Friday, June 27, 2008

Jerry A. Rodríguez Dead at 46

Puerto Rican Murder Club” member and thriller author Jerry A. Rodríguez (Revenge Tango, The Devil’s Mambo) succumbed to cancer last Sunday, a battle he’d fought valiantly for several years. He was only 46 years old.

From The New York Daily News:
The Brooklyn-born playwright, filmmaker and novelist had just published “Revenge Tango,” the follow-up to his acclaimed thriller “The Devil’s Mambo,” featuring Detective Nicholas Esperanza.

Rodríguez had been battling cancer for years and had suffered a relapse recently.

“It’s been a battle he was having for many years,” said Sulay Hernandez, his first editor and a close friend.

“Ever since I met Jerry [around 2005], he was in chemotherapy.”
Kate Duffy, Rodríguez’s editor at Kensington Publishing told The Daily News that the author was very like his creation, Detective Esperanza.

“He was stunningly handsome,” Duffy said, “he was insanely smart, and very unique.”

Today at The Outfit blog, fellow novelist Sean Chercover (Big City, Bad Blood) mourns the loss of his colleague:
Jerry Rodriguez was a true renaissance man--author of noir fiction, playwright and stage director, screenwriter and film director ... and more. With all that, he still made time to do good works in the community, helping the homeless, HIV/AIDS patients, and drug addicts at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Not enough? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention ... he did all this--with good humor and a sense of gratitude--while also battling cancer ... undergoing multiple rounds of chemo--carrying on that battle for the last seven years of his life.

He will be missed.
Chercover’s Outfit post is here. The New York Daily News item is here. Rodríguez’s own Web site can be found here.

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