Cold

“Written in crisp, cinematic prose, The Anarchist has echoes of the best noir, while at the same time…has a kind of Dostoyevskian complexity.”

—Dan Chaon (Await Your Reply)

“Fiction so shapely and finely wrought: dark history inexorably bound to repeat itself—The Anarchist is another gem from a master of the storyteller's arts.”

—Thomas Lynch (The Undertaking)

“An intelligent, often troubling warning disguised as a first-rate thriller, as though Sinclair Lewis has fused with Alan Furst.”

—Tom Bissell (The Father of All Things)

“A smart and compelling historical thriller…It's an enthralling descent into the dark byways of the criminal mind.”

—Ron Charles, Editor, Washington Post Book World

“Moody yet thrilling novel…Smolens evokes this turbulent era makes “The Anarchist” far more than a superior adventure.”

—The Boston Sunday Globe

“Carefully crafted prose whose quiet authority is bolstered by a firm grasp of period detail. A character-driven historical novel that transcends genre.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“This is a skillfully rendered historical novel about the assassination of President William McKinley... Smolens has fashioned a believable, complex, and human protagonist.”

—Library Journal

“An intense, moody, and engrossing novel...this is a well-written novel that works as both a political thriller and as a depiction of a tumultuous era in our history.”

—Booklist

“A well-rendered, credible mixing of documented events with imaginative projecton into the tenor of a teeming American era.”

 
—BookPage

“An exceptional book…highly recommended.”
 

—Historical Novels Review Editor’s Choice

Denver Post Editor’s Choice

Historical Fiction Roundup selection in USA Today

John Smolens is the recipient of the Michigan Author of the Year Award for 2010, from the Michigan Library Association.

“FIRE POINT put my teeth on edge from the first page and kept them there until I finished. Smolens is a fine writer with a profound knowledge of human behavior gone awry.”

—Jim Harrison (author of Legends of the Fall)

“A sensitively observed, mesmerizing novel that builds in fury as inexorably and stunningly as a Lake Superior storm.”
 

—Publishers’ Weekly (Starred Review)

“A superlative job of rendering a place and its people realistically. He has crafted a thriller that is as literate and insightful into human nature as any novel out this year.”
 

—Denver Post

“In a quiet, assured fashion, Smolens sets up a series of inevitable confrontations that don't usually turn out the way one would expect--just like in real life.”

—Booklist

“FIRE POINT argues for the heated view, where envy can immolate someone from the inside out—and then storm out to burn down everything in its path.”

—Detroit Free Press (Selected as DFP Michigan Novel of the Year)

“Smolens' sharp views of places like Charlestown and Salem avoid the usual hometown sentimentality, making a nice contrast with the mournful lyric voice he uses for Sam's recollections of his miserable family life.”
 

—The New York Times

“Smolens’ spare style plays off nicely against the plot, and elaborate tapestry of twists and contradictions.”
 

—Publishers’ Weekly

“Crafted by a writer who's good at atmospherics.”
 

—Kirkus

“A perfectly-paced thriller that gently pulls you in.”
 

—The Daily Mirror (UK)

“Beautifully written and absorbing”
 

—The Sunday Telegraph (UK)

“What if your dad killed JFK and you'd spent your adult life trying to pin the murder on him?
  
Smolens weaves a complex personal tale that examines the terrible impact of an assassin's actions on the family so often left behind…proves achingly compelling.”
 

—Booklist

“This effort, a smoothly efficient amalgam of Salem/Boston atmosphere, the narrator/journalist's midlife crisis, a horribly dysfunctional family that includes a witch/junkie and a dad who—by the way—might have been the triggerman on the JFK assassination, lures you in and snaps like a bear trap”
 

—The Day

Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

“COLD is fiction to chill the soul—too revealing of human selfishness to be easily read, too well-written to be easily put down.”
 

—Selected for Amazon.com's Best of 2001

“John Smolens is that rare and gifted writer who can capture both our exterior and interior worlds with equal dexterity, grace and power.”
 

—Andre Dubus III (House of Sand and Fog)

“COLD is a finely crafted, wild yarn set in the great north. John Smolens gives us a suspenseful tale in a style somewhere between Jack London and Raymond Chandler.
 
A fine read.”
 

—Jim Harrison (author of Legends of the Fall)

“You must read COLD—preferably beside a fire, under a blanket.”
 

—William Martin
 
(Back Bay, Cape Cod, and Citizen Washington)

“Set in Michigan's cold, harsh Upper Peninsula, this third novel by Smolens uses its frigid backdrop as the perfect setting for an astute examination of six lives wrecked by fate, betrayal and tragedy.”
 

—Publishers Weekly

“Smolens not only uses the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as a backdrop, he also treats it as a character, silent, relentless, and cruel…well-written tale fueled by a sense of impending disaster.”

—Booklist

“A fascinating and disturbing novel.”
 

—Independent Sunday (UK)

“You'll swear the temperature has gone down a few degrees since you began reading the book.”

—Lansing State Journal

“Smolens’ prose…is an understated marvel…The dialogue is elliptical and pitch perfect, while the setting—the land and sea observed through fall and into winter—glistens with powerful sensuality.”
 

 
—Publisher’s Weekly

“Pervasive atmosphere and psychological interplay.”

—
Library Journal

“What holds our attention is the rich atmosphere, the chill desolation of a shore town in midwinter.
 
John Smolens knows his territory, social as well as geographical and proves it in his first novel.”
 

—Boston Sunday Globe

“A promising debut.”
 

—Chicago Tribune

“Delivers gritty dialogue and earthy atmosphere.”
 

—Kirkus

“Richly textured and intriguing. A gritty tale of mystery and violence.”
 

—Lansing State Journal

“Captures the sense of gloom that hangs over seaside communities in the winter as if a tragedy is just around every corner.”
 

—Cape Cod Chronicle

“There's danger—sometimes palpable, sometimes faint or comic, but nonetheless real—behind each of these beautifully crafted stories in John Smolens' collection.”
 
—Stuart Dybek

About John Smolens

    
John Smolens is author of six critically-acclaimed, published novels: The Anarchist (Random House), Cold (Random House), The Invisible World (Random House), Fire Point (Random House), Angel's Head, and Winter by Degrees, and is also author of the story collection, My One and Only Bomb Shelter, and of a seventh novel forthcoming from Pegasus Books in Fall, 2011, The Schoolmaster’s Daughter. His short stories and essays have appeared in various publications, including Redbook, Yankee, the Massachusetts Review, the Virginia Quarterly Review, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, and translations have appeared in the Netherlands, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Educated at Boston College, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Iowa, he is a professor of English Northern Michigan University and lives in Marquette, Michigan. Visit
www.johnsmolens.com
to learn more and to watch video.

Books by John Smolens

The Anarchist

Cold

Invisible World

Fire Point

Winter by Degrees

Angel’s Head

My One and Only Bomb Shelter (stories)

Forthcoming in Fall, 2011

The Schoolmaster’s Daughter

Copyright ©
 
John Smolens

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locals is entirely coincidental.

A
[y1]
 
portion of
Cold
first appeared in the
Columbia Journal of Art & Literature
, published by Columbia University, New York, and in a collection of short stories,
My One And Only Bomb Shelter,
published by Carnegie Mellon University Press, Pittsburgh.