Sam Reaves

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Sam Reaves

Goodreads Author


Born
in The United States
Website

Genre

Member Since
April 2012


Aka Dominic Martell.

Sam Reaves has written ten novels, most set in Chicago, and co-authored the true crime memoir Mob Cop. Under the name Dominic Martell he writes a European-based suspense series featuring Pascual Rose, and ex-terrorist trying to go straight. Reaves has traveled widely in Europe and the Middle East but has lived in the Chicago area most of his life. He has worked as a teacher and a translator.
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Sam Reaves Yup. You got it. "Warrensburg" is a fictionalized Galesburg. I didn't want to use real names because I didn't want people trying to guess who the char…moreYup. You got it. "Warrensburg" is a fictionalized Galesburg. I didn't want to use real names because I didn't want people trying to guess who the characters might be based on. All the characters and story elements are completely made up. But I tried to give an authentic impression of life in the area.(less)
Sam Reaves The question is interesting. I have to say that I've been fortunate in not having a lot of serious personal drama in my life that might provide materi…moreThe question is interesting. I have to say that I've been fortunate in not having a lot of serious personal drama in my life that might provide material for a crime novel. The closest I've come to using an incident from my own life was when I heard of the suicide of a high school classmate and subsequently heard that there were suspicions that it might actually have been a murder, with the suicide staged. I never heard any details, but the idea alone sparked the plot of my first novel, A Long Cold Fall.(less)
Average rating: 3.71 · 5,003 ratings · 462 reviews · 24 distinct worksSimilar authors
Cold Black Earth

3.69 avg rating — 4,069 ratings — published 2015 — 8 editions
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Running in the Dark

3.77 avg rating — 413 ratings — published 2018 — 5 editions
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Homicide 69

4.31 avg rating — 70 ratings — published 2006 — 10 editions
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A Long Cold Fall (Cooper Ma...

by
3.87 avg rating — 45 ratings — published 1994 — 12 editions
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Mean Town Blues: A Novel of...

3.61 avg rating — 33 ratings — published 1991 — 9 editions
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Fear Will Do It

3.68 avg rating — 28 ratings8 editions
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Bury it Deep

3.84 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1993 — 12 editions
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Dooley's Back: A Novel of C...

4.24 avg rating — 17 ratings5 editions
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Get What's Coming

3.64 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1995 — 5 editions
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Stalking Horse (Cooper MacL...

it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating
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More books by Sam Reaves…

Stalking Horse

Sometimes it takes a while…
Thirty years ago I was a young writer just trying to learn the business. (Now, of course, I’m an old writer still trying to learn the business.) In 1994 Putnam had published my first four novels, a crime series featuring a Chicago taxi driver named Cooper MacLeish. The first book, A Long Cold Fall, was never intended to be a series; I thought I was writing a stand-alone. Read more of this blog post »
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Published on November 03, 2024 08:55
A Long Cold Fall Fear Will Do It Bury it Deep Get What's Coming
(4 books)
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3.79 avg rating — 103 ratings

