Faces of the Gone: A Mystery [Hardcover]

Brad Parks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 8, 2009

Four bodies, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head, stacked like cordwood in a weed-choked vacant lot: That’s the front-page news facing Carter Ross, investigative reporter with the Newark Eagle-Examiner.  Immediately dispatched to the scene, Carter learns that the four victims—an exotic dancer, a drug dealer, a hustler, and a mama’s boy—came from different parts of the city and didn’t seem to know one another.

The police, eager to calm jittery residents, leak a theory that the murders are revenge for a bar stickup, and Carter’s paper, hungry for a scoop, hastily prints it. Carter doesn’t come from the streets, but he understands a thing or two about Newark’s neighborhoods. And he knows there are no quick answers when dealing with a crime like this.

Determined to uncover the true story, he enlists the aide of Tina Thompson, the paper’s smoking-hot city editor, to run interference at the office; Tommy Hernandez, the paper’s gay Cuban intern, to help him with legwork on the streets; and Tynesha Dales, a local stripper, to take him to Newark’s underside. It turns out that the four victims have one connection after all, and this knowledge will put Carter on the path of one very ambitious killer.

Faces of the Gone won the Shamus Award for Best First Novel and the Nero Award for Best American Mystery--it is the first book to receive both awards. The book was named to lists of the year's best mystery debuts by the Chicago Sun-Times and South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Parks's entertaining debut introduces an appealing hero, 31-year-old investigative reporter Carter Ross of the Newark (N.J.) Eagle-Examiner. When the bodies of four men, each with a single bullet wound in the back of the head, turn up in a vacant lot, Ross doesn't buy the police theory that the quadruple homicide was the result of a bar robbery gone bad. Despite his white upper-class background, Ross works the streets well, if not fearlessly, in his search for a link among the victims. Parks ratchets up the tension by occasionally interjecting the viewpoint of the Director, who orchestrated the slayings. Colorful supporting characters plus Ross's grit and determination keep the story moving at a good clip. Parks, a former print journalist himself, knows his way around a newsroom as the laments for the newspaper industry and the digs at TV reporters attest. Readers are likely to figure out the shadowy Director's identity before the intrepid reporter, but this is a quibble. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

The murder of a single drug dealer in Newark, New Jersey, barely registers as news; but four bodies, shot execution style in a weedy Newark vacant lot, even attracts the New York media. Carter Ross, investigative reporter for the Newark Eagle-Examiner, begins to pound the pavement, uncovering information that even the cops haven’t found. Then Carter’s modest bungalow in a Newark suburb is bombed, and Carter himself becomes the primary target of the Director, a megalomaniac drug kingpin. Faces of the Gone is an engaging but uneven debut novel by a former reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger. Parks’ writing is graceful and often gripping, and he creates a handful of vivid characters, both journalists and their sources. His portraits of the city and its drug trade, the newspaper, and Carter’s journalistic techniques all sound knowing, though it’s odd that he chose to invent a new federal agency, the National Drug Bureau. Plotting remains something of a problem; his red herrings, in particular, have passed their sell-by date. Still, this could develop into a solid series. --Thomas Gaughan

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1 edition (December 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312574770
• ISBN-13: 978-0312574772
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Quick Version:

Brad Parks' debut, Faces of the Gone, won the Nero Award for Best American Mystery and the Shamus Award for Best First Mystery. In doing so, Parks became the first author in the combined 60-year history of the Nero and the Shamus to win both awards for the same book. Library Journal called Faces of the Gone "the most hilariously funny and deadly serious mystery debut since Janet Evanovich's One for the Money." Yahoo.com called Brad "the literary love child of (Janet) Evanovich and (Harlan) Coben." Brad's second book featuring investigative reporter Carter Ross, Eyes of the Innocent, releases February 1, 2011. Michael Connelly cheered, "Eyes of the Innocent is the complete package. With wonderful prose, witty observations and a relentless drive, this book held me hostage until the last page." The third and fourth books in the series are also written and awaiting publication. Parks is a Dartmouth College graduate who spent a dozen years as a reporter for The Washington Post and The Newark Star-Ledger and is now a full-time novelist. He lives with his wife and two small children in Virginia.

Much Too Long (And Sometimes Silly) Version:

Much like his fictional hero, Brad Parks is probably the whitest man to venture into the neighborhoods of Newark, New Jersey in at least a half-century. A New Jersey-born, Connecticut-bred WASP, he likes to sing a cappella, wear sweater vests and play tennis. So he doesn't quite blend when he plunges into a Newark housing project. But that was where his job as a news feature writer for The Star-Ledger often took him - and where he found inspiration for the adventures of Carter Ross, the sometimes-dashing investigative reporter.

