“Rick Skwiot proves himself a master weaver who deftly knits the threads of this suspense tale into a compelling—and surprising—conclusion. In short, Fail succeeds, and does so with compassion.”
-Michael A. Kahn, award-winning author of Face Value and The Flinch Factor
“Hardboiled and hard-hitting, Skwiot’s Fail delivers a gritty knockout crime story you won’t soon forget.”
-Brian Wiprud, author of The Clause
“Chicago has Scott Turow, Boston Dennis Lehane, LA James Elroy. Finally St. Louis has its laureate of fiction, Rick Skwiot. His new novel, Fail, is a sheer success. Skwiot hits for the fences and stylishly touches all the bases—money, municipal politics, police corruption, infidelity, suicide, homicide, all rendered in crackling prose.”
-Michael Mewshaw, author of Sympathy for the Devil:
Four Decades of Friendship with Gore Vidal
“Fail is a riveting spellbinding tale with intricate characters that are depicted through carefully crafted imagery of iconic St. Louis landmarks bolstered by lucid vernacular accuracy reflecting the rich cultural diversity of the city.”
-John Baugh, author of Beyond Ebonics:
Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice and former director African and African American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis
“In Fail Rick Skwiot has written a story that will endure… [T]he flawlessly pitched voices, the intricate plot—tying academia and Mark Twain to the gritty streets of St. Louis—and the vividly realized characters are all as good as it gets in detective stories. Skwiot has squeezed himself into a spot between [Dashiell] Hammett and [John D.] MacDonald, and I suspect they would be happy to have him there.”
-Michael Pearson, author of Reading Life
—On Books, Memory, and Travel (2015)
“Skwiot’s finest. Set on the mean streets and back alleys of St. Louis, Fail is a big, two-hearted yarn of political corruption and moral decay. The unforgettable police detective Carlo Gabriel, who handles the investigation, must first grapple with his own transgressions before he can unravel the wooly skein of betrayal and depravity surrounding him. A tale that could well have been ripped from the front page of any city in the country.”
-John Leslie, author of Border Crossing
“The twisting plot and fascinating characters will keep readers turning the pages, but the underlying problem exposed by this vital novel is dead serious. In snappy, vivid, hard-boiled language, Skwiot lays bare the root cause of most of our societal woes: our failed education system. It is no mere coincidence the story takes place in St. Louis, the heartland city that has come to represent our greater national tragedy. Fail is a wake-up call.”
-Kelly Daniels, author of Cloudbreak, California
“Reminiscent of Chandler and [Ross] MacDonald, of Phillip Marlowe and Lew Archer, Skwiot has created the flawed detective painted boldly and unflinchingly against the backdrop of a rusted, crumbling city. This is detective fiction at its finest.”
-Ryan Stone, author of Best Road Yet
“Art imitates life in this prescient novel. Both crime fiction and a clarion call to rescue America’s underserved schools, Fail is also proof positive that the Ferguson, Missouri, uprising was inevitable.”
-Terry Baker Mulligan, author of Afterlife in Harlem
“A cynical detective ventures far outside his comfort zone, risking everything to keep an idealistic teacher alive long enough to expose ugly truths. A microcosm for what ails society, Fail is an intelligent read that refuses to pass the buck, earning a classy A.”
-Scott L. Miller, author of Counterfeit and Interrogation
“The rapid pace, seamless unfolding and well-crafted plot of this mystery … [are] balanced with the incisive depiction of two contrasting main characters—a crusading English teacher and [a] worldly-wise, battered cop. This tale is a trenchant reminder that the urban cocktail of poverty in the face of wealth, St. Louis’s famous segregated sprawl … and corruption in high places nationwide, is an explosive mix.”
-Peter H. Green, author of Crimes of Design