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Terry Orr #2
A Well-Known Secret
In the sequel to Closing Time, reluctant private detective Terry Orr becomes involved in the investigation into the murder of Sonia Salgado, recently released after serving thirty years in prison for the robbery and murder of a diamond dealer, a case that hearkens back to the corruption of the 1970s.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 28, 2002
22 people are currently reading
37 people want to read
About the author
Jim Fusilli
50 books47 followersJim Fusilli is the author of nine novels including “The Mayor of Polk Street” and “Narrows Gate,” which George Pelecanos called “equal parts Ellroy, Puzo and Scorsese” and Mystery Scene magazine said “must be ranked among the half-dozen most memorable novels about the Mob.”
Jim’s debut novel “Closing Time” was the last work of fiction set in New York City published prior to the 9/11 attacks. The following year, his novel, “A Well-Known Secret” addressed the impact of 9/11 on the residents of lower Manhattan. Subsequent novels include “Tribeca Blues” and “Hard, Hard City,” which Mystery Ink magazine named its Novel of the Year. “Closing Time,” “A Well-Known Secret” and “Tribeca Blues” were reissued by Open Road Media in October 2018. Lawrence Block provided a new foreword for “Closing Time.”
Jim has published short stories that have appeared in a variety of magazines as well as anthologies edited by Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman and other masters of the mystery genre. He edited and contributed to the anthologies “The Chopin Manuscript” and “The Copper Bracelet.” His “Chellini’s Solution” was included in an edition of the Best American Mystery Stories and his “Digby, Attorney at Law” was nominated for the Edgar and Macavity awards. The novel “Narrows Gate” was nominated for a Macavity in the Best Historical Fiction category.
The former Rock & Pop Critic of The Wall Street Journal and an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Jim is the author of two books of non-fiction, both related to popular music. “Pet Sounds” is his tribute to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’ classic album. It was translated for a Japanese language edition by Haruki Murakami Combining his interests, Jim edited and contributed a chapter to “Crime Plus Music: Twenty Stories of Music-Themed Noir,” published in 2017.
His novel for young adults “Marley Z and the Bloodstained Violin” was published by Dutton Juvenile.
Jim is married to the former Diane Holuk, a global communications executive. They currently reside just north of New York City. Find out more about them at https://jimfusilli.com/.
Jim’s debut novel “Closing Time” was the last work of fiction set in New York City published prior to the 9/11 attacks. The following year, his novel, “A Well-Known Secret” addressed the impact of 9/11 on the residents of lower Manhattan. Subsequent novels include “Tribeca Blues” and “Hard, Hard City,” which Mystery Ink magazine named its Novel of the Year. “Closing Time,” “A Well-Known Secret” and “Tribeca Blues” were reissued by Open Road Media in October 2018. Lawrence Block provided a new foreword for “Closing Time.”
Jim has published short stories that have appeared in a variety of magazines as well as anthologies edited by Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Laura Lippman and other masters of the mystery genre. He edited and contributed to the anthologies “The Chopin Manuscript” and “The Copper Bracelet.” His “Chellini’s Solution” was included in an edition of the Best American Mystery Stories and his “Digby, Attorney at Law” was nominated for the Edgar and Macavity awards. The novel “Narrows Gate” was nominated for a Macavity in the Best Historical Fiction category.
The former Rock & Pop Critic of The Wall Street Journal and an occasional contributor to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” Jim is the author of two books of non-fiction, both related to popular music. “Pet Sounds” is his tribute to Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’ classic album. It was translated for a Japanese language edition by Haruki Murakami Combining his interests, Jim edited and contributed a chapter to “Crime Plus Music: Twenty Stories of Music-Themed Noir,” published in 2017.
His novel for young adults “Marley Z and the Bloodstained Violin” was published by Dutton Juvenile.
Jim is married to the former Diane Holuk, a global communications executive. They currently reside just north of New York City. Find out more about them at https://jimfusilli.com/.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 6, 2010
I reviewed this series of books as a whole, so the review here is the same review you'll find for those books.
The four book in this series caught my attention walking through a bookstore. So I’m looking at is, reading the jacket copy, and wondering how I have missed this author and this series, because it’s got three things that I really like: a thoughtful, troubled, not always likeable main character (Terry Orr, an author turned private investigator); it’s set in modern day Manhattan — and not an idealized Manhattan, either; and there’s an extended cast of wonderful, very vivid characters.