Sam’s Recent Updates

Sam Reaves rated a book it was amazing
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper
Everybody Knows
by Jordan Harper (Goodreads Author)
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Los Angeles in all its anarchic, extravagant, seamy glory is a Petri dish for crime stories, and writers such as Robert Ferrigno and Joe Ide have long skimmed the exotic culture to craft a sub-genre you might call LA Crazy. Now here comes Jordan Harp ...more
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Spies of the Balkans by Alan Furst
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Alan Furst has mined a deep vein of dramatic twentieth-century history in this series, which focuses on the period leading up to World War Two. The stories are set in France and points east and involve the competing armies of spies, zealots and haple ...more
How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
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How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
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This is big-picture history from an Oxford don (as of this year shifted to Cambridge according to her jacket-flap bio), but written in an engaging, informal style aimed at the non-academic reader. The general thesis is that the concept of Western Civ ...more
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How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn
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This is big-picture history from an Oxford don (as of this year shifted to Cambridge according to her jacket-flap bio), but written in an engaging, informal style aimed at the non-academic reader. The general thesis is that the concept of Western Civ ...more
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Freaky Deaky by Elmore Leonard
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Elmore Leonard was at the top of his game in this one from 1988, his whole bag of tricks on display. Leonard's particular talent was to capture personality through dialogue and convey atmosphere with the sparest of detail. It's often said that his di ...more
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The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke
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I'd read one of James Lee Burke's Robicheaux novels years ago and it didn't particularly grab me; I thought it was a little overwritten for a crime novel. The prose had a way of veering into grandiloquence, the atmospherics were a little fulsome and ...more
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Hide by Tracy    Clark
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Having written a couple of Chicago cop novels myself, I'm always on the lookout for a good one. This is a good one. Chicagoan Tracy Clark knows the territory, in all senses of the word-- geographical, sociological and emotional.
She's got the police p
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The Seersucker Whipsaw by Ross Thomas
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This is an early Ross Thomas book, from 1967, apparently based on his experiences running a political campaign in Nigeria, though the country is given a fictional name and ambiguous location in the novel. (Thomas's extensive experience in journalism, ...more
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Sorrow Bound by David  Mark
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The blurbs on this one say, "dark and disturbing", "not for the faint of heart" and "near-apocalyptic", and boy, are they right. If you don't want your nose rubbed in the details of brutal slayings and the interior lives of troubled people, steer cle ...more
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Quotes by Sam Reaves  (?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)

“The reader is the final arbiter.”
Sam Reaves

“They traded one of those looks only two people who have grown up together can trade, long and candid, and Rachel found herself hurting for him.”
Sam Reaves, Cold Black Earth

“everybody was afraid and that the trick was to learn to function with fear.”
Sam Reaves, Cold Black Earth

Topics Mentioning This Author

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Mystery/Thriller ...: dec 2009 - sandi 3 30 Dec 31, 2009 10:53PM  
Readers and Reading: This topic has been closed to new comments. December reads 41 81 Jan 09, 2010 09:28AM  
Mystery/Thriller ...: august 2010 - sandi 11 61 Sep 08, 2010 06:16AM  
Readers and Reading: This topic has been closed to new comments. August 2010 reads 25 87 Sep 19, 2010 09:12AM  
Mystery/Thriller ...: Bouchercon in retrospect 39 137 Nov 05, 2010 01:53PM  
Mystery/Thriller ...: Bouchercon 2012, Day One (Thursday) 16 21 Oct 08, 2012 08:37PM  
The Seasonal Read...: This topic has been closed to new comments. Summer Challenge 2015: Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE POSTS) 3424 689 Sep 01, 2015 07:40PM  
A Million More Pages: HSH: Elle - Ravenclaw - Fast 61 52 Sep 02, 2015 12:26PM  
Crime Detective M...: Upcoming Nominations for Group Reading 63 83 Sep 12, 2015 08:09AM  
19126 The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group — 31528 members — last activity 39 minutes ago
“It was a dark and stormy night. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled across the sky. Rain spattered a mysterious, hooded stranger who peered over the ...more
1036 Espionage Aficionados — 951 members — last activity Oct 12, 2025 09:12PM
Pssst--buddy. Dig spy stories? Foreign intrigue? Conspiracies? Join up with.. We got LeCarre, Deighton; Follett; Littell; Ambler; Furst; Silva a ...more
220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 296870 members — last activity 0 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
Comments (showing 1-3)    post a comment »
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message 3: by Kris

Kris Neri Hi Sam. Thanks for friending this mystery & paranormal author. I hope you'll consider adding my books to your to-read list. Great to connect here. I'm looking forward to reading your reviews.

Kris

Kris Neri
Magical Alienation: A Samantha Brennan and Annabelle Haggerty Magical Mystery


message 2: by Beth

Beth Hi Sam,
Thanks for sending a friend request to this fellow crime writer on Goodreads!


message 1: by Simon

Simon Thanks for looking me up, Sam.


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