Rob Ryan
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First British Edition Review (2005) |
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After Midnight
My Dear Daughter,
I am writing this from a place called Italy. I would
not be by choice so far away separated from a wife and daughter so dear to me. But I am here, precious one, because there is a war on...’
In 1944, a Liberator bomber pilot writes a letter to his daughter on the occasion of her first birthday. He posts it moments before embarking on a mission to Domodossola in Northern Italy. Tragically he never returns and neither the wreckage of his plane nor his body has ever been found.
In 1964, Linda Carr resolves to find out what happened to her father on that terrible night. It is a mystery that has haunted her all her life. She employs the help of motorcycle TT racer Jack Kirby, a man who has his own inner demons to combat. He was a Mosquito fighter pilot during the War and experienced at first hand the astonishing courage of the Italian partisans in the face of Nazi brutality. Jack is keen to find one of the partisans, a woman he fell passionately in love with all those years ago, someone with a past as dark as the secrets she still holds close to her heart.
What Jack and Linda discover in their journey deep into uncharted mountain regions where they attempt to piece together the fragments of their personal stories, is more dangerous and life-changing than anyone could ever have imagined.
Robert Ryan has created a compelling novel, based on a true event, that brilliantly evokes the spirit of the Italian conflict during World War Two, and resonates with the never-ending human cost of war.
Praise for Night Crossing
`Ryan again deftly integrates a love story with thriller material and has patented a method combining invented characters with factual events. This rewardingly allows the reader to experience the oft-portrayed war from unfamiliar angles’ The Sunday Times
`Ryan skilfully blends fact with fiction and writes with such elegance that, if we gave stars, Night Crossing would get five’ Time Out
| Paperback - Headline Feature (2001) |
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First British Edition Headline Feature (2001) |
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Trans Am
Jim Barry is an all-American family man and proud of it and he's already begun initiating his five-year-old, Tommy, into the holy mysteries of baseball - until a tragic accident at a kids' practice game leaves another boy dead - and the bereaved father decides to seek his own special brand of restitution.
Unless Jim and his wife Belle - ironically the authoress of bestselling child-rearing books - hand over their own son Tommy as a replacement, Stefan Sebastyen swears he will kill them all. And pretty soon they realize that this is one `Hungarian businessman' who's more than capable of keeping his word. With their backs to the wall, it's Belle who comes up with a crazy plan to save the family.
Meanwhile, trailerpark single mom Wendy is doing her best to bring her son Pete up right, but waitressing all hours to make ends meet means she can't always be there for him. So when Pete is abducted, she's crushed with guilt - and will do anything to get him back. Even enlisting the help of an edgy war veteran with a few nightmares of his own about lost childhood...
'Rob ryan is a noteworthy exponent of rough and gutsy Stateside-set tales where anything can - and necessarily does - go wrong for his lowlife characters' Guardian
'A superb writer' Independent on Sunday
`Don’t start reading unless you’ve got a clear run: this is a f°°ker to put down. Great plot, edge-of-the-seat suspense and intelligent writing. Read it’ Time Out
‘Thrills with twists you’d need a crystal ball to predict’ Mirror
‘Trans Am is an absolute cracker with a plot which weaves its way from New Jersey to Arizona and back, and involves battle-scarred US army veterans, psychotic Serbian gangsters, highly suspicious child adoption agencies and, above all, lost children’ Mike Ripley
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Nine Mil
For the gamblers and fun-seekers drawn to the cheap glitter of its casinos and slot machines, Atlantic City is still a place to chase your dreams. But for taxi driver Ed Behr, it's a place where his personal nightmare has finally hit rock bottom among the boozers and losers of its sleazy bars and gun shops.
Haunted by violent flashbacks to his time in the Boxgrove Correctional Facility, and sustained only by his obsession with finding Honey, the girl who promised him everything before she disappeared from his life, Ed's horizons are shrinking faster than his waistline is expanding.
Until one day he sees a face from the past. A face from the old gang back in Cotchford, from the old days before the bad things happened that got them all sent to The Box. All except Billy Moon, that is. Billy Moon, who went on to bigger and better things while the rest of them were left to rot.
But now Ed has a plan. A plan that's going to reunite the gang, make enough dough to get them out from under - and pay Billy Moon back once and for all.
Maybe even get Honey back too.
That's if he doesn't get them all killed first…
'This novel has got "brilliant" written through it like'. a stick of rock' Independent on Sunday
`Fast, violent and a breathless delight' Guardian
'Stylish, high-octane stuff' Esquire
| British Pbk Original - Headline (1999) |
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Underdogs
A lot of people know that the city of Seattle burned down in 1889. And it's common knowledge that when it was rebuilt, much of the old city remained, buried beneath the modern streets. But nobody really knows what's down there any more…
Now a suspected psycho and the eight-year-old girl he's taken hostage during a bungled heist are about to find out, when they crash through the floor of an abandoned warehouse into a street no one has walked down for a hundred years.
Pursued by an ex-Vietnam Tunnel Rat brought in by the Seattle PD - a man with one or two mental problemms of his own - Hilton Badcock has no choice but to drag young Ali further into the underground maze in search of a way out. But the deeper they go into this strange, secret world, the weirder and more dangerous things get...
'Hits you like a cross between Assault on Precinct 13 and Alice in Wonderland' Esquire
'A cracking chase thriller' Daily Telegraph
'Fantastic, headspinning writing… surreal and hilarious by turns' Guardian
'A hardboiled tour de force… I doubt whether there's going to be a better first crime novel this year' Independent on Sunday
'a wonderfully exhilarating novel, combining a cinematic narrative drive with winning characters particularly Alice, as pert as her 19th century namesake - and a brilliantly imagined dreamlike subterranean landscape' Sunday Times
'a dazzling first novel set in the underground tunnels that lie beneath Seattle… [an] always unpredictable tale that combines the sheer giddy pace of a road movie with a touch of Lewis Carroll' Time Out
About The Author
Rob Ryan was born in Liverpool in 1951, although his inability to master either the tricky accent or the legendary scouse wit eventually say him exiled to the south, specifically London. He lectured until the mid-1980's, when he stumbled into a bar in Soho and decided that he, too, would join the media. His first articles were published inThe Face, Arena, American GQ and The Sunday Times. He joined the staff of the latter in 1990 as Deputy Travel Editor. In 1997 he left to help launch Conde Nast Traveller. He is currently a freelance writer and lives in London with his wife and three children, one of whom has the uncanny ability to speak in a scouse accent.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
After Midnight
(Review,
2005)
Night Crossing
(
2004)
The Blue Noon
(
2003)
Early One Morning
(
2002)
Trans Am
(Headline Feature,
2001)
Headline Feature Pbk Nov 01
Nine Mil
(Headline Pbk,
2000)
Underdogs
(Headline Pbk,
1999)
After Midnight
Jul 05 
by Rob Ryan
