Kenneth K j a Wishnia Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Filomena Buscarsela Books
23 Shades of Black | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Soft Money | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
The Glass Factory | (2000) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Red House | (2001) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Blood Lake | (2002) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
The Fifth Servant | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
Flat Rate and Other Tales of Mystery and Weirdness | (1998) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Twentieth Century Ecuadorian Narrative | (1999) | Description / Buy at Amazon |
Publication Order of Akashic Noir Books
Philadelphia Noir | (2010) | Description / Buy at Amazon | ||
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Publication Order of Anthologies
Kenneth K j a Wishnia is a published American author of fiction. He also goes by the full name of Kenneth Wishnia. His full name is Kenneth John Alexander Wishnia.
Wishnia was born in 1969 in Hanover, New Hampshire. He says that he was born into a group of traveling academics. He attended Brown University and graduated in 1982 with his B.A. He would then go on to attend SUNY Stony Brook and would graduate in 1996 with his Ph.D. in the field of comparative literature.
He resides in Long Island, New York. He is married and his wife is originally from Ecuador. They have two children together. He has taught classes on writing, English, and literature for SUNY Suffolk and Suffolk Community College (located on Long Island in Brentwood).
His debut novel was titled 23 Shades of Black and was published in 1997. This would be the start of the introduction of the character Filomena Buscarsela and the beginning of a series of fictional novels by the same name. The book did well and was nominated in 1998 to be the best first novel category winner for the Edgar Award and Anthony Award (it ended up making the short list). He would follow that first book up with the second installment, Soft Money, in 1999. Books to follow would be The Glass Factory, Red House, and the fifth book Blood Lake in 2002.
The 23 Shades book would also be nominated as a best first novel for the Edgar Allen Poe Award. Soft Money was named a best mystery of the year by Library Journal, and Red House was a book of the year from the Washington Post Book World. He has also written a stand alone fictional novel that was released in 2010 titled The Fifth Servant. The book was named a ‘best Jewish book’ of the year from Association of Jewish Libraries and the Jewish Press. It was a selection for Indie Notable, was named a Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Award finalist, and won the Premio Letterario ADEI-WIZO.
Wishnia has also had other types of work featured in print as well. Short stories written by the author have been featured in publications such as Long Island Noir, Queens Noir, Send My Love and a Molotov Cocktail, Alfred Hitchcock, and Ellery Queen, as well as others. He has also edited Jewish Noir, an anthology that was nominated for an Anthony Award.
23 Shades of Black is the first novel to come out in the Filomena Buscarsela fictional series of novels by author K.J.A. Wishnia. This is where readers get to meet the main character by the same name for the first time.
Filomena didn’t always live in America. She was born in Ecuador and lived in poverty high up in the mountains. But things have changed, and since she has moved to America her identity has changed with it. These days she is no different from any other New Yorker, walking down the street with her own identity and voice as well as street smarts and a wicked sense of humor.
She wants nothing more than to spend her life helping other people. She’s successfully joined up with the NYPD and is not only one of the few women working in a job that is mostly men, but she’s also a person of color in that same situation where most of the men are white. It’s a difficult situation to be in and her fellow coworkers are not always the nicest to her because of it.
She’s been on the force now for five years and thinks that in the course of that time that she has seen it all. There’s always something new potentially waiting around the corner, however. Filomena is shocked when a toxic leak provides her with a victim that she actually recognizes. Even though the fatal leak happened outside of her jurisdiction, her gut is telling her that something is off.
She starts her own investigation in the middle of nineteen eighties New York and from that moment, it’s game on. She’s led everywhere from her modest apartment in the Bronx to clubs that she’s never been in on the Lower East Side. She’s starting to wonder where this is a case of corporate-driven environmental crime.
As she looks further into things, she’s starting to think that this was not just an accident– it was murder. Could corporate executives at the top of the food chain be turning to killing people? Are they that desperate to make sure that their bottom line is protected? That just may be the case, but even if she can confirm it, she has to live to tell the tale and prove it. Can this cop take down those responsible? Read the exciting first book in this series to find out!
Soft Money is the second installment of the Filomena Buscarsela series by Kenneth Wishnia. In the first novel, readers get to meet this Ecuadorian turned New Yorker for the first time and see her life as a cop. Now she’s turned in her uniform.
Once a cop, always a cop, but now Officer Filomena has officially left the force. It was kind of necessary as she wanted to be there for her child as a single parent with all the challenges that provides. Still, she has not lost any of her passion or her drive for justice.
Set in New York City in the eighties, Filomena just can’t seem to escape crime. She’s surprised and horrified when her local neighborhood bodega store owner’s ends up murdered. She knows that this is probably just going to be another case of a crime against an ethnic person that will likely filter through to nowhere before falling through the cracks.
She doesn’t want to see the death go without justice served. So she decides to get involved. Filomena teams up with a newer cop to try and get on the ground to figure out what’s gong on. On the streets, they’re searching for the person or people responsible for taking the life of someone who never did anything to harm anyone.
New York’s a big place, with plenty of criminals in it. Can Filomena find the right one without getting into too much trouble? Read this sequel to find out!
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