More good reviews

These are some more pre-pub reviews for Oregon Hill. (They like it.  They really like it.) I'm lining up signings and readings now. 

Booklist  June 1, 2012

Oregon Hill.  Owen, Howard (Author), Jul 2012. 240 p., Permanent Press, hardcover, $28.00. (9781579622084).

Willie Black, a reporter who’s about as close to washed up as a guy can get while still being employed, stumbles onto the story of his career when a young woman’s decapitated body is discovered, and Willie, unlike nearly everyone else involved in the case, doesn’t believe that the man arrested for the crime is the killer. Owen, whose first book, 1994’s Littlejohn, may also be his most well known, is a careful, precise writer, creating characters so real that we have to keep reminding themselves they’re fictional, and stories

so haunting that they stay with the reader long after the books are back on the shelf. As usual, his latest has a stellar cast: down-and-almost-out Willie; shifty local cop (and Willie’s antagonist) David Junior Shiflett; the dead girl’s father, who receives his daughter’s head in a UPS box; Martin Fell, the accused killer (whose name, not to put too fine a point on it, suggests he might be a fall guy). Character-driven crime fiction executed with style.           — David Pitt

New York Journal of Books

Oregon Hill is a wondrous trip into the world of sarcastic newspaper reporters, bad cops, and murder most foul.

Having worked as a newspaper reporter, Mr. Owen writes in a captivating voice, his acute observations granting authenticity to the bullet-speed pace of the story. Newspaperman Willie Black is masterfully created, ink and dark humor coursing through his hardboiled veins. It is hoped that this is the beginning of a series of books staring Willie and crew. Bring on the sequel!

Small Press Reviews

In Oregon Hill, Howard Owen pulls double-duty by crafting a compelling page-turner

and offering commentary on the dying art of investigative journalism. His protagonist

is an aging reporter named Willie Black who's recently been assigned to cover the night

cops' beat—a demotion that places him squarely at the center of a murder investigation

even as his career teeters on the brink of oblivion. Shortly after a missing co-ed turns

up decapitated in the South Anna River, Willie is as relieved as anyone in Oregon Hill

when the apparent murderer is apprehended. Haunted by a miscarriage of justice he

witnessed in his younger days, however, Willie can't leave well enough alone, and his

investigation leads him into increasingly dangerous territory. Meanwhile, his best friend

is under investigation for robbery, his mother's lover is drifting deep into senility, and his

latest ex-wife is hounding him for the rent. In short, Willie has struck the perfect work-

life balance insofar as his work and his life are equally thorny. Indeed, that Willie has

so much to juggle speaks volumes for the author's prowess as a storyteller: Owen never

misses a beat or leaves a narrative thread untended for too long.

While the narrative is certainly compelling, what gives ​Oregon Hill​ a degree of heft

is its commentary on the fate of print journalism in the digital age. To an extent, the

novel decries the sad state of affairs created by the dwindling readership for traditional

newspapers. At the same time, however, Owen is careful not to indulge in too much

hand-wringing, as his protagonist is quick to recognize the value of so-called "new

media" even if he's somewhat reluctant to embrace it. In this sense, ​Oregon Hill​ looks

forward as much as it looks back, and offers a fairly complex look at our culture's current

relationship with journalism.

Reminiscent of Carl Hiaasen's ​Basket Case, ​Oregon Hill​ is as smart as it is thrilling, a

true literary page-turner.

—Marc Schuster