J. Kingston Pierce is a longtime journalist in Seattle, Washington, and editor of The Rap Sheet, which has won the Spinetingler Award and been nominated twice for Anthony Awards. In addition, he writes the book-design blog Killer Covers, serves as the senior editor of January Magazine and as a contributing editor to CrimeReads, and is a columnist for Down & Out: The Magazine.At CrimeReads Pierce tagged ten titles highlighting "Seattle’s potential as an ideal milieu for crime fiction," including:
Deadline Man by Jon Talton (2010)Read about the other entries on the list.
Talton spent 37 years on the payrolls of daily newspapers, including The Seattle Times, so it’s no shock that one of his mysteries stars a reporter-detective. Deadline Man is acarefully paced, geopolitical conspiracy novel headlined by “The Columnist,” an otherwise unnamed business writer for the fictional Seattle Free Press. Early on, this journalist is surprised when a local hedge-fund manager he’s interviewing asks, cryptically, what he knows about “eleven-eleven.” Nothing is the answer. But after his source executes a 20-story dive to his death, the reporter begins the “sniff work” necessary to educate himself. He slowly connects puzzle pieces involving a pretty Seattle teen, a shady defense contractor, a private prison complex, a succession of slayings, and…well, let’s just say this is one hell of a complicated, often incredible pursuit of the sort that could land The Columnist in Pulitzer circles, or else a pine box.
--Marshal Zeringue
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