“Like the best noir practitioners, Murphy uses the mystery as scaffolding to assemble a world of fallen dreams and doom-bitten characters . . . Murphy’s hard-boiled rendering of the city is nothing short of exquisite . . . For anyone who wants a portrait of this New York, few recent books have conjured it so vividly.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
• A Best Book of the Year from The New Yorker, LitHub, CrimeReads, and more!
A sharp and stylish debut from the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads in which an unwitting private eye gets caught up in a crime of obsession between a reclusive literary superstar and her bookseller husband, paying homage to the noir genre just as smartly as it reinvents it
After leaving behind the comforts and the shackles of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney makes ends meet in mid-2000s Brooklyn by picking up odd jobs from a colorful assortment of clients. When a mysterious woman named Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband Newton, an antiquarian bookseller who she believes has been pilfering rare true crime volumes from her collection, he trusts it will be a quick and easy case. But when the real Anna Reddick—a magnetic but unpredictable literary prodigy—lands on his doorstep with a few bones to pick, he finds himself out of his depth, drawn into a series of deceptions involving Joseph Conrad novels, unscrupulous booksellers, aspiring flâneurs, and seedy real estate developers.
Set against the backdrop of New York at the tail end of the analog era and immersed in the worlds of literature and bookselling, An Honest Living is a gripping story of artistic ambition, obsession, and the small crimes we commit against one another every day.
Genre: Mystery
• A Best Book of the Year from The New Yorker, LitHub, CrimeReads, and more!
A sharp and stylish debut from the editor-in-chief of CrimeReads in which an unwitting private eye gets caught up in a crime of obsession between a reclusive literary superstar and her bookseller husband, paying homage to the noir genre just as smartly as it reinvents it
After leaving behind the comforts and the shackles of a prestigious law firm, a restless attorney makes ends meet in mid-2000s Brooklyn by picking up odd jobs from a colorful assortment of clients. When a mysterious woman named Anna Reddick turns up at his apartment with ten thousand dollars in cash and asks him to track down her missing husband Newton, an antiquarian bookseller who she believes has been pilfering rare true crime volumes from her collection, he trusts it will be a quick and easy case. But when the real Anna Reddick—a magnetic but unpredictable literary prodigy—lands on his doorstep with a few bones to pick, he finds himself out of his depth, drawn into a series of deceptions involving Joseph Conrad novels, unscrupulous booksellers, aspiring flâneurs, and seedy real estate developers.
Set against the backdrop of New York at the tail end of the analog era and immersed in the worlds of literature and bookselling, An Honest Living is a gripping story of artistic ambition, obsession, and the small crimes we commit against one another every day.
Genre: Mystery
Praise for this book
"A witty, observant debut that's as much a love letter to New York as it is a slick noir." - Andrea Bartz
"Dwyer Murphy beautifully intertwines a noir mystery with the lore of New York. A captivating, beguiling novel right up to its shocking conclusion." - Samantha Downing
"An Honest Living is a superb debut novel by a supremely gifted writer. It's as if Roberto Bolano and Lawrence Osborne got together to reimagine Chinatown. I was as gripped by the mystery at the heart of this book as I was by Dwyer Murphy's perfect prose." - Jonathan Lee
"Dwyer Murphy's An Honest Living is a deliciously smart PI novel set in New York's antiquarian book world that channels Chandler and Chinatown to take us into a recent past that already feels like a bygone era. A brisk, funny, and fabulous debut." - Adrian McKinty
"Dwyer Murphy's debut novel, An Honest Living, is a noir love letter to New York City. It is a sublime trip through a city teeming with professional idlers, hustlers, poets, politicians, insurance scammers, and real estate developers, all vying for their share of New York's divinity." - Walter Mosley
"An Honest Living is an electrically good time meted out in fine, sharp, crackling prose that somehow manages to be an homage, a send-up, and a reinvention all at once." - Téa Obreht
"A terrific book." - Don Winslow
"Dwyer Murphy beautifully intertwines a noir mystery with the lore of New York. A captivating, beguiling novel right up to its shocking conclusion." - Samantha Downing
"An Honest Living is a superb debut novel by a supremely gifted writer. It's as if Roberto Bolano and Lawrence Osborne got together to reimagine Chinatown. I was as gripped by the mystery at the heart of this book as I was by Dwyer Murphy's perfect prose." - Jonathan Lee
"Dwyer Murphy's An Honest Living is a deliciously smart PI novel set in New York's antiquarian book world that channels Chandler and Chinatown to take us into a recent past that already feels like a bygone era. A brisk, funny, and fabulous debut." - Adrian McKinty
"Dwyer Murphy's debut novel, An Honest Living, is a noir love letter to New York City. It is a sublime trip through a city teeming with professional idlers, hustlers, poets, politicians, insurance scammers, and real estate developers, all vying for their share of New York's divinity." - Walter Mosley
"An Honest Living is an electrically good time meted out in fine, sharp, crackling prose that somehow manages to be an homage, a send-up, and a reinvention all at once." - Téa Obreht
"A terrific book." - Don Winslow
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