It’s launch day for “The Skinny,” Circle Founder Harold Goldberg first novel! The taut noir mystery is a page turner that’s set in 1990’s New York City from the Lower East Side to Greenwich Village to Harlem to Astoria.
Here are two early reviews:
“Classic New York Noir … a real nail biter to keep you awake at night!” –John Glatt, Tangled Vines, The Family Next Door
“Harold Goldberg’s love letter to noir, and all that is ungentrified in New York City, dashes along from first page to last under a head of steam that never flags. The Skinny is a book about flawed, vulnerable people that is by turns open-hearted and wised-up. Its twists are unexpected, its ending lands just right.” –Christopher Byrd, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books
When you purchase “The Skinny,” Harold will donate half of the his book royalties to the Circle’s Playing With Purpose programs. So when you buy the novel, you’re giving back to the underserved students the Playing With Purpose teaches and mentors.
Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, Grand Theft Auto III and IV, and The Last of Us Part II are just some of the game narratives that inspired “The Skinny.”
What’s the book about? Stan Kaminski is an immigrant getting by on odd jobs and inside connections, the kind that keep him close to the city’s underbelly but just out of reach of real trouble. When a wealthy businessman offers him a job—finding a missing woman—Stan figures it’s easy money. But the deeper he digs, the more it’s clear that this isn’t just another runaway case.
As Stan navigates his way through the city’s darkest secrets to find the troubled Charmaine, every clue pulls him further into a world of high society excess, underground crime, and whispers of a serial killer preying on the lost.
As the bodies pile up and the truth unravels, Stan is forced to make a choice: follow the money, save Charmaine, or make it out alive. For fans of gritty noir, true crime, and the raw, electric pulse of 1990s New York, The Skinny is a razor-sharp thriller that won’t let go.
Finally, here is an Q/A interview with Harold Goldberg by Paul Semel, who pens excellent reviews of books and games.
