From the Publisher
Winner of the 2006 Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) for Best Mystery/Suspense/Thriller!
This gritty detective thriller, set in New York City, relates one African-American man's riveting quest for truth and redemption.
Framed for murder during a failed drug bust, former NYPD officer John Shannon spends two years in jail before his release on appeal. Eager to find the true killer and clear his name, he enjoys two scant minutes of freedom before being brutally arrested, knocked unconscious, and whisked away to the Office of Municipal Security, run by a former CIA director. Refusing their job offer, Shannon heads home to make amends with his estranged wife and discovers terrifying news: his teenage son J. J., who has become mixed up with a drug gang, has been kidnapped. Shannon's desperate search for J. J. is complicated by a new warrant for his arrest, the mysterious murder of his former partner, and Shannon's personal struggle with anger, violence, and justice.
Written in the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Walter Mosley, this is the first in a series of thrillers featuring the compelling character of John Shannon.
Click here to download Book Club Questions for The Long Mile, prepared by author Clyde W. Ford!
Biography
Clyde W. Ford is a media-savvy author and in-demand public speaker. A native of New York City, he graduated from Wesleyan University in Connecticut, then Western States Chiropractic College. He is the author of four books: Where Healing Waters Meet: Touching Mind and Emotion Through the Body (1989, Station Hill Press); Compassionate Touch: The Body's Role in Healing and Recovery (1991, Simon & Schuster; reprinted 1999, NorthAtlantic Press); We CAN All Get Along: 50 Steps You Can Take to Help End Racism (1993, Dell); The Hero With an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa (1999, Bantam). For his groundbreaking work in mythology, Jonathan Young, Founding Curator of the Joseph Campbell Library described Clyde as "picking up where Joseph Campbell left off."
As a featured guest, Clyde has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss his writing and his work in human rights; on New Dimensions, the National Public Radio program hosted by Michael Toms; and on more than 150 radio and television programs across the nation. His numerous articles and interviews have appeared in professional journals, newspapers, magazines, and on the Internet.
Clyde has taught a wide variety of subjects at institutions around the country and in Europe including Swahili at Columbia University, Mathematics at the State University of New York, African American History at Western Washington University, and Somatic Psychology at the Instit|t f|r Angewandte Kinesiologie in Frieburg, Germany.
Clyde has traveled widely throughout sub-Saharan Africa. He currently lives in Bellingham, Washington where he maintains a private practice as a chiropractor and psychotherapist specializing in somatic psychology and the therapeutic use of myth. He enjoys his time aboard Mystic Voyager, his 30-foot trawler, writing, and cruising the waters of the Pacific Northwest and the Inside Passage.
Publishers Weekly
Desperation and hope fuel Ford's angry narrative concerning a wrongly convicted black detective, but no amount of action and bloodshed can make up for an overly familiar plot. After serving two years of a sentence for a murder he didn't commit, former NYPD detective John Shannon is let loose on appeal only to find that his 14-year-old son has been kidnapped. What happens next is thoroughly predictable, including plenty of gunplay and some dubious prison philosophy courtesy of Shannon's cellmate Charles Promise. The reader waits in vain for some innovation, some new twist we haven't encountered before amid the unrelievedly downbeat depiction of the underworld and its denizens. Alas, we've walked this long mile too many times before. Ford is also the author of the well-received study The Hero with an African Face: Mythic Wisdom of Traditional Africa. Agent, Natasha Kern Literary Agency. (Oct.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
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Long Mile