Rook - by Stephen G Eoannou (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Rook is based on the true story of Al Nussbaum. To his unsuspecting wife, Lolly, Al is a loving, chess playing, family man. To J. Edgar Hoover, he is the most cunning fugitive alive. Al is the mastermind behind a string of east coast robberies that has stumped law enforcement. After his partner, one-eyed Bobby Wilcoxson, kills a bank guard and wounds a New York City patrolman, Al is identified as one of the robbers and lands on top of the FBI's most wanted list. He is forced to flee his hometown of Buffalo, New York as the FBI closes in and Lolly learns of her husband's secret life.

While Al assumes another identity and attempts to elude the police, Lolly is left alone to care for their infant daughter and adjust to her new life as 'The Bank Robber's Wife'. Friends, family, and federal agents all pressure Lolly to betray Al. While Lolly struggles at home financially, with unrelenting FBI agents, and her conscious, Al and Bobby continue to rob banks, even as Bobby grows more mentally unstable and dangerous.

Al has only two goals: avoid capture and steal enough money to start a new life with his family. Returning to gather his wife and baby is suicidal, but as Al said, he'd only stick his neck in the Buffalo noose for Lolly.

Review Quotes

If Elmore Leonard wrote the Queen's Gambit, he'd have written Rook. Set aside some time when you start Eoannou's true tale of Tommy guns, small-time hoods, and high-stakes chess because you won't want to put it down until checkmate.

-Daren Wang, Author of The Hidden Light of Northern Fires.

A terrific Technicolor Noir that lives and breathes in the period. If I hadn't been told, I would've thought I was reading a lost paperback classic from sixty years ago. Clever, literate, and fun, Rook is right down my dark alley.

-Ace Atkins, New York Times Bestselling author of The Revelators and The Heathens

Stephen Eoannou has performed a remarkable feat with his novel Rook. First, he has detailed the little-known story of an ingenious bank robber, Al Nussbaum, who FBI director J. Edgar Hoover once called "the most cunning fugitive in the country." Second, Eoannou has dramatized how Nussbaum's obsession with bank robbery as an art form trapped him and his family in a downward spiral of shame and frustrated hope. Brilliant.

-Charles Kelly, author of Gunshots in Another Room: The Forgotten Life of Dan J. Marlowe.