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The Man Who Never Returned: A Novel Hardcover – August 5, 2010
| Peter Quinn (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
| Price | New from | Used from |
- Print length336 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherThe Overlook Press
- Publication dateAugust 5, 2010
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions6.25 x 1.12 x 9.3 inches
- ISBN-101590203887
- ISBN-13978-1590203880
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
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From Booklist
Review
"Peter Quinn just might make it into the history books himself. He is perfecting, if not actually creating, a genre you could call the history-mystery. The Man Who Never Returned is a dazzling story by a fine writer. Fintan Dunne is a memorably hero who you want to meet again & again.¦ -- James Patterson
"In The Man Who Never Returned, Peter Quinn shapes a tantalizing tale around the enduring mystery of Judge Joseph Force Crater, whose disappearance remains a major mystery. Quinn knows New York and its politics better than anyone. The talk and the story are as sharp and hard-edged as they city they embody. This is noir fiction at its finest." -- William Kennedy
¦The nonstop sizzle of two new historical novels set in Manhattan makes them strong candidates for the beach this summer.¦ -- The New York Times, Round-up of books about New York government
"The Man Who Never Returned is a winner. A masterful and evocative tale, set in a beautifully rendered 1950¦s New York, it combines true crime with vivid imagining. This is that rare book: A first-rate thriller that seamlessly weaves together page-turning narrative with richly detailed characters whose motivations--complex, suspect, hidden-- always ring true." --Thomas Kelly, author of A Testament of Devotion
¦A new take to the old mystery¦ -- New York Post ¦Required Reading¦
Peter Quinn brings wit, panache and a deep knowledge of the Big Apple to his latest Fintan Dunne novel. The Man Who Never Returned is a taut thriller but also a meditation on life in the big city, where a well- connected municipal judge can disappear overnight and leave behind a mystery that transforms lives, confounds investigators, and fortunately for lovers of detective fiction provides Quinn with a fascinating plotline that fully utilizes his skills as a storyteller. -- T.J. English, New York Times best-selling author of Havana Nocturne
¦Peter Quinn writes about the old New York the way that Allen Furst writes about Paris. The Man Who Never Returned is not only a gripping take on one of the city¦s most enduring mysteries, but also a world in and of itself. You may never want to leave.¦ Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row
"Quinn delivers a satisfying solution to the real- life mystery of Joseph Crater, a New York City judge who disappeared in 1930, in this stellar hard-boiled historical novel, a sequel to The Hour of the Cat (2005). In 1955, a New York newspaper magnate offers PI Fintan Dunne carte blanche to investigate the case in the hope that Dunne will provide him with a sensational exclusive. Crater vanished just as an official inquiry into judicial corruption, ordered by then governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was getting underway. Perhaps Crater fled to avoid prosecutionïor someone bumped him off because he knew too much. Restless in retirement, Dunne accepts the offer, despite his skepticism that such a cold trail can be meaningfully pursued. Quinn not only makes the existence of clues at such a late date plausible but also concocts an explanation that¦s both logical and surprising. The depth and complexity of the lead character is a big plus." --Publisher's Weekly
¦I read Peter Quinn's novel The Man Who Never Returned. It is an utterly compelling story with a charismatic flawed protagonist in Finton Dunne. Gripping from the first page to the last, Peter Quinn creates a unique and utterly believable world, part history, part fiction. He is an enviably wonderful writer.¦ -- Gabriel Byrne
¦Freely mixing history, mystery, and novelistic license, Quinn offers a noir-ish tale of Tammany Hall politics, sex, crime, Broadway moguls, and cops, populated by more than a dozen interesting charactersèQuinn¦s rich, insightful, evocative descriptions of New York, both in Crater¦s time and in 1955, will certainly please fans of historical crime novels.¦ -- Booklist
"With echoes of Raymond Chandler and Orson Welles, as well as enough period detail to outfit a vintage shop, this workmanlike effort will appeal to those interested in literary and noirish historical mysteries." --Library Journal
¦A page-turner noir novelèQuinn masterfully crafts a forceful narrative whose revealing ending doesn¦t disappoint.¦ -- Irish America Magazine
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : The Overlook Press; First Edition (August 5, 2010)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 336 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1590203887
- ISBN-13 : 978-1590203880
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Item Weight : 1.18 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1.12 x 9.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,704,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #19,254 in Historical Mystery
- #107,621 in American Literature (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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Peter Quinn joined Time Inc. as the chief speechwriter in 1985 and retired as corporate editorial director for Time Warner at the end of 2007. He received a B.A. from Manhattan College in 1969, an M.A. in history from Fordham University in 1974 and completed all the requirements for a doctorate except the dissertation. He was awarded a Ph.D., honoris causa, by Manhattan College in 2002.