Hard, Hard City is already the fourth book in this series, so I forced myself to go back and start with the first one. I’ve now read Closing Time and A Well-Known Secret, and as soon as I can get hold of Tribeca Blues and Hard, Hard City, I’ll read those. This review really covers all the ones I've read thus far.
Fusilli is a journalist, and he has an excellent website with lots of interesting essays. The essay “Why I stopped reviewing crime fiction” originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It gave me a lot to think about.
In any case, I would recommend these novels, which may not be flawless, but which are pretty damn good all the way around.
We meet Terry Orr at a bad time in his life. He had been a successful author, blissfully married with a young daughter and a two-year old son, when a madman shoves the baby’s stroller off a subway platform into the path of an express train. Terry’s wife Marina, an accomplished artist, goes after the boy to try to save him, and they both die. Terry is left with his ten year old daughter, Bella, some close friends, and a need for revenge that charges right over the line into obsession, and without apology.
These are crime novels with plots. Terry gets involved in the lives of people around him. When there is a crime that touches him, he takes it on, and pursues it. The violent act that changed his own life is a constant backdrop in the first two novels, but it’s not really integrated into the plots themselves.
Fusilli took on quite a challenge, approaching things this way. We’ve got the larger story: a character study of a man in terrible pain, struggling to make sense of things, to keep moving forward; he’s got a young daughter who needs him, after all. (And Bella is, without a doubt, my favorite character in these novels. I like her much more than I like her father.) Superimposed on that we get the individual crime plots in each of the books. Both elements are crucial, but Fusilli balances them far better in the second novel than he does in the first.
I liked the first novel — Closing Time — for its descriptions of Manhattan, and for the characterizations of the people closest to Terry. They were vivid and believable, touching and irritating, intriguing in many different ways. In contrast, the characters who were part of the murder investigation were flatter and felt — I suppose the only word that really works — unpolished. Not badly written, not at all: just distinctly less interesting than the main characters.
But the second novel. The Well-Known Secret gives me the sense of Fusilli as an author who has become comfortable with what he’s trying to do. He branches out a little in his approach in ways that really work for me. The novel starts with a newspaper article, an interest piece written about Terry, his background his losses, his daughter, his new work. I love bringing different kinds of texts into novels, and this is an excellent example of how to do that. It provides the backstory in an intriguing, clean, detached way, something Terry himself could not do as a first person narrator.
More than that, this novel is set post 9/11 in the very neighborhood that was most devastated by the loss of the Twin Towers. Terry’s daughter goes to a school where more than half the kids in her class have lost at least one parent in the attack; they were unable to enter their home for a month, and had to live in a hotel. I got a real sense of what it was like to survive 9/11 in TriBeCa, and to go on surviving it, but without even a touch of pathos. Here and there Terry provides details of what those days were like, simply, powerfully. This novel is worth reading for that aspect alone.
The bad news is, I don’t like Terry much. He is a man in pain, yes. He has suffered terribly, but he also wallows. I wanted to smack him by the end of this novel. So did a few of his fellow characters. This was only partly ameliorated by the absolutely perfect tone and pacing of the final chapter, where Terry goes with Bella to the subway station where Marina and Davy were so violently murdered, for the first time. I won’t say anything more about this chapter other than this: it deserves to be read.
I am sorry I was unaware of Jim Fusilli’s work for so long. I’m hoping there will be many more novels to come.
The four book in this series caught my attention walking through a bookstore. So I’m looking at is, reading the jacket copy, and wondering how I have missed this author and this series, because it’s got three things that I really like: a thoughtful, troubled, not always likeable main character (Terry Orr, an author turned private investigator); it’s set in modern day Manhattan — and not an idealized Manhattan, either; and there’s an extended cast of wonderful, very vivid characters.
Hard, Hard City is already the fourth book in this series, so I forced myself to go back and start with the first one. I’ve now read Closing Time and A Well-Known Secret, and as soon as I can get hold of Tribeca Blues and Hard, Hard City, I’ll read those. This review really covers all the ones I've read thus far.
Fusilli is a journalist, and he has an excellent website with lots of interesting essays. The essay “Why I stopped reviewing crime fiction” originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It gave me a lot to think about.
