What Smiled at Him is a mystery in which two childhood friends find every clue they need to solve a grisly double murder, but, for their own reasons, choose not to. "The novel has an angry edge to it, recalling the spirit of the Beats. Many of the peripheral characters speak like prophets… Marv and Lynn are just as self-aware as their supporting cast, and their abundance of wisdom sometimes stretches believability; it’s tempered, however, by the flaw of their continually self-destructive behavior. Watching them ignore their better instincts… makes the characters more endearing." -Kirkus Reviews Lynn and Marv, now in their late twenties, are beginning to question the choices they’ve made. One is a struggling musician, the other a salesman. One night, far from home, alcohol, irresponsibility and coincidence reunite them with Caroline, the longtime object of their desires. Married into a wealthy Chicago family and unhappy, she begins an affair with Marv. A few weeks later, she’s arrested and charged with murdering her husband and infant son. As her trial nears, the unwelcome mystery pursues the friends through their searches for love, stabs at success, self-destructive lapses and leads one of them to his death. Praise for Colin Dodds’ Another Broken Wizard “Dodds gets Worcester and shows it in all of its glories and cracks…He runs through the streets of the city and nearby towns and takes the reader with him…Dodds is a master of writing the town life and capturing all of the said and unsaid. His characters are so full of waiting, of pain, and of hope that never reaches past the next day.” -Worcester Pulse Magazine “Masterfully written with all the grit and grisly humor of returning to one’s dingy blue collar hometown, Another Broken Wizard is the compelling, tightly-woven story of a couple of 30-year old boyhood chums who don't grow up until it's too late.” -Boston Literary Magazine “It kept me nostalgic for something that isn't my story, isn't my town, and I got really emotionally involved. I may have shed a tear at the beautifully foreshadowed climax, and I do not cry easily! Seriously. Give it a read.” - Illiterarty.com “Another Broken Wizard is a terrific coming-of-age tale that rings utterly true. Dodds has a gift for conveying the sounds of his people and their world. He can make highway hypnosis as fascinating as a gang brawl. And he has a natural radar for locating the perfect detail to evoke the sense of what it feels like to be caught between the past and the future, between loyalty and logic, and between the security of the known and the impulse to evolve. Though I came of age in the primordial mists, it somehow felt like he was giving me a tour of my own past. Another Broken Wizard is compulsively readable. I’ll be giving this book to some of my friends.” - Jack O’Connell, author of The Resurrectionist, and Box Nine “Dodds has written a fine novel. He has a voice wholly his own, and he captures the elemental good and bad in the American male. Joe’s recklessness and gang feud creates a looming peril that keeps the reader on edge.” -Kevin Kosar, author of Whiskey: A Global History
Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. He's the author of several novels, including Another Broken Wizard, The Last Bad Job and What Smiled at Him. Dodds' screenplay, Refreshment - A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. His poetry has appeared in scores of publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.
THE LAST BAD JOB
Available for the first time from the author of the widely acclaimed novels Another Broken Wizard and What Smiled at Him comes The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing "something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people."
It's a hell of an assignment: Five months on a New Mexico desert compound to cover the next Jonestown. For one reporter, it could be a career-maker. But when a cult member close to him kills herself, he decides to run for it, and begins a dark and comic journey through sex, drugs, cults, suicide, the end of the world, and what comes after it.
Praise for The Last Bad Job
"No one has done the Apocalypse better! From the opening scene to the final shocking line, this book is full of gruesome twists, profound insights, and absolutely brilliant writing. Definitely one of the best books I've read in the past ten years."
-Boston Literary Magazine
"Dodds takes us on one hell of an adventure... The main character is totally unsympathetic and you know it's not going to end well, yet as a reader you stick with him, screaming the whole way down. The writing is masterful..."
-Mary C. Moore, author Angelus, Daemonis, and Sapiens
WHAT SMILED AT HIM
What Smiled at Him is a contemporary mystery in which two childhood friends find every clue they need to solve a grisly double murder. But for their own reasons, they choose not to.
Lynn and Marv, are in their late twenties, one a struggling musician, the other a salesman and both have begun to question the choices they've made. One night, far from home, alcohol, irresponsibility and coincidence reunite them with Caroline, the longtime object of their desires. Married into a wealthy Chicago family and unhappy, she begins an affair with Marv. A few weeks later, she's arrested and charged with murdering her husband and infant son.
As her trial nears, the unwelcome mystery pursues the friends through their searches for love, stabs at success, self-destructive lapses and leads one of them to his death.
Praise for What Smiled at Him
"The novel has an angry edge to it, recalling the spirit of the Beats. Many of the peripheral characters speak like prophets... Marv and Lynn are just as self-aware as their supporting cast, and their abundance of wisdom sometimes stretches believability; it's tempered, however, by the flaw of their continually self-destructive behavior. Watching them ignore their better instincts... makes the characters more endearing."
-Kirkus Reviews
"'What Smiled at Him' manages to be somber, colorful, and often guffaw-out-loud funny. It reads fast but is loaded with trenchant observations on modern relationships, growing up, and happiness that will give the reader pause."
-Kevin Kosar, author of Whiskey: A Global History
ANOTHER BROKEN WIZARD
Another Broken Wizard is the story of Jim Monaghan, who didn't want to go back to Worcester. But unemployment and his father's open-heart surgery forced his hand. Tending to his father and embarking on an ICU romance in the day, Jim seeks out his childhood best friend, Joe Rousseau. But Joe has problems with a local gang, and his plan to resolve the matter only makes things worse. Jim follows his friend into Worcester nights defined by drugs, guns and fistfights. And as the danger escalates, he makes a painful choice to try to save Joe. And then he has to live with the consequences.
A book about straddling childhood and adulthood, straddling a fading industrial home town and the information-economy world of our attenuated aspirations, straddling the love for a friend and the urge toward self preservation, Another Broken Wizard is a portrait of Worcester, Massachusetts--its place in the 21st century and its past.
"Dodds gets Worcester and shows it in all of its glories and cracks...He runs through the streets of the city and nearby towns and takes the reader with him...Dodds is a master of writing the town life and capturing all of the said and unsaid. His characters are so full of waiting, of pain, and of hope that never reaches past the next day."
-Worcester Pulse Magazine
"Masterfully written with all the grit and grisly humor of returning to one's dingy blue collar hometown, Another Broken Wizard is the compelling, tightly-woven story of a couple of 30-year old boyhood chums who don't grow up until it's too late."
-Boston Literary Magazine
"It kept me nostalgic for something that isn't my story, isn't my town, and I got really emotionally involved. I may have shed a tear at the beautifully foreshadowed climax, and I do not cry easily! Seriously. Give it a read."
- Illiterarty.com
"Another Broken Wizard is a terrific coming-of-age tale that rings utterly true. Dodds has a gift for conveying the sounds of his people and their world. He can make highway hypnosis as fascinating as a gang brawl. And he has a natural radar for locating the perfect detail to evoke the sense of what it feels like to be caught between the past and the future, between loyalty and logic, and between the security of the known and the impulse to evolve. Though I came of age in the primordial mists, it somehow felt like he was giving me a tour of my own past. Another Broken Wizard is compulsively readable. I'll be giving this book to some of my friends."
- Jack O'Connell, author of The Resurrectionist, and Box Nine
