Northwoods Standoff

Northwoods Standoff, Thomas Sparrow’s final installment in the continuing adventures of Keith Waverly, has been released as a trade paperback and is available at both offline and online bookstores.Sparrow’s debut book, Northwoods Pulp â€" Four Tales of Crime and Weirdness, was released in 1999. It included three short stories and one short novel, “Social Climbing,” which provided the setting for his second crime novel, Fatally Flawed. Northwoods Pulp was nominated for the 1999 Northeastern Minnesota Book Awards and enjoyed sales on both coasts and in the United Kingdom, as well as in the Midwest. The publisher negotiated sale of foreign translation rights with the Tokyo, Japan-based Fusosha publishing house for “Social Climbing,” which, after a delay, now scheduled to appear in Japanese bookstores in the spring of 2005. Protagonist Keith Waverly, who was having a bit of trouble in “Social Climbing,” thought he ought to take a little trip, at least until things in Hammond cooled down a little. Fatally Flawed chronicled that journey and Waverly’s downward spiral in his desperate search for the American Dream. Now, in Northwoods Standoff, Waverly returns to the north woods in search of peace, redemption and the child he left behind. What he finds, however, is another story.Sparrow’s writing continues in the tradition of Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino and Jim Thompson and remains true to the spirit of the pulp fiction genre first made popular in the 1940’s. His protagonists find themselves at odds with both conventional life and life outside convention. Looking for a way to break free without giving in, each tries to control his fate up p, but all end awns in someone else’s bigger game.