Advance Praise for The Atonement Murders

“The premise of The Atonement Murders is indisputably witty. A particularly merciless serial killer eliminates, apparently randomly, persons he witnesses in public spaces reading a certain novel. Because he doesn’t like this novel? Because he doesn’t like fiction in general? I don’t want to be a spoiler! But let me say that I admire the work of Aldrich Simons a great deal. I only wish that he had lived longer so as to add to the very promising pair of mysteries he produced. This reissue makes available to the reading public the better of those scabrous early twenty-first century crime novels. You owe it to yourself.”

–Marie Norquist Ames,
Author of Red Creek Precinct

“The sophisticated murder mystery, at this late date, derives its dramatic tension not from the detention of the criminal and the reimposition of social order, but from the public’s secret desire to identify with the miscreant. In order for this identification to take place, the crime itself must appear, in some way, however distantly, warranted. In few recent examples has this creative tension been exploited as richly as in Aldrich Simons’s The Atonement Murders. One must go back as far as Milton’s infernal rebel to find a malcontent as articulate as D. L. Sweeney, literary critic turned psychopath. The notes he leaves at the crimes, alone, would make a fine novel. And yet here there is so much more.”

–Norman Springer, Ph.D.,
Author of Deviant Behavior in Popular Culture

“I too hate the work of the British novelist so energetically lampooned in Aldrich Simons’s memorable crime novel. How frequent, how sad, and yet ultimately how hilarious are the epics of schadenfreude. Perhaps envy killed Aldrich Simons as it killed his best known stand-in, D. L. Sweeney. Our professional feelings about our fellow writers do not have to be so fraught, so consuming, so acutely uncomfortable. And yet the result here, fashioned from this disgraceful motive, is a fine work, well worth reading and rereading.”

–Nicholas Person,
Author of The Rose of Astoria

“It was my good fortune to be acquainted with Aldrich Simons while he was living. He was a charming, hilarious guy, if on the miserable side. I remember more than a few of his drunk-by-nine-in-the-morning telephone calls. When a guy you don’t know well calls you first thing, slurring as if with a mouthful of marbles, to tell you that he’s finally written a masterpiece, you are naturally skeptical. Masterpiece? The premise here is ridiculous. The setting is grim (Omaha, Nebraska). Still, The Atonement Murders does rise to the level of a masterpiece. An unlikely one, perhaps, but did that ever make a book less sweet?”

–Jeffrey Gould-Blunt,
President, American Association of Mystery Writers

“For all its problems, the fiction at the centre of Simons’s metafictional bloodbath, Ian McEwan’s Atonement, does propose regret as a precondition of consciousness and/or human identity. This understanding of regret—in which it is hardwired into psychology—apparently resonates with many readers, thus the international acclaim. D. B. Sweeney, the murderous literary critic with the Yale French Studies pedigree—who has more meat stored in his freezer than a Midwestern slaughterhouse—has no such regret. What a life of liberty he must have led. The symbolism of the letter opener, weapon of choice in so many of Sweeney’s merciless crimes, indicates the desire this felon has to pass beyond the limitations of the lettre into the prehistory of language. This is why Aldrich Simons’s novel is still a must-read. Even if you don’t understand the object petit a, you will find plenty to love in his topography of the unruly unconscious.”

–Michael Silverstein, M.A.,
Author of Totem and Icon in the Films of Catalonia

“A deeply disturbed work by a deeply disturbed man. A man who found no pleasure in the world, and no pleasure in his book. Don’t expect me to say anything nice about it. If you are wanting to spend time with a book about people who get killed because of whatever they happened to be reading that week, fine, have fun. But remember that the next person to get killed could be you, just because you’re reading The Atonement Murders.”

–Ellen Sofia Napier,
American Library Association

“Cruel . . . sadistic . . . inflammatory . . . rambunctious . . . adolescent . . . malevolent . . . embarrassing . . . ill-humored . . . arrogant . . . hilarious . . . inspiring . . . sloppy . . . faultless . . . sinful . . . blameless . . . impetuous . . . nasty . . . delinquent . . . fratricidal . . . unobstructed . . . provocative . . . vegetal . . . unmasked . . . undercooked . . . disreputable . . . monumental . . . crass . . . gives American literature a bad name.”

–Omaha Daily News

“Is this meant to be funny? I actually was reading a copy of Atonement one Saturday in Omaha during the period described in Alrdich Simons’s book. I was reading the book because my wife gave it to me for my birthday. I’d lost my job at the travel agency. I thought it was important for me to get outside. Anything to avoid turning on afternoon talk shows! So, like I was saying, I was in the park, and I was reading Atonement, a book I didn’t care for all that much. I thought it was kind of slow, if you know what I mean. The war parts are just ridiculous. I took out this book by Simons from the public library, because it was recommended by a staff person. And what did I find? The book describes a man just like myself, reading Atonement in a park, coming to a grisly end. Was Simons watching my house? Was he some kind of creep? I’ve never done anything to hurt anyone. I have mostly just kept to myself, except to go to church or to the movies. This Simons fellow is deceased now, and that makes me breathe a little easier. I don’t want any kind of trouble. I think readers should be left alone to read whatever kinds of books they feel like reading. You know?”

–Herman Goodrich,
Omaha, Nebraska