By Coral Gables Gazette staff
A man who has spent most of his life hiding an unwanted ability to see into other people’s pasts is forced to use it when a young woman disappears in Charles Salzberg’s newest novel.
Salzberg will discuss The Beginning of Everything at Books & Books in Coral Gables on Tuesday, Aug. 4. He will be joined in conversation by South Florida mystery writer Traci Hall.
The free program begins at 7 p.m. at the bookstore’s 265 Aragon Ave. location. Copies of the novel will be available for purchase and signing.
A gift he has tried not to use
Published by Regalo Press, The Beginning of Everything follows Josh, a man who has concealed his extrasensory ability from nearly everyone in his life.
Josh can see into the pasts of the people he encounters, but he regards that power less as a gift than as an intrusion. He has spent years suppressing it and has confided only in his closest friend.
That secrecy becomes harder to maintain when the friend’s college-age stepdaughter disappears.
Asked to help find her, Josh must rely on the ability he has tried to ignore. His search eventually reveals not only where the missing woman has gone but why she left, exposing family secrets that complicate the apparent rescue.
The mystery therefore turns on more than locating someone who has vanished. It asks what Josh is entitled to do with private truths he discovers through a power other people do not know he possesses.
The paperback runs 292 pages and is priced at $18.99.
From magazine journalism to crime fiction
Salzberg began writing fiction after a career in magazine journalism. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, GQ, Redbook and Travel + Leisure.
He is best known for the Henry Swann series, which follows a private investigator who specializes in recovering stolen and missing property.
The first book in the series, Swann’s Last Song, was nominated for a Shamus Award by the Private Eye Writers of America. Salzberg later received Shamus nominations for the standalone novels Second Story Man and Canary in the Coal Mine.
Second Story Man also received the Beverly Hills Book Award, while Devil in the Hole was selected by Suspense Magazine as one of its best crime novels of 2013.
His fiction frequently centers on characters operating at the margins of conventional criminal investigations: thieves, private investigators, compromised witnesses and people whose talents bring them into situations they would rather avoid.
That pattern continues in The Beginning of Everything, although its protagonist’s unusual ability moves the novel beyond the conventional detective story.
Salzberg has also written or co-written more than 20 nonfiction books. They include From Set Shot to Slam Dunk, an oral history of professional basketball, and Soupy Sez: My Zany Life and Times, written with entertainer Soupy Sales.
He is a founding member of the New York Writers Workshop and has taught writing at Sarah Lawrence College, Hunter College and Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.
A fellow mystery writer leads the conversation
Hall brings her own experience writing mysteries across several settings and author names.
Under her own name, she writes the Scottish Shire mystery series, centered on an American sweater designer who relocates to the Scottish coastal town of Nairn and becomes involved in local investigations.
As Traci Wilton, she co-writes the Salem B&B mystery series. She also writes the Irish Castle mystery series under the name Ellie Brannigan.
Her forthcoming Cider Falls Orchard series moves the cozy-mystery form to a family orchard and cidery.
Hall’s range across several mystery traditions should give Tuesday’s conversation room to explore how Salzberg combines a missing-person investigation with supernatural perception, and how a writer gives readers information that the other characters cannot access.
The program is structured as an author conversation followed by a book signing. An RSVP provides general entry but does not guarantee seating, and guests are encouraged to arrive early.
If you go…
The Beginning of Everything: Charles Salzberg in conversation with Traci Hall
Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 7 p.m.
Books & Books
265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables
Free and open to the public
RSVP requested
General seating is not guaranteed
Books available for purchase and signing at the event
