Bad Things Happen

A pacy, intelligent crime debut - Raymond Chandler meets the Coen brothers with shades of Harlan Coben

Bad Things Happen is a very smart, well-written roller coaster ride that is always threatening to hurl the reader out into roaring empty space. Go along for the thrill ride!

Bad Things Happen is a tense read that keeps you tightly in its grip until the very last page. Harry Dolan has written an incredibly rich, smart read reminiscent of A Simple Plan or Presumed Innocent - not to mention that it's just a damn good story. Readers are in for a breathless ride

Great f***ing book, man. I was totally hooked. I hope you write a dozen more, and that's just next year

You better believe [Dolan] has a gift for storytelling...The narrative comes with startling developments and nicely tricky reversals.

If I say that the novel is as well plotted as Agatha Christie at her best, I don't mean to make it sound old-fashioned; it's not. Even more than Christie, this novel reminded me of Patricia Highsmith. It's witty, sophisticated, suspenseful and endless fun -- a novel to be savoured...and the best first novel I've read this year.

Dolan gets everything right in his debut, a suspense novel that breathes new life into familiar themes. Pitch-perfect prose and sophisticated characterisations drive the noirish plot, which offers plenty of unexpected twists. Fans of Peter Abrahams and Scott Turow will find a lot to like...the talent Dolan displays suggests he has a bright future.

Harry Dolan has written a wonderfully moody and atmospheric story ... a tightly plotted, sophisticated, and engrossing debut novel.  Dolan has a fine ear for good dialogue and an uncanny sense of how people think and act, and why they do what they do.  This is a winner

From the astringent first sentence - 'The shovel has to meet certain requirements' - Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan builds like a thunderhead into an atmosphere of darkness, dread, and impending doom. It is a hypnotically readable novel, with richly wrought characters, a corkscrew plot, and dialog worthy of Elmore Leonard. What a breathtaking debut.

Douglas Preston, author of The Monster of Florence and Blasphemy

tasty tale...Dolan's neatly symmetrical plot is tight, his dialogue is crisp, and his humor wry. (Rarely have suspects been so archly articulate.) A twisty whodunit with a thriller's pace...

Harry Dolan graduated from Colgate University, where he majored in philosophy and studied fiction-writing with the novelist Frederick Busch. He earned a master's degree in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked for several years as a freelance editor. 
 
Dolan, who grew up in Rome, New York, now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with his partner, Linda Randolph.

David Loogan is leading a new and quietly anonymous life in a new town. But his solitude is broken when he finds himself drawn into a friendship with Tom Kristoll, the melancholy publisher of the crime magazine Gray Streets - and into an affair with Laura, Tom's sleek blond wife. 
 
When Tom offers him a job as an editor, Loogan sees no harm in accepting. What he doesn't realise is that the stories in Gray Streets tend to follow a simple formula: 
 
PLANS GO WRONG. BAD THINGS HAPPEN. PEOPLE DIE. 
 
Then one night David's new boss phones him in a panic, asking him to come to his house immediately. And bring a shovel...

Harry Dolan

A riveting crime novel . . . Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan

A second mind-bending case for David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey . . . Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment . . . The rare crime novel with something for everyone who reads crime fiction

Smooth and appealing . . . a twist-filled adventure . . . the characters in this engaging work are full of surprises

Dolan makes sure that both the characters and dialogue stay rough around the edges, just like the scenery of northern Michigan, giving Very Bad Men a satisfyingly realist bite

Anthony Lark has a list of names: 
Terry Dawtrey 
Sutton Bell 
Henry Kormoran 
 
He is hunting them down, and he won’t stop until every one of them is dead. 
 
But this is a killer with a conscience and crime editor David Loogan is about to find out that his latest manuscript is no work of fiction but a serial killer’s confession of what he’s done – or is about to do – to some very bad men...

Harry Dolan

Praise for Very Bad Men

A riveting crime novel . . . Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan

A second mind-bending case for David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey . . . Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment . . . The rare crime novel wit ...

Smooth and appealing . . . a twist-filled adventure . . . the characters in this engaging work are full of surprises

A riveting crime novel . . . Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan

A second mind-bending case for David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey . . . Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment . . . The rare crime novel wit ...

Smooth and appealing . . . a twist-filled adventure . . . the characters in this engaging work are full of surprises

A riveting crime novel . . . Relentless pacing, a wry sense of humor, and an engaging protagonist add up to another winner for Dolan

A second mind-bending case for David Loogan that begins just as simply and ominously and takes the reader on just as wild a journey . . . Dolan mixes his pitches with an ace's judgment . . . The rare crime novel wit ...

Smooth and appealing . . . a twist-filled adventure . . . the characters in this engaging work are full of surprises

Books by Harry Dolan

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