Reporter Offers Perspective on Newark at Talk Thursday

Brad Parks, a former Star-Legder journalist turned award-winning crime novelist, will be returning to the city Thursday for a talk entitled “The Reporter’s Newark.”

The talk will be held at the Newark Public Library, 5 Washington St., at noon and is co-sponsored by the Rotary Club of Newark.

During his years chronicling life in New Jersey’s largest city, Parks came to understand that Newark was the kind of place that invited media to test out their own biases. If they came to town wanting to tell the “Newark: City on the rise” story, it was there for them. If they wanted to spin a “Newark: Still the same old troubled place” story, they could do that, too.

The truth, as Parks found it, was more complicated. Whether it was reporting on senseless street violence, writing about the city’s thriving non-profit community or delving into the city’s past for a four-part series about the 1967 riots, the Newark he discovered was a complex, fascinating place, one both rooted in its history and yet ever-evolving into something new.

It’s a reality he now tries to reflect as the author of a series of mysteries set in Newark. Featuring intrepid investigative reporter Carter Ross, Parks’s first book, Faces of the Gone, became the first in history to win both the Nero and the Shamus Award, two of crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes. The third in the series, The Girl Next Door, was named one of the 100 best works of fiction of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews and was awarded the Lefty Award for most humorous mystery of 2012 by Left Coast Crime. The fourth, The Good Cop, has recently been published.