In any case, I would recommend these novels, which may not be flawless, but which are pretty damn good all the way around.
We meet Terry Orr at a bad time in his life. He had been a successful author, blissfully married with a young daughter and a two-year old son, when a madman shoves the baby’s stroller off a subway platform into the path of an express train. Terry’s wife Marina, an accomplished artist, goes after the boy to try to save him, and they both die. Terry is left with his ten year old daughter, Bella, some close friends, and a need for revenge that charges right over the line into obsession, and without apology.
These are crime novels with plots. Terry gets involved in the lives of people around him. When there is a crime that touches him, he takes it on, and pursues it. The violent act that changed his own life is a constant backdrop in the first two novels, but it’s not really integrated into the plots themselves.
Fusilli took on quite a challenge, approaching things this way. We’ve got the larger story: a character study of a man in terrible pain, struggling to make sense of things, to keep moving forward; he’s got a young daughter who needs him, after all. (And Bella is, without a doubt, my favorite character in these novels. I like her much more than I like her father.) Superimposed on that we get the individual crime plots in each of the books. Both elements are crucial, but Fusilli balances them far better in the second novel than he does in the first.
I liked the first novel — Closing Time — for its descriptions of Manhattan, and for the characterizations of the people closest to Terry. They were vivid and believable, touching and irritating, intriguing in many different ways. In contrast, the characters who were part of the murder investigation were flatter and felt — I suppose the only word that really works — unpolished. Not badly written, not at all: just distinctly less interesting than the main characters.
But the second novel. The Well-Known Secret gives me the sense of Fusilli as an author who has become comfortable with what he’s trying to do. He branches out a little in his approach in ways that really work for me. The novel starts with a newspaper article, an interest piece written about Terry, his background his losses, his daughter, his new work. I love bringing different kinds of texts into novels, and this is an excellent example of how to do that. It provides the backstory in an intriguing, clean, detached way, something Terry himself could not do as a first person narrator.
More than that, this novel is set post 9/11 in the very neighborhood that was most devastated by the loss of the Twin Towers. Terry’s daughter goes to a school where more than half the kids in her class have lost at least one parent in the attack; they were unable to enter their home for a month, and had to live in a hotel. I got a real sense of what it was like to survive 9/11 in TriBeCa, and to go on surviving it, but without even a touch of pathos. Here and there Terry provides details of what those days were like, simply, powerfully. This novel is worth reading for that aspect alone.
The bad news is, I don’t like Terry much. He is a man in pain, yes. He has suffered terribly, but he also wallows. I wanted to smack him by the end of this novel. So did a few of his fellow characters. This was only partly ameliorated by the absolutely perfect tone and pacing of the final chapter, where Terry goes with Bella to the subway station where Marina and Davy were so violently murdered, for the first time. I won’t say anything more about this chapter other than this: it deserves to be read.
I am sorry I was unaware of Jim Fusilli’s work for so long. I’m hoping there will be many more novels to come.
November 26, 2015
"[...] I knew that whatever tolerance I'd developed for this fetid game, this depravity, this charade of life, had been exceeded. And now I was sick of everything: sick of taxis, of midtown, of the small whitecaps on the gray Hudson, of the scavenger seagulls; sick of stumbling across death while life continued for the corrupt who readily corrupt, and, having done so, thrive."
Jim Fusilli's A Well-Known Secret (2002) is a continuation of his Closing Time . In fact, I feel like I have never stopped reading the first book and this is its second part. While the crime plot is different, almost all leading characters are the same, and they have not changed much. I have hoped for more substantial changes in the second installment of the Terry Orr's series, but the author went for replicating the success of Closing Time.
Terry Orr, an ex-writer, now a P.I. in New York, is asked by his housekeeper to find her friend's daughter, Sonia, who disappeared after being released from prison. She had served a very long sentence on a Murder One conviction for a brutal slaying of a diamond dealer. Terry begins the search, but when another murder happens it becomes clear that the roots of Sonia's disappearance are buried deep in the past, and Terry has to solve a 30-year-old case, working against some members of the police force, but with the help of his friends in the DA's office.
