Trouble in Rooster Paradise (Gunnar Nilson Mystery) - Softcover

Born into a blue collar family in Seattle, Washington, and raised in the suburbs of the greater Seattle area, T.W. Emory has been an avid reader since his early teens. In addition to writing, T.W. enjoys cartooning as a hobby. He is second-generation Swede on his mother’s side and third-generation Norwegian on his father’s, which helps explain the Scandinavian flavoring in his first novel, Trouble in Rooster Paradise. He currently lives north of Seattle with his wife and two sons. For more information, go to www.twemory.com.

"Seattle-area writer T.W. Emory's debut, Trouble in Rooster Paradise is an affectionate nod to noir fiction and its tough guys and dolls.... Good, vivid stuff. And who can resist a book with a cover featuring a fedora-wearing private eye, a shapely dame... and the Smith Tower?"

--Adam Woog, The Seattle Times

"Emory skillfully evokes this era of class distinctions and gender inequity. The murderer's motive is inspired by both of these inequalities. The tale is peppered with recognizable 1950s characters--the world-weary waitress, the damaged World War II veteran, the thwarted career woman.... I was happy to be plunged into Nilson's tale in the 1950s."

--Historical Novel Society

"Emory's first novel vividly evokes the ambiance of classic American hard-boiled crime writing. While recovering from an injury, aging gumshoe Gunnar Nilson regales his nurse with a case he solved decades before. In 1950, a beautiful young woman, Christine Johanson, is murdered in Ballard, a Seattle suburb then heavily populated by Scandinavian immigrants. Christine worked at a high-end jewelry store that seemed to encourage its male clientele to flirt with the salesgirls. Suspicion initially falls on Christine's hot-headed boyfriend, Dirk Engstrom; but Nilson--brought in to minimize bad publicity for the store--suspects other customers at the jewelry shop who were also Christine's admirers. Emory, a Seattle native, captures the period setting well." --Publishers Weekly

"When perfume is the smell of death, a private eye needs to be careful around the ladies. That's a tall order for detective Gunnar Nilson in T.W. Emory's thrilling debut set in post-war Seattle. Nilson meets many a lovely beauty as he tries to find out how one of them ended up murdered with his business card in her pocket. He's a tough-minded, smart sleuth, unwinding a plot layered with deception and driven by sins going back decades. Call it Queen City noir; this is an enthralling look at Seattle when it was a working class town populated by tough guys and great smelling gals, many with black secrets." --Rich Zahradnik, author of Last Words