For Brad, it's a long way from where he began as a writer. His first work was a novella, completed in the second grade and self-published with the help of his mother's stapler. Best categorized as a nature thriller, it was about a bear and his friends - except Brad spelled "bear" with two e's. The adventures of the beer in the woods was well-received within the Parks household, but achieved little outside acclaim.

Brad started writing professionally at 14, when he discovered two important things about his hometown newspaper, The Ridgefield (Conn.) Press: One, it paid freelancers 50 cents a column inch for articles about local high school sports; and, two, it ran most submissions at their original length. For Brad, that meant he could make more money writing than babysitting. For the parents of girls basketball players in Ridgefield, Conn., that meant glowing accounts of their daughters' games that ran on for no less than 40 inches.

After this lucrative start, Brad attended Dartmouth College and began writing for anyone kind enough to give him a byline, sometimes covering the same football game for three publications - all of which, thankfully, had different deadlines. His junior year, he started his own newspaper, a weekly sports publication he produced in his dorm room called, appropriately enough, The Sports Weekly. (Brad thought of the name himself). In addition to being the founder, he was also the editor-in-chief, publisher, assignment editor, layout editor, ad salesman, controller, and distributor. The staff was never larger than about eight, including his then-girlfriend, now-wife Melissa, who was forced to copy edit just before Brad rushed off to the printer at 6 a.m. every Monday. A commercial and editorial success, The Sports Weekly claimed a circulation of 4,000.

During the summer, Brad began working for slightly larger publications, interning at The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa - a distinction that pleased his parents immensely but never served any practical purpose - he was hired The Washington Post in 1996. At the time, he was the youngest staff writer at the paper and received perhaps its lowliest assignment: Covering high school sports out of the Manassas (Va.) Bureau. Still, the people he wrote about kept it entertaining. There was the one-armed coach accused of kicking one of his players, the basketball player who bit one of his competitors on the cheek during a playoff game, the softball player who asked Brad to her senior prom, and so on.

After two-plus years at The Washington Post, he moved to The Star-Ledger in 1998 for the opportunity to cover higher profile sports. For the next six years, his assignments included virtually every major sporting event from the Olympics to the World Series, from the Masters to the NBA Finals, from the Super Bowl to the Buff Bowl (contested at a Tampa-area nudist colony). His work during that time was recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors, the National Headliner Awards, the National Association of Black Journalists, the New Jersey Press Association and others. He also earned many frequent flier miles.

Married in the summer of 2004, Brad happily ended his days as a traveling sportswriter and switched to "real" news. He covered a broad swath of local and national events, everything from small-town pizza wars and schoolyard spats gone awry to Hurricane Katrina. His 40-year retrospective about the Newark riots (www.nj.com/newark1967) won the New Jersey Press Association's top award for enterprise reporting in 2007. He also covered a quadruple homicide in Newark, which provided the real-life launching point for the fictional manuscript now known as "Faces of the Gone."

In 2008, with the newspaper industry crumbling, Brad decided to leave the business and become a full-time author/stay-at-home Dad to his two young children/freelance journalist. His wife found a job in Virginia, they sold their house in New Jersey, and with the moving vans less than two weeks away, Brad got The Call from his agent, Jeanne Forte Dube: She had landed him a two-book deal with St. Martin's Press. Carter Ross and his friends would have their exploits published by the Minotaur imprint at St. Martin's Press, under the auspices of editor Toni Plummer.

Brad now lives in Virginia, where he has completed the third and fourth installments of the Carter Ross series, coming soon to a bookshelf near you.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Voice in one of the Top Mysteries of the Year, December 18, 2009

By 

Lesa Holstine (Glendale, AZ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faces of the Gone: A Mystery (Hardcover)

Harlan Coben is quoted on the front of Faces of the Gone saying, "Terrific Debut." Actually, Brad Parks' debut crime novel is so terrific that it's one of the best mysteries I've read this year. Faces of the Gone introduces a fresh, attractive protagonist, and a fascinating story.

When four bodies are found shot execution style in an empty lot in Newark, New Jersey, it's a little much even for the cynical media. The story attracts attention from all over, but the police quickly connect the murders to a robbery at a local bar. And, the Newark Eagle-Examiner leads with that story. But, something just doesn't feel right to investigative reporter Carter Ross.

