Craig Joseph Danner

                                                                                    will be at

                                                                         Beach Books

                                                                                         on

                                                                                     Friday

                                                                          December 11, 2009

                                                                                 3:00-5:00 p.m.

to

Read and Sign

his latest book

The Fires of Edgarville

 
 
The Fires of Edgarville is not really about solving the mystery of a serial arsonist.  It's not really about uncovering the truth behind old family secrets and lies. Or rather, it's about so much more. This is a mystery novel, yes, and a page turner, but one that engages authentically with a dishonorable part of our past, that conjures brilliantly the effects of dementia, that tackles unflinchingly the difficult terrain of families, prejudice, guilt, deception--all the while in fluid, singing prose.  I was spellbound."    
-- Molly Gloss, author of The Jump-Off Creek and The Hearts of Horses

“The Fires of Edgarville is a daring and enthralling novel with the power to surprise anyone who picks it up. Craig Joseph Danner takes a tiny Northwestern town and two unlikely protagonists -- a defamed Japanese-American doctor and an irascible senile woman -- and somehow turns out high drama. This novel is slender and fast-paced, but the story is rich and artfully woven with dazzling crescendos of action and original characters in search of elusive truths.”  
-- Jim Lynch, author of The Highest Tide and Border Song

About the Author

Craig Joseph Danner is a native Oregonian who earned a degree in creative writing from The Evergreen State College in 1985. He is a Physician Assistant, and has spent over ten years as a rural volunteer firefighter and emergency medical responder. A full-time novelist, he spends his non-writing time with his wife and two sons, and works on-call as a medico-legal death investigator.

His debut novel, Himalayan Dhaba, was first published in 2001, and quickly became a bookseller favorite, winning the 2002 Pacific Northwest Book Award. Twice chosen for the American Booksellers Association Booksense76 list, the novel was reissued by Dutton in 2002, and again by Plume in 2003. After falling out of print for a brief period, it has once again been reissued by the original publisher, Crispin/Hammer.

Himalayan Dhaba

Winner of the 2002 Pacific Northwest Book Award, Himalayan Dhaba leads the reader through the mountains of India with a lyric and compelling prose, an authentic sense of place, and a story that won't be forgotten.

Following her late husband's ghost to a town high in the Indian Himalayas, Doctor Mary stumbles into an abandoned mission hospital. Caught between her recent grief and the hopeless care of a dying baby girl, she begins a year long odyssey of descent and redemption that connects her with a cast of unexpected characters.

There is Amod, the waiter in the local dhaba, who secretly adores and watches out for the doctor. Phillip is a young and lonely British traveller who momentarily lands in the doctor's care before he is kidnapped deep into the snowbound Himalayan interior. Antone is the aging heroin-addicted kidnapper whose every plan goes sour. And finally, there is Meena-- abandoned by her family to serve the abusive men of an isolated road crew-- who finds the hidden strength and courage to lead herself and young Phillip to their ultimate salvation in the care of a hashish smoking holy man.