mystery’s literary greats: George Simenon, Raymond Chandler and Jim Thompson. In three parts, he writes the book in each writer’s style.
In the 1931 story, a body found in the gutter in France leads a police inspector to the dead man’s beautiful daughter and her hot tempered American husband. In the 1941 tale, a hardboiled private eye hired to keep a movie studio’s leading lady happy uncovers the truth behind the brutal slaying of a Hollywood starlet. And in the 1951 narrative, a desperate man pursuing his last chance at redemption finds himself with blood on his hands and the police on his trail.
Winter, who worked for years at the Borders Bookstore in Baltimore and at The Corner Bookstore in New York, is the author of the children’s picture book One of a Kind and writes the blog We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie, devoted to the rediscovery of children’s books written by literary icons. In 2008 he won the Free Press “Who Can Save Us Now?” short story contest. He lives in Baltimore.
Meet Winter and learn more about the book at a reading and book signing on Thursday, September 6, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ivy Bookshop, 6080 Falls Road. For more information, see the Ivy Bookshop website.
