Author Archives: Bruce DeSilva

About Bruce DeSilva

Crime Novelist

Launch Party for “Down To the River,” New Crime Fiction Anthology

Posted on May 8, 2019

That’s crime novelist Tim O’Mara with my amazing wife Patricia Smith at New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop last night. We were there to help launch the publication of Down to the River, a great short story anthology of crime fiction … Continue reading →

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My Review of “Black Mountain,” New Crime Novel by Laird Barron

Posted on May 8, 2019

“You don’t teach a child to become a killer by rote lectures,” Laird Barron writes in his new crime novel, Black Mountain. “To create a predatory machine, you foster an appreciation of the natural world and our minuteness upon its … Continue reading →

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High Praise for “Down to the River” Crime Fiction Anthology

Posted on April 19, 2019

Thriller writer Jon Land praised Down to the River — a new anthology that includes a short story by Patricia and me — in his book review column for The Providence Journal: “The splendid anthology “Down to the River” (Down & … Continue reading →

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A New British Edition of “Incendiary Art”

Posted on April 15, 2019

My wife Patricia Smith’s latest book of poetry, “Incendiary Art” — the one that won the LA Times Book Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize –has just come out in a new … Continue reading →

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Tears For A Building

Posted on April 15, 2019

When the Twin Towers fell, my tears were for the people trapped inside. Today is the first time I ever wept for a building. (Photos of the Notre Dame Cathedral I took on family trips to Paris.)  

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My Review of “The Perfect Liar,” a New Crime Novel by Thomas Christopher Greene

Posted on January 17, 2019

The great thing about being an artist, Max tells his students, is that you can imagine things into being. But only he knows the extremes to which he has taken that. Max lacks the academic credentials for his job as … Continue reading →

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My Review of Joanna Schaffhausen’s New Crime Novel, “No Mercy”

Posted on January 15, 2019

No Mercy is Joanna Schaffhausen’s second compelling novel in a series featuring FBI profiler Reed Markham and Woodbury, MA, police officer Ellery Hathaway, whom Reed once rescued from a serial killer. The story is told in vivid, precise prose, the … Continue reading →

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I Thought He Would Live Forever

Posted on January 2, 2019

At my age, old friends and colleagues die with such frequency that I have almost become numb to it, but somehow I thought that Steve Parisi would live forever. He was a big, boisterous man with a luxurious head of … Continue reading →

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My Review of Carol Potenza’s Debut Crime Novel

Posted on December 4, 2018

Hearts of the Missing, Carol Potenza’s debut novel, is a yarn wrapped in Pueblo Indian mythology, forensic evidence, ancient rituals, DNA tests, evil spirits, greed and violence. The story involves so many characters and such a plethora of twists and … Continue reading →

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Killed by Illegal Abortion: May Burns, My Great Grandmother.

Posted on October 9, 2018

Before Roe v. Wade, untold numbers of America women died from illegal abortions. One of them was May Burns of Middleboro, Massachusetts, shown here in her only surviving photograph. She was my great grandmother. May, an Irish immigrant, was married … Continue reading →

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