nonfiction book
A six-year-old Blauner dressed as the Green Hornet. His love of the comic book series marked his first interest in crime fiction.
Blauner with his mother, older brother Steve, and family friends during what he calls “the heyday of the
Blauner’s yearbook page from Collegiate School, the all-boys institution he attended on the Upper West Side of New York City.
Blauner’s first real byline as a reporter for
Blauner’s wedding photo with his wife, Peg Tyre, the
Blauner and Peg (who was pregnant at the time) with George Jordan and Elaine Rivera at the scene of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, about three months after
Seen here in 1992, Blauner holds his first-born son, Mac, then four months old, at the Semana Negra writer’s festival, which was hosted by the International Association of Crime Writers at a seaside amusement park in Gijon, Spain. They are posing in front of a giant replica of Raymond Chandler’s
One of the “mole people” whom Blauner encountered in 1994 while researching a book in the tunnels beneath Riverside Park in Manhattan. He describes the tunnels as “one of the darkest places I’ve ever been, save for the occasional flicker of a lighter going to a crack pipe.” Blauner and a friend were taking pictures when the man in this photo displayed his displeasure by throwing a brick at them, though, Blauner remembers, “he missed, perhaps because of his falling trousers.”
Blauner at a reading at Barnes & Noble in 1996 to support his book
In 1997, Blauner traveled to the West Bank to research a character—a disaffected Palestinian who gets drawn into terrorism—for his book
Blauner’s Red Cross, Department of Probation, and Volunteers of America ID cards. The Red Cross ID was issued to Blauner when he volunteered at Ground Zero in the wake of the September 11th attacks. He wrote of the event indirectly in his book
Blauner’s two sons, Mose and Mac.
Blauner in his house in Brooklyn, where he moved with his family in 2003. Previously, they had lived in an apartment just down the hill that, Blauner recalls, was so narrow visitors said they felt like they were visiting Colonial Williamsburg.
Blauner and Peg in Florida circa 2004.
Blauner and family in Egypt, where for several years the author has been conducting research for a new novel (2008).
Acknowledgments
THIS IS A WORK of fiction about Atlantic City. Though some institutions depicted in the book are real, the characters and events are not.
I would like to thank the following people for their help: Bill Tonelli, Suzan Karpati, Robert Flipping, Lou Toscano, Glenn Lillie, Shannon Bybee and the rest of the staff of the Claridge Casino-Hotel, Mary Jean Arriola, Tim Voigt, Gay Talese, Vin Czyz, Steven Smoger, Larry Holmes, Thomas Hauser, Ferdie Pacheco, Joe Sayegh, Alia Sayegh, Gail Marrandino, Doug LeVien, Iggy Pop, Robert Lacey, Paul Solotaroff, Pat Pileggi, Dave Lewis, Otto Penzler, Kate Stine, Wayne Kral, Michael Siegel, Dominick Anfuso, Carl Sifakis, Roger Gros, Bobby Fox, Chris Smith, Pat Dodd, Bobby Czyz, Steven Griffin, Casandra M. Jones, James B. Harris, Joanne Gruber, Dan Tyre, Gleason’s Gym, Mark Pfeffer, Fran and Barry Weissler, Fran Kessler, and, of course, Peg.
As always, Arthur Pine and Lori Andiman have been in my corner. And I would like to give special thanks to Richard Pine and Clare Alexander, two champs who were willing to go the distance.
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