GEORGE FOY – Asia Rip. Viking, hardcover, 1964. Pocket, paperback, 1985.

   The highly evocative title of this novel comes from one of the shoal areas off the coast of Cape Cod, an area worked by the rugged men of the North Atlantic fishing industry. George Foy sets his impressive debut mystery among these men and the corrupt individuals on land who control the industry.

   Lars Larsen joins the search for his friend Joe Sciacca when the latter fails to return from a fishing run. Later he is asked to continue to investigate by Sciacca’s widow, Marie. When the pregnant Marie is also murdered, Larsen finds himself with a murder rap on his head, and a need for vengeance in his heart.

   Foy’s well-wrought plot features a lot of bloody action as Larsen traces the link between organized crime and the fishing industry. Much of the action includes feats of unbelievable derring-do by Foy’s hero. Not your average fisherman, he is a former Harvard man and drug-runner. He is also the kind of central character who keeps the reader involved and believing even as he scales the beams and girders of a massive railroad bridge with an injured and infected shoulder.

   George Foy has worked as a journalist covering the fishing industry. This background lends great authenticity to his first mystery/adventure novel. He is also a-fine storyteller.

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   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.