DIAMOND RUBY: A Novel
Arriving in May 2010
--S.J. Rozan, award-winning author of The Shanghai Moon
-- Kevin Baker, author of Strivers Row
--Katharine Weber, author of True Confections and Triangle
New York City in the 1920s was like a vast ocean swirling with treacherous currents: It was far easier to drown than to stay afloat. But young Ruby Thomas, newly responsible for her two nieces after a devastating tragedy, is determined to keep her family safe. She’s got street smarts, boundless determination, and one great skill: the ability to throw a ball as hard as the greatest pitchers in baseball-mad city.
Vividly portraying everything from Coney Island sideshows to the brand-new Yankee Stadium, Diamond Ruby chronicles the life and times of a girl who rises from utter poverty to the kind of renown only the Roaring Twenties can bring. But fame comes with a price, and Ruby must protect her family from Prohibition rum runners, the Ku Klux Klan, and the gangster underworld. A sweeping epic whose breathtaking climax features a showdown with the great Babe Ruth, Diamond Ruby is filled with adventure, suspense, and characters you will never forget.
Diamond Ruby will be published in May 2010 as one of the lead spring titles from Touchstone Fireside, a division of Simon & Schuster. You can preorder it here via Indiebound or here on Amazon.
MY NEWEST STORY: "Custom Sets"
 [A] stellar anthology.... | Every year the Mystery Writers of America publishes a theme anthology. This year the theme is stories set in courtrooms, the book is called THE PROSECUTION RESTS, and the editor is former New York prosecutor and current best-selling author Linda Fairstein. I'm pleased to say that my story "Custom Sets" will be appearing beside stories by S. J. Rozan, James Grippando, Angela Zeman, Barbara Parker and other genre superstars. "Custom Sets" was a blast to write, and is likely the only story in the collection to be set in four separate courtrooms. (Not bad in 4000 words!) "Publishers Weekly gave THE PROSECUTION RESTS a starred review, calling it "a stellar anthology that will appeal both to contemporary noir fans and devotees of Law & Order." And Women of Mystery says that my "Custom Sets" "will give you the shivers even on a day when it's eighty five degrees and sunny." The Prosecution Rests is available at bookstores, via IndieBound, or here. |
More Stories by Joe!
Still on Bookstore Shelves
Wonderful... It's like looking at old postcards,
addictive and unpredictable.
-- The Arizona Republic
It features 365 rare and spectacular images from the unmatched photo archives of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, one for each day of the year. Inside you'll find images I guarantee you've never seen before: Lou Gehrig posing with the Marx Brothers; Babe Ruth boxing with Jack Dempsey; Ty Cobb at the checkerboard; Casey Stengel with a presidential trifecta: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, and Lyndon Johnson; wartime ballplayers; Negro League stars; World Series heroes and goats; and a host of other players, fans, and celebrities (including Al Capone, William Jennings Bryan, and Milton Berle!)
My Newest Baseball Book
It’s an overflowing, batter’s-up buffet
stocked with goodies for fans of all ages.
—Neil Pond, American Profile
Grand Old Game, my first 365 Days book, included photographs and stories covering 1900 through about 1970. Baseball: 365 Days, featuring magnificent color photographs from the archives of Major League Baseball, picks up where the first book left off. It contains spectacular images and fascinating background stories of every great star of the game’s eventful last forty years from Willie Mays and Tom Seaver through George Brett and Ozzie Smith and all the way to Derek Jeter, Ichiro, and David Ortiz. Not to mention fans, surprising spring-training and behind-the-scenes shots, and highlights from great All Star Games and World Series, and you’ve got a book to remind you of why baseball remains America’s Pastime, more than a century after it first came on the scene.
Offering “wonderful color photographs for every day of the year” (Bruce Dancis, Sacramento Bee),
Baseball: 365 Days is available at bookstores or here.
My Latest Mystery Story
I’m proud to say that my story “The Big Five” is appearing beside terrific works by such literary heroes of mine as S. J. Rozan, Lawrence Block, and Kevin Baker in Bronx Noir. Publishers Weekly loved the collection, saying that it contains “memorable tales of betrayal and despair that reflect the borough's varied ethnic populations and geography.” The review also mentioned my story, saying, “The most imaginative entry, Joseph Wallace's 'The Big Five', about a hunter who targets his prey in the Bronx Zoo as part of a national contest, concludes with a satisfying noir twist.” Hope you enjoy it!
HUNTING FOR TREASURE
Hi, I'm Joe. Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve been a professional writer now for more than a quarter of a century. (And a writer for even longer, ever since my parents bought me an Olympia electric typewriter for my thirteenth birthday.) But unlike most freelancers, who focus on one area of expertise throughout their careers, I’m always bouncing around from one subject to the next. Baseball. Natural history. Mystery stories. Science and technology. Children’s books.
People sometimes ask me what ties together all these varied subjects. I usually joke that I just have trouble concentrating on any one thing for long. But I think I’ve finally figured out the real reason. (Better late than never).
Everything I write feels like a treasure hunt. And what’s more fun than hunting for treasure?
When I put together my new Baseball: 365 Days and Grand Old Game, I spent weeks searching through the vast photo archives of Major League Baseball and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, looking for the rarest, strangest, most revealing images I could find. Every time I found a photograph I knew I’d use, I felt like I’d come upon a gold nugget in a mine filled with them. And the same held true for uncovering the stories behind all those marvelous photos.
When I write my other nonfiction books, like A Gathering of Wonders: Behind the Scenes at the American Museum of Natural History, the treasure is the perfect detail, the telling quote, the unique angle that will vividly bring to life a complicated subject. I love telling stories that few others have heard, and opening readers’ eyes to our remarkable world while I do so.
And when I create the crime stories I’ve been focusing on the past couple of years, I feel like I’ve discovered treasure when I come up with the twist ending—the moment that readers suddenly understand that I’ve been playing with them, setting them up for the story’s exciting climax. Read my story “The Big Five” in the new Bronx Noir,, and you’ll see exactly what I mean.
I hope you enjoy my books and stories. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions, or just to tell me your own stories. Because those can be treasures, too.