When reading A Well-Known Secret one has a feeling that the crime thread is incidental to the two main stories: the story of Terry and his precocious 14-year-old daughter, Bella, who are trying to overcome the extreme trauma of losing Terry's wife and son at the hands of a madman a few years earlier. The other thread that feels more important than the "crime plot" is the story of the post-9/11 New York. The novel conveys, with chilling accuracy, the sense of the place and the pain of the deep wounds in the city's collective psyche.
Even though the novel is for all practical reasons a rehash of Closing Time, I enjoyed it because it is well written. I can forgive authors a lot if they write well. I am even willing to forgive them writing the same book all over again.
Three stars.
Jim Fusilli's A Well-Known Secret (2002) is a continuation of his Closing Time . In fact, I feel like I have never stopped reading the first book and this is its second part. While the crime plot is different, almost all leading characters are the same, and they have not changed much. I have hoped for more substantial changes in the second installment of the Terry Orr's series, but the author went for replicating the success of Closing Time.
Terry Orr, an ex-writer, now a P.I. in New York, is asked by his housekeeper to find her friend's daughter, Sonia, who disappeared after being released from prison. She had served a very long sentence on a Murder One conviction for a brutal slaying of a diamond dealer. Terry begins the search, but when another murder happens it becomes clear that the roots of Sonia's disappearance are buried deep in the past, and Terry has to solve a 30-year-old case, working against some members of the police force, but with the help of his friends in the DA's office.
When reading A Well-Known Secret one has a feeling that the crime thread is incidental to the two main stories: the story of Terry and his precocious 14-year-old daughter, Bella, who are trying to overcome the extreme trauma of losing Terry's wife and son at the hands of a madman a few years earlier. The other thread that feels more important than the "crime plot" is the story of the post-9/11 New York. The novel conveys, with chilling accuracy, the sense of the place and the pain of the deep wounds in the city's collective psyche.
Even though the novel is for all practical reasons a rehash of Closing Time, I enjoyed it because it is well written. I can forgive authors a lot if they write well. I am even willing to forgive them writing the same book all over again.
Three stars.
Read
June 3, 2020boring at the start got good at the end
November 23, 2013
RATING: 4.5
It's been four years, but Terry Orr has barely recovered from an event that changed his life forever. His beloved wife, Marina, and their infant son, Davy, were waiting on a subway platform when a deranged man pushed the baby's stroller onto the tracks. Marina attempted to save him, but they were both swept under an oncoming subway and killed. It's been Terry's life mission ever since to find this man. He's gone into private investigation as a means to track him and takes on cases from other people that involve saving children. Thanks to his late wife's artistic talent, he has no financial worries and can devote himself to setting the world right.
Terry lives and works in New York City with his 14-year-old daughter, Bella. They have a closed community of friends, such as Dennis Diddio, a wannabe musician and various shopkeepers around the neighborhood. Terry's housekeeper asks him to speak to one of her acquaintances, a woman whose daughter has just been released after serving 30 years for the robbery and murder of a diamond dealer. She wants Terry to find Sonia Salgado so that she can see her grandson, or at least that's what she tells Terry. As Terry begins to search for the woman, he finds that what he unearths is threatening to several people around him, that the crime of 30 years earlier has very real meaning in the present day and that people will kill to keep it in the past.
A Well-Known Secret is set in post 9/11 New York, and Fusilli excels at showing the subtle aftereffects of that event on the people living in the city. Any native New Yorker would delight in reading this book, as he traverses its boroughs with wonderful descriptions of the various neighborhoods, sights and sounds. The setting is exquisitely drawn, sometimes at the expense of the pacing of the book. There are times when events should be moving forward, and Ellis is rhapsodizing about the city.
The book is a poignant tribute not only to New York City but also to Orr's dead wife and child. He knows it's time to move on, but he finds it very difficult to do so. He meets a fine woman who wants to be with him, but he has a hard time feeling anything more than grief and remorse. He's not even at the point where he can take a subway; he experiences an overwhelming paralysis whenever he even tries to enter the underground system.
In addition to the wonderful depiction of the setting, Fusilli has written a book whose melancholic mood as Terry reminisces about his late family and what could have been and should have been touches the heart of the reader. Equally touching is the characterization, particularly the feisty, no-nonsense Bella who threatens to steal the book away; Diddio, the loopy musician who searches for a dream that seems unobtainable to him; and Jule, the assistant district attorney who hopes to warm Terry's heart and reach beyond his grief. And then there are the various flawed characters whose corruption and greed hurt so many others.
