Dr. Soos to the Rescue

I’ve said it before: Mass-market paperback originals are the Rodney Dangerfields of the publishing trade--they get no respect. Many top crime writers who are now firmly entrenched between hardcovers began writing paperback originals: John Shannon and Harlan Coben come to immediate mind. And Troy Soos--a writer, historian, and physicist--could well be the next to make that leap.

Soos’ excellent historical suspense novels have been compared to those of Caleb Carr (The Alienist). That’s especially true of Soos’ books starring Marshall Webb, a writer for Harper’s Weekly who--with the help of his friend, social reformer Rebecca Davies--digs up lots of dirt on New York political and police scandals of 100 years ago. Scandals that sound very much like making headlines today.

Dr. Soos’ latest book, Streets of Fire, involves Webb, his basically honest but not completely graft-free Brooklyn cop friend Buck Morehouse (he’ll accept free drinks and food, but never cash), and of course Davies, who all get mixed up in a couple of murders during the bloody trolley worker’s strike in Brooklyn in 1895. Wonderful stuff: more attention should be paid.