In 1979, Quinn was appointed to the staff of Governor Hugh Carey as chief speechwriter. He continued in that role under Governor Mario Cuomo, helping craft the Governor’s 1984 Democratic Convention speech and his address on religion and politics at Notre Dame University.
His 1994 novel "Banished Children of Eve" (Viking/Penguin) won a 1995 American Book Award. His second novel, "Hour of the Cat" (Overlook), set in Berlin and New York on the eve of WWII, was published in June 2005. "Looking for Jimmy: In Search of Irish America" (Overlook), a collection of non-fiction pieces, was published in February 2007. All three books are in print. His third novel, The Man Who Never Returned," which is based on the still-unsolved 1930 disappearance of NYS Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater, was published in 2010.
Quinn co-wrote the script for the 1987 television documentary “McSorley’s New York,” which was awarded a New York-area Emmy for “Outstanding Historical Programming.” He has participated as a guest commentator in several PBS documentaries, including “The Irish in America;” “New York: A Documentary Film;” “The Life and Times of Stephen Foster,” as well as the Academy Award-nominated film, “The Passion of Sister Rose.” He was an advisor on Martin Scorcese’s film “Gangs of New York.” He helped conceive and script the six-part documentary “The Road to the White House,” which aired on TG4, in Ireland, in 2009.
Along with his book writing, Quinn was the editor of The Recorder: The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society from 1986 to 1993. He has published articles and reviews in The New York Times, Commonweal, America, American Heritage, The Catholic Historical Review, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The L.A. Times, Eiré-Ireland, and in numerous other newspapers and journals.
At present, Quinn is on the advisory boards of the American Irish Historical Society, NYU’s Glucksman Ireland House, the Tenement Museum and the New York City Landmark Conservancy. He is president and co-founder of Irish American Writers & Artists.
Married to Kathleen Burbank Quinn, he and his wife are the parents of Genevieve Barry Quinn and Daniel Ryan Quinn. They reside in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
His website can be found at www.newyorkpaddy.com
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Author Peter Quinn has written a marvelously atmospheric novel about New York City in the 1930's and in the mid 1950's. The disappearance of Joseph Crater is at the center of the novel, but the book is so much more than conjecture about Crater. Starring Irish-American ex-cop and ex-detective, Fintan Dunne, "The Man Who Never Returned", looks at all variety of New Yorkers - cops, journalists, lawyers, crooks, easy-ladies, and politicians - who make the city "tick". Quinn had used Fin Dunne in a previous novel, "Hour of the Cat", which was also a complicated look at pre-WW2 Germany, Britain, and the United States. He has a third novel, "Dry Bones", also starring Fin Dunne.
Fin Dunne is in a restless retirement in Florida in 1955 when he's hired by a newspaper editor in NYC to look - 25 years later - into the disappearance of Judge Joseph Crater. While time takes the toll on witnesses and law enforcement, sometimes "time" also loosens the tongues and the memories of those very people. Dunne does some detailed researching and begins to turn up evidence that may have been squashed at the time. Author Quinn uses some real names in his book and other characters are real but their names have been changed. It's a complicated but eminently readable story line that Quinn has concocted. Are Quinn's conclusions presented in the novel possibly true? I don't know but for an intriguing look at an intriguing crime and set in intriguing times, "The Man Who Never Returned" is a winner.






