Second Watch

Lowen Clausen.com  

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Fiction

$22 Hardcover

6 x 9

365 pages

ISBN: 0972581103

Rights: SILO

 

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Second Watch is a street-level view of Ballard. The Ballard Beat: It sounds like a Scandinavian reggae band. In the hands of Lowen Clausen, however, the Ballard Beat refers to the territory covered by two policewomen. Clausen's sturdy new novel, "Second Watch," (Silo Press, $24.95) takes us to the same street-level policing as did his debut, "First Avenue." It's a world the author knows well and conveys clearly; he was a beat cop in Seattle from 1969 to 1982. As the new book opens, Katharine Murphy, who played a strong supporting role in "First Avenue," has a new assignment patrolling Ballard. Katharine's new partner, Ballard native Grace Stevens, is showing her the ropes.

          —The Seattle Times

The second novel from former Seattle police officer Clausen is equal parts police procedural and character study, and the two halves are balanced to perfection. Katherine Murphy, a cool, competent Seattle cop, has a new patrol, a new shift and a new partner: hard-as-nails Grace Stevens. When the partners discover the bodies of two children, sexually abused and placed in separate dumpsters, they become enmeshed in an undercover investigation that is chilling .... Clausen devotes large portions of the narrative to character development, allowing his protagonists to become highly imagined characters with compelling desires and flaws. The supporting cast is fascinating as well: the tender-hearted Danish grocer, Rigmor, steals every scene she's in; and Dale, Katherine's kind gay neighbor, is a voice of sanity in her increasingly insane life. Perhaps most interesting of all is Thomas Rosencrantz, a quirky, homeless intellectual who helps pinpoint the killer. This highly readable narrative moves more slowly than many books of its ilk, but readers will likely be too caught up in the characters' lives to care.

          Publisher's Weekly

 

Lowen Clausen has been chosen as the 2004 recipient of the Friends Of Mystery's heralded Spotted Owl award for his book Second Watch. The book was published in 2003 by Silo Press and Penguin Putnam paperbacks. Clausen also won the award in 2000 for his debut book First Avenue and the repeat honor this year marks the first time in the history of the award that an author has won more than once. Committee member Pete Scott said of the book: “A very strong book with great characters and a setting that has the right feel”, and fellow reader Maggie Stuckey said: "The slow, sweet rendering of Ballard - its people, its daily rhythms - is perfect”. Read Entire Press Release.

 

          Friends of Mystery

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