THE MERGER: THE CONGLOMERATION OF ORGANIZED CRIME by Jeffrey Robinson. The sequel to his bestseller THE LAUNDRYMEN, this survey opened my eyes to the fluid, intertwining currents between legitimate commerce and its illegal mirror image on a universal scale.
THE DELTA STAR by Joseph Wambaugh. My favorite novel by one of my earliest literary icons.
Taught me the method—but more crucially the value—of providing as much depth to every character introduced, no matter how small their role.
LOW LIFE: LURES AND SNARES OF OLD NEW YORK by Luc Sante. A sweeping, majestic, delicious history of the slums and slum dwellers of New York City, offering one of the clearest sequence of organized, disorganized, and chaotic crime woven into the city’s very matrix, all the way back to colonial times.
BUNKER 13 by Aniruddha Bahal. Years ahead of its time (and the vision of US publishers), this kaleidoscopic thriller is the best single usage of the second-person present tense in storytelling I know of, not to mention a masterful expose of the interplay between military and intelligence operations, and how corruption worms its way into them.
D’AULAIRES’ BOOK OF GREEK MYTHS by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire. One of the first books I can remember truly devouring as a child, cover to cover, and to which I occasionally still return, to remind myself of the all-too-human themes the Greeks enshrined in legend.
Adan Dunn
ADAM is the author of the novels Rivers of Gold, The Big Dogs, and Saint Underground, the forthcoming novel The Unfathomable Deep, and co-writer (with Eric Anderson) of the forthcoming novel Osiris. He spent years as a freelance writer cultivating networks among the military, intelligence, law enforcement, and financial communities. His byline has appeared in 18 publications in 4 countries. Including: CNN and BBC News (online); Inc., Paper, SOMA, and Publishers Weekly magazines (glossy); and the San Francisco Chronicle and South China Morning Post (newsprint). He and his family have left New York City.
