Quinlan, Patrick

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Quinlan, Patrick

PERSONAL:

Born in New York, NY; married Joy Scott.

ADDRESSES:

Agent— c/o Author Mail, St. Martin's Press, 175 5th Ave., New York, NY 10010. E-mail— patrick@patrickquinlan.com.

CAREER:

Journalist, political worker, and author.

WRITINGS:

Smoked (thriller novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2006.

The Takedown (thriller novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

A college creative writing class, taken on a whim, propelled Patrick Quinlan into novel writing, he stated in an interview on Authortrek. On the process of teaching and learning to write, Quinlan further commented: "I think good writing can be taught. Very definitely. Unfortunately, I also think that few people are qualified to teach it, and that most of what is taught is misleading or worse."

Quinlan's first novel, Smoked, is a "fast and furious debut thriller notable for a vintage collection of really rotten bad guys," commented a Kirkus Reviews contributor. The novel's title character, Smoke Dugan, is an explosives expert who makes bombs for the mob. Physically impaired, he is not known as a real tough guy. In fact, much of his reputation rests on the fact that his explosives and pyrotechnics have never harmed innocent people unconnected to the job. His skills, however, have consistently proven useful to associates such as Big Vito. When he finds out that one of his bombs has been used to down an airplane, killing innocents, he kills his boss, steals two million dollars, and flees to the Portland, Oregon, with his girlfriend, twenty-five-year-old martial arts expert Lola. No such deed goes unpunished in the mob, however, and soon Smoke finds himself the object of attention of some vile characters, including Stick, who got his name by sticking his knife into an enemy's eyes, and Moss, a huge and monstrous man who commits rape as easily and remorselessly as he kills anyone who crosses him. When Smoke realizes the type of characters who have found his trail and are fast closing in, his talents with homemade ordnance are all that keep him and Lola safe.

"Quinlan certainly knows how to handle a pageturner," observed Mike Stotter in Shots Magazine. The story offers "characters to care about, even the nogoods," commented the Kirkus Reviews critic. The novel will "absorb any fan of Bruckheimer blockbusters and everything else that goes boom," observed Timothy Gunatilaka in Entertainment Weekly. "No one reading Smoked would say that Quinlan has broken the mold; more like tinkered with the formula" of the revenge-driven, chase-fueled thriller, Stotter added. However, Stotter also concluded that the book is "certainly one of the better debut thrillers I've read this year."