Ross admits he's as WASP as it comes, but he's learned to work the streets of Newark. And, his sources indicate that those four dead people, ranging from a dealer to a dancer who was hustling to feed her kids, had one thing in common. And, it wasn't the robbery of a local bar. But, Ross' new headlines put him dead center in a target for the man behind the murders, a man called "The Director." And, once Carter is faced with losing everything, he's determined to find answers.

Carter Ross is a wonderful addition to the ranks of investigative reporters in crime novels. He's a reporter with a heart, one who has learned to "approach people with respect, listen hard, and genuinely try to understand their point of view." As he talks to family members of the dead, he truly begins to see the "Faces of the Gone." But, at the same time he's skilled at his job, he's hopeless in personal relationships. That leads to some of the funniest scenes in the book - his fear of the female city editor, on the prowl for a sperm donor, his relationship with the gay intern, Tommy, his inability to make an intelligent comment when dealing with the executive editor. Ross is a hero, despite himself. And, the world of the Newark Eagle-Examiner is an excellent background for a crime novel, with Ross the perfect amateur sleuth with investigative skills.

Brad Parks was a reporter with The Washington Post and The Star-Ledger. He brings the newsroom to life with humor and love. Some of the enjoyable scenes arise from the rivalry between print and TV media, and the disdain they exhibit for each other.

Faces of the Gone is more than a successful debut. It marks the debut of a new hero, a compassionate investigative reporter in a book marked by humor that doesn't detract from the tragedy of the story. Faces of the Gone, and Brad Parks, are destined for success.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Those who like their stories gritty but cut with humor will cheer this one and clamor for more, December 28, 2009

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faces of the Gone: A Mystery (Hardcover)

Truth be known, my favorite fiction is set in the urban section of mid-sized cities. Wallace Stroby's stories of north and central Jersey and David Levien's novels that take place in Indianapolis are what I reach for more often than not. But now I have just added FACES OF THE GONE, Brad Parks's debut, to that expanding list.

FACES OF THE GONE is set in Newark, New Jersey, one of America's more interesting, if not picturesque, cities. Parks, who describes himself as "an escaped journalist," was a sportswriter and news feature writer for the Newark Star-Ledger, and his "warts-and-all" descriptions of the city are right on the mark, down to the transitions that Newark goes through on its daily journey into night. Indeed, the impetus behind the novel --- a quadruple, execution-style murder in a vacant lot --- is based on a real-world occurrence that Parks himself investigated. And Carter Ross, the investigative reporter who narrates most of the book, may well be Parks's alter ego.

Driven by compassion for the victims, Ross begins a steadfast investigation into the murders of four people who seemingly had nothing in common other than their brutal ending. The police are quick to wrap up the murders as rough justice for a prior robbery of a local tavern, with the murder victims in the role as the unfortunate and unwise robbers. Ross is not so sure. What he finds is that the victims, all from different parts of the city, had been low-level drug dealers or, in the parlance, "hustlers," selling just enough to eke out a primitive lifestyle but little else. Ross goes far on a combination of instinct, an arrogant self-assurance (which is part bluff), and, yes, some actual sincerity that gains him access to parts of the city that a white, buttoned-down male would not otherwise have.

The result is an explosive article in which Ross unwittingly exposes a drug king known as "The Director," whose heroin is legendary for its purity. The murders of the four hustlers were intended as a warning for those in the know on the streets of Newark, but Ross's article now threatens to expose his entire operation. This puts him in mortal danger from which he has almost no hope of escaping, forcing him to rely on the assistance of some unlikely --- and colorful --- allies. The result is a cat-and-mouse pursuit that carries on practically to the conclusion of FACES OF THE GONE, a book that will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end.

Parks is a hoot, combining equal parts humor and action with strong characterization on all levels, particularly with respect to his street-level characters, whose despair and poor choices ring all too true. FACES OF THE GONE is the first of a projected series set in Newark, and those who like their stories gritty but cut with humor will cheer this one and clamor for more.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Thriller -, January 21, 2010

By 

Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" (Phoenix, AZ.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faces of the Gone: A Mystery (Hardcover)

Four bodies, each shot in the back of the head, lie in a Newark vacant lot. The victims came from different parts of the city and are not believed to know each other. Police theorize that the murders are revenge for a bar stickup, but the Newark Eagle-Examiner's investigative reporter Carter Ross doesn't believe it. Enlisting the aid of the paper's city editor for support at the office, he sets off the find the truth. Ross finds that all four were selling an ultra-pure form of heroin, and had been executed for selling a weakened form of 'The Stuff' by 'the Director.' Ross's investigating creates front-page articles and a meeting with a high level law enforcement official. While being pumped for information, Ross realized he was facing 'the Director' and the intended next victim.