Description:
A burned-out journalist covering an oil spill stumbles onto the body of a young bartender. West Coast noir with grit, guilt, and corporate rot for fans of Connelly and Winslow.
Brief description: Born and raised in New York City, author Adam Gorgoni now lives in Los Angeles where he has enjoyed a decades-long career as a film composer with dozens of film and TV scores to his credit. Notable projects include the indie cult classic Waiting, Sundance favorite Starting Out in the Evening, and Deauville Grand Prize winner The Dead Girl. Not too proud to serve the overlords of corporate America, Gorgoni has extensive experience in music for advertising. He is also a longtime lover of musical theater, is at work on two musicals, and was a co-producer of the Broadway show Head Over Heels, which featured the music of The Go-Gos.Music will always be his first love, but during the pandemic he rekindled a rather torrid affair with another mistress-crime fiction. His short stories have now appeared in several anthologies including (I Just) Died In Your Arms Tonight: Crime Fiction Inspired by One-Hit Wonders and A Killing At The Copa: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Music Of Barry Manilow from White City Press. Hard Water is his first novel, and he has begun work on a sequel. He and his wife share their home with at least one cat at all times. More at www.adamgorgoni.com.
Review Quotes:
"Gorgoni's Hard Water is hard-boiled at its best." --Reed Farrel Coleman, New York Times bestselling author
"Despite his claims that "I'm not a tough guy...I'm not a gritty shamus or a grizzled cop, or a forensic psychologist," Brando Riley, an environmental journalist in Adam Gorgoni's stunning debut novel Hard Water, becomes a little bit of all of these things, and for that the reader should be eternally grateful. From page one, we're hooked, as Gorgoni skillfully weaves the mystery of what happened to a beautiful, local bartender into Riley's investigation of an oil spill off the California coast. "
--Charles Salzberg, three-time Shamus Award nominee