The book had a nonfiction feel to it, as the author referred to political figures of the past and present, to the way that New York is changing as a result of the Apocalyptic World Trade Center destruction. The book felt real and honest in every way. The book ends with a feeling of hope, even though many of the issues remain unresolved. This is the first book I've read that incorporates the events of 9/11 in a meaningful way, and the narrative around its repercussions is exceptionally well done.
It's been four years, but Terry Orr has barely recovered from an event that changed his life forever. His beloved wife, Marina, and their infant son, Davy, were waiting on a subway platform when a deranged man pushed the baby's stroller onto the tracks. Marina attempted to save him, but they were both swept under an oncoming subway and killed. It's been Terry's life mission ever since to find this man. He's gone into private investigation as a means to track him and takes on cases from other people that involve saving children. Thanks to his late wife's artistic talent, he has no financial worries and can devote himself to setting the world right.
Terry lives and works in New York City with his 14-year-old daughter, Bella. They have a closed community of friends, such as Dennis Diddio, a wannabe musician and various shopkeepers around the neighborhood. Terry's housekeeper asks him to speak to one of her acquaintances, a woman whose daughter has just been released after serving 30 years for the robbery and murder of a diamond dealer. She wants Terry to find Sonia Salgado so that she can see her grandson, or at least that's what she tells Terry. As Terry begins to search for the woman, he finds that what he unearths is threatening to several people around him, that the crime of 30 years earlier has very real meaning in the present day and that people will kill to keep it in the past.
A Well-Known Secret is set in post 9/11 New York, and Fusilli excels at showing the subtle aftereffects of that event on the people living in the city. Any native New Yorker would delight in reading this book, as he traverses its boroughs with wonderful descriptions of the various neighborhoods, sights and sounds. The setting is exquisitely drawn, sometimes at the expense of the pacing of the book. There are times when events should be moving forward, and Ellis is rhapsodizing about the city.
The book is a poignant tribute not only to New York City but also to Orr's dead wife and child. He knows it's time to move on, but he finds it very difficult to do so. He meets a fine woman who wants to be with him, but he has a hard time feeling anything more than grief and remorse. He's not even at the point where he can take a subway; he experiences an overwhelming paralysis whenever he even tries to enter the underground system.
In addition to the wonderful depiction of the setting, Fusilli has written a book whose melancholic mood as Terry reminisces about his late family and what could have been and should have been touches the heart of the reader. Equally touching is the characterization, particularly the feisty, no-nonsense Bella who threatens to steal the book away; Diddio, the loopy musician who searches for a dream that seems unobtainable to him; and Jule, the assistant district attorney who hopes to warm Terry's heart and reach beyond his grief. And then there are the various flawed characters whose corruption and greed hurt so many others.
The book had a nonfiction feel to it, as the author referred to political figures of the past and present, to the way that New York is changing as a result of the Apocalyptic World Trade Center destruction. The book felt real and honest in every way. The book ends with a feeling of hope, even though many of the issues remain unresolved. This is the first book I've read that incorporates the events of 9/11 in a meaningful way, and the narrative around its repercussions is exceptionally well done.
September 14, 2011
I was at a point between reading ARC books and decided to expand my genre list, so I read this crime drama, and I was very surprised that I found this book to be interesting.
I did have some trouble with the jargon though, hence the 3 star rating and not a 4, but the story is quite a page turner and I got some good ideas about plot twists when I delve into fiction writing.
This is book 2 of a series but that didn't matter and the story is a stand alone; reading book 1 would have given me more background depth to the story however.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one.
I did have some trouble with the jargon though, hence the 3 star rating and not a 4, but the story is quite a page turner and I got some good ideas about plot twists when I delve into fiction writing.
This is book 2 of a series but that didn't matter and the story is a stand alone; reading book 1 would have given me more background depth to the story however.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this one.
September 25, 2013
Fair mystery book about a P.I. in New York. The story is interesting, but the author has a bad habit of breaking up the flow by bringing in reminisces, sometimes just from a previous meeting or day. If he could write a more linear story he would be much more interesting.
October 2, 2009
The second in a series. I liked it better than the first and will make a point to read the third.
November 11, 2010
It was just okay.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews