2 BY RYAN DAVID JAHN

A couple this week from author Ryan David Jahn – another guy I have yet to try. Not letting that get in the way of acquiring 4 of his 6 books published thus far.

From the bio page at his website… ryandavidjahn.com

Ryan David Jahn grew up in Arizona, California, and Texas. He finished school at sixteen, worked several odd jobs, from record store clerk to janitor, and spent time in the army before moving to Los Angeles, where he muddled about in television and film for several years.

He published his first novel, Acts of Violence, which went on to win the Crime Writers' Association John Creasey Dagger, in 2009, and has since published five others: Low Life (2010); The Dispatcher (2011), which was long-listed for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger; The Last Tomorrow (2012); The Gentle Assassin (2014); and Dark Hours (2015). Translation rights to his works have been sold in twelve languages.

He now lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife Jessica and two daughters, Francine and Matilda.

He has a new book coming in October published by one of my favourites 280 Steps – The Algebra of Blood – something to look forward to.

Acts of Violence (2009)

A compulsively readable debut crime novel inspired by the legendary real-life murder of Kitty Genovese.

At 4:00 A.M. on March 13, 1964, a young woman returning home from her shift at a local bar is attacked in the courtyard of her Queens apartment building. Her neighbors hear her cries; no one calls for help.

Unfolding over the course of two hours, Good Neighbors is the story of the woman's last night. It is also the story of her neighbors, the bystanders who kept to themselves: the anxious Vietnam draftee; the former soldier planning suicide; the woman who thinks she's killed a child and her husband, who will risk everything for her. Revealing a fascinating cross-section of American society in expertly interlocking plotlines, Good Neighbors calls to mind the Oscar-winning movie Crash, and its suspense and profound sense of urban menace rank it with Hitchcock's Rear Window and the gritty crime novels of Dennis Lehane, Richard Price, and James Ellroy.

Low Life (2010)

When Simon Johnson is attacked in his crummy LA apartment, he knows he must defend himself or die. Turning on the lights after the scuffle, Simon realises two things: one, he has killed his attacker; two, the resemblance of the man to himself is uncanny. Over the coming days, Simon's lonely life will spiral out of control. With his pet goldfish Francine in tow, he embarks on a gripping existential investigation, into his own murky past, and that of Jeremy Shackleford, the (apparently) happily married math teacher whose body is now lying in Simon's bathtub under forty gallons of ice. But Simon has a plan. Gradually, he begins to assume the dead man's identity, fooling Shackleford's colleagues, and even his beautiful wife. However, when mysterious messages appear on the walls around Simon's apartment, he realises that losing his old self will be more difficult than he'd imagined. Everything points to a long forgotten date the previous spring, when his life and Shackleford's first collided. As the contradictions mount, and the ice begins to melt, the events of the past year will resolve themselves in the most catastrophic way. Combining gritty noir, psychological drama and dazzling plotting, "Low Life" is a shocking novel that announces Jahn as a brilliant new voice of modern America.