This City Breathing - by Chad Dean (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This City Breathing

Allen Wentworth has been alone for a long time. He is a decent, quiet man. He minds his own business. No one expects anything from him, and all he has ever wanted is to be left in peace. A retirement well-earned. It's just what Allen deserves. After accidentally staying inside his Baltimore rowhouse for over a decade, Allen's precious isolation is threatened by an unforeseen financial inconvenience. The city he must navigate now is one he knows only through accounts - nonfiction and otherwise - he has seen on TV or read about in the news. Exposed in a city unsafe, where breathing freely is not guaranteed, Allen finds an experience that might shake his understanding of the world, and his place in it.

Review Quotes

In Chad Dean's 21st century noir -The City Breathing- the author posits: "Everything is much worse now. Especially in Baltimore." While I could write an evangelical tract taking exception to this widely held notion (life is hard/life is good), there is more than a little evidence to support the decline. For the love of Pete, the long-time G&A diner in the heart of Highlandtown just packed up its chili dogs and moved to the county after nearly a century at the corner of Eastern and Eaton. Dean's novel, however, makes the bad stuff a little easier to take (a spoonful of Old Bay helps the chicken wings go down) simply by allowing the reader to fall into a labyrinth of compelling narrative. As my father likes to say, be a good fellow. Don't borrow this book from the local library. Go out and buy it.

- Rafael Alvarez, author, the Orlo and Leini tales.