Wireless [Hardcover]

Jack O'Connell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1993

When an activist priest meets a grisly death inside his own cathedral, Detective Hannah Shaw investigates and encounters Speer, a psychotic ex-FBI agent in search of the O'Zebedee Brothers. 35,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As in his masterful and hallucinatory debut, Box Nine , O'Connell again conjures up the decaying postindustrial New England city of Quinsigamond, peopling its neon-spattered darkness with the weirdest collection of dysfunctional oddballs this side of TV's Twin Peaks. Police Detective Hannah Shaw must infiltrate the world of illegal radio "jammers" to find a killer whose first victim was a liberal parish priest with a popular radio show. The perp is a deranged former FBI agent waging war on "anarchist scumbags," targeting in particular the jammers, who gather in a club named Wireless. Notable among these is G. T. Flynn, a silver-tongued life insurance salesman; Wallace Browning, a dwarf accountant/dancer and his wife Olga; Hazel, a punkette who sells herself to an Asian ganglord; and Ronnie, a female deejay whose late night show, Libido Liveline , runs on a station whose transmission is often disrupted. Operating offstage are the O'Zebedee brothers, whose outlaw broadcasts take up purloined airtime, and Det. Shaw's missing mentor, speed freak/cop Lenore Thomas. O'Connell creates a wildly colored narrative collage without losing grip of his story line in which factionalized jammers are seen as a kind of conflict-ridden family. His prose, without surface flash or affectation, showcases his characters, giving them an unexpected warmth and credibility, and lending their quirky insubstantial radio world a kind of meta-reality. Author tour.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Like many of the old factory towns in New England, Quinsigamond has seen better days. Racial tensions, poverty, and crime are the day-to-day realities. Into this maelstrom of late 20th-century angst appear the "jammers"--radio pirates whose irreverent subculture mocks the crumbling of the American dream. This subterranean community is populated by citizens like the midget ballroom dance champs, a stuttering 15-year-old who dreams of conquering the world via the power of his speech, and the mysterious Ronnie, whose Libido Liveline call-in show makes her the object of jammer lust. A series of violent incidents by a deranged ex-FBI agent bent on righting this aberrant society brings battle-hardened Detective Hannah Shaw on the scene to restore order. O'Connell ( Box Nine , Mysterious Pr., 1992) mixes colorful characters, a quirky plot, and plenty of action in this refreshing tale that will please the jaded reader.
- Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 402 pages
• Publisher: Mysterious Pr; 1St Edition edition (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0892965460
• ISBN-13: 978-0892965465
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,806,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jack O'Connell's first novel, Box Nine, won the Mysterious Press Discovery Award. His second novel, Wireless, was chosen by the Los Angeles Times as one of the top ten crime novels of 1993. O'Connell is also the author of The Skin Palace and Word Made Flesh. His latest novel, The Resurrectionist, was chosen by Amazon.com as one of the top-10 SF novels of 2008. The winner of Le prix Mystère de la critique and Le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire in France, the novel was also nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. O'Connell lives in Worcester, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read book!, April 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Wireless (Paperback)

Borderline urban realism gets a wake-up call from Hades; this is top drawer suspense writing. Take a dash of Elmore Leonard, a healthy sprinkling of James Crumley, season well with the sensibilities of James Lee Burke, and shake well with sheer originality and true talent and you get Jack O'Connell. It really doesn't get any better than this.