Dogtown

by Howard Owen, The Permanent Press (Contributor)

When a blue-collar guy "without an enemy in the world" shows up brutally murdered down by the railroad tracks in Dogtown, everyone in Richmond is mystified. Then an elderly couple, also seemingly blameless, are slaughtered in their upscale home a couple of days later, and Willie Black starts to suspect something other than coincidence.




After Richmond's nosiest night cops reporter starts digging, a young girl barely escapes abduction and then a respected doctor is murdered. The city slips into panic mode. Gun sales are rampant.




When the cops arrest an obvious suspect, everyone's relieved, but Willie becomes convinced that there's still a maniac on the loose. He does what he does best. He keeps digging.




What's the link connecting a week's worth of mayhem? When Willie unearths the truth, the state's parole board and the city's mayor will have some explaining to do.




Willie Black drinks too much, smokes too much and marries too much. He's a man with bad habits but a good heart. He never quits, but this time his tenacity could cost him more than he could bear.

250 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2023

About the author

Howard Owen was born March 1, 1949, in Fayetteville, N.C. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1971, journalism) and has a master's degree from Virginia Commonwealth University (1981, English).
He and his wife since 1973, Karen Van Neste Owen (the former publisher of Van Neste Books), live in Richmond, Va. He was a newspaper reporter and editor for 44 years.
Owen won The Dashiell Hammett Prize for crime literature in the United States and Canada for Oregon Hill, his 10th novel.
His first novel, "Littlejohn," was written in 1989, when he was 40. It was bought by The Permanent Press and published in 1992. Random House bought it from The Permanent Press and reissued it as a Villard hardcover in 1993 and a Vintage Contemporary paperback in 1994. It was nominated for the Abbey Award (American Booksellers) and Discovery (Barnes & Noble) award for best new fiction. It has sold, in all, more than 50,000 copies. It has been printed in Japanese, French and Korean; it has been a Doubleday Book Club selection; audio and large-print editions have been issued, and movie option rights have been sold.
His second novel, "Fat Lightning," came out as a Permanent Press book in 1994. It was bought by HarperCollins and was reissued as a Harper Perennial paperback in 1996. It received a starred review from Publishers' Weekly.
His third novel, "Answers to Lucky," was published by HarperCollins as a hardcover in 1996 and as a paperback in 1997. It received favorable reviews in The New York Times, Southern Living, GW, Publishers' Weekly, the Atlanta Constitution, the Baltimore Sun, the Memphis Commercial Appeal and numerous other publications. It was included in "The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide."
His fourth novel, "The Measured Man," was published in hardcover by HarperCollins in 1997. It was praised in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, the Raleigh News & Observer, the Orlando Sentinel, the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and many other publications. It was one of the LA Times Book Reviews’ "Recommended Titles" for 1997. It was included in "The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide."
Owen's fifth novel, "Harry and Ruth," was published by The Permanent Press in September of 2000 to critical acclaim from Kirkus, Publisher's Weekly and various weekly publications.
His sixth novel, "The Rail," was published in April of 2002. It is about (among other things) baseball and the parable of the talents. Owen won the 2002 Theresa Pollack Award for Words.
His seventh novel, "Turn Signal," was about a man whose muse drives him either to madness or to the best move he's ever made in his life. It came out in 2004 and was a Booksense selection for July of 2004.
His eighth novel, "Rock of Ages," is something of a sequel to his first novel, "Littlejohn." Georgia McCain returns to her hometown years after her father’s death to sell the family farm and finds herself immersed in baby-boomer guilt and a murder mystery. It was a Booksense pick for July of 2006.

His ninth novel, "The Reckoning," about ghosts of the ’60s, came out in late 2010 and received very positive reviews from, among others, Publishers Weekly and the New York Journal of Books.
His short story, "The Thirteenth Floor," part of "Richmond Noir," came out in early 2010.
The protagonist of “The Thirteenth Floor,” Willie Black, also is at the center of Owen’s 10th novel, “Oregon Hill,” which came in July of 2012 to very positive reviews in The New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and elsewhere. It's also an audio book.

Willie starred in future Owen novels: The Philadelphia Quarry (2013), Parker Field (2014), The Bottom (2015), Grace (2016) and The Devil's Triangle (2017). His 16th novel, Annie's Bones, comes out in April of 2018.

Reviews

[Herb Hastings · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit that I chose to read this book because it is set in my home town, Richmond, VA. The title refers to the neighborhood my father grew up in. The name Dogtown comes from the street map of the area looking like the outline of a dog's head.

This book is part of a series featuring intrepid reporter, Willie Black. In keeping with noir traditions, Willie is a hard drinking, hard living, much married man who lives by a code. The author captures the mood of a modern day newsroom, struggling hard to survive, or at least remain relevant.

The whodunnit is fairly obvious soon in the story but the author skillfully ratchets up the tension never the less. If noir is a genre you enjoy, give this a look. I think you can appreciate it even if you weren't born in Richmond.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Local Richmond author bases each of his Willie Black novels in a different local neighborhood. This one is south of the river where the land makes a dog snout shape and earned the nickname. Willie Black us a newspaper crime reporter who usually works the night shift. Owen writes from his own experience, and the series digs into the dying newsroom and newspaper. Taking place during Covid, things are all the more desperate when a series of slit throat murders indicate a serial killer that Black, despite the chief of police and the mayor is able to find and identify, but not without becoming part of the story.

[Lura Levin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Howard Owen really knows how to write a great book.