Northtown Eclipse (Raimo Jarvi Investigates, Book 1) by Robert White
Release date: July 12, 2018
Subgenre: Hardboiled, Noir
About Northtown Eclipse:
The brutal summer heat seems to have everyone in Northtown, Ohio on edge.
A high school reunion is the catalyst for long held grudges to bubble up to the surface but quickly becomes a sideshow as private detective Raimo Jarvi is drawn into a murderous rampage that extends far beyond his usual remit of unfaithful wives and petty personal disputes.
Raimo knows his estranged brother Rikki is up to his neck in something big and as the conspiracy starts to unravel it’s clear if he doesn’t move quickly they could both end up dead.
This perfect slice of mid-western noir grippingly captures the long hot summers and simmering resentments of small town America where secrets are buried deep but the past is never quite forgotten.
“Robert White knows the subconscious well and tells an immensely gripping tale on numerous levels!”
“White’s stories are gritty and intense.”
“White writes beautiful, wrenching prose… stark and unsentimental. It’s White at his best.”
"Quick paced and enjoyable..."
Excerpt:
Chapter 1 - Aug. 1
Visitors to Raimo Jarvi’s office on Bridge Street that morning, had
there been any, would have found the temperature uncomfortable. If
yesterday was an indicator, daytime heat would proceed from
pre-dawn warm through stifling to downright oppressive by noon. Heat like this was unusual for Northern Ohio after mid-July. That
typical turn in the morning air as day broke could be felt in the
blood and was expected by early August even if residents ignored
the calendar. Everyone knew summer was ending, fall was on the way, and time to
get the last vacation plans in. Not this year; just an oppressive,
blanketing heat for the past two weeks.
When he bought the two-story building with his trust money, Raimo
renovated the upstairs into living space for himself and sealed off
the downstairs office with a partition. He was a one-man outfit and
he didn’t require more room. Behind his desk the door with the
transom window—strictly for architectural effect circa1909—led to
nothing. A single row of fluorescent lighting down the center still
worked, but the long narrow room contained no furniture except for
an old cherry table covered with nicks where old George O’Mullan
used to wrap the shoes like a butcher; he’d wrap the box with thick
brown paper and tie it off with string unspooled from a cast iron
dispenser. Hundreds of empty shoe boxes occupied the shelves
against the walls.
Raimo had one memory of the shoe salesman from a visit with his
mother before she turned recluse. She brought him to Mr. O’Mullan’s for a new pair of dress shoes
for his fourth-grade class Confirmation; O’Mullan’s bald head shone
from the same overhead lighting, his navy-blue suit and bone-white
shirt were crisply pressed. His voice had an actor’s timbre, not
unpleasant but something lurked in the earnest expression,
something his mother picked up. While George talked to himself
searching among the racks of shoes tiers honeycombed along the
wall, he noticed the piles of empty boxes, some with shoes still
wrapped in their wax paper, dumped in tiny mounds here and there
like some ransacking thief. Without a word to him, his mother
snatched his hand and jerked him from the seat and hauled him out
of there. She never spoke about it later, but he never forgot the
experience. Raimo was free from superstition and didn’t consider it
ominous he had acquired the building once occupied by the mad shoe
salesman.
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Paperback | Fahrenheit Press
About Robert White:
Robert White writes under the name Robb T. White. He was born,
raised, and still lives in Northeastern Ohio. He has published
three novels in the Thomas Haftmann series, 3 collections of short
stories of crime, noir, and horror. Special Collections, a digital
novel, won the New Rivers eBook competition in 2014. Besides Northtown Eclipse, his most recent novel is Perfect Killer (Crowood Press, 2017).
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