Moe Prager Mysteries

Beginning in the year 1978, the series runs into the near past. The series features Moses "Moe" Prager. Prager was a NYPD patrolman until he was injured in a freak accident in 1977. Retired, Moe goes into the wine business with his older brother Aaron, but he yearns for his old job and becomes a PI. The series turns the preconceived notions of hard-boiled PI novels on their ears. Moe is haunted not by what he did on the job, but by a the destructive secrets he keeps. He lives by the words of Faulkner. For Moe, the past is never dead. It isn't even past.

Points of Interest:
Moe Prager is an outgrowth of a character named Moe Einstein. Reed wrote two unpublished novels featuring Einstein. If you read the novels carefully, you'll notice that Coney Island is as central to these books as any of the animate characters. The third book in the series, The James Deans, won the Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Awards for Best Paperback Original. The book was also nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, and Gumshoe Awards. Parts of this series have been published by Permanent Press, Viking (Penguin), Plume(Penguin), Bleak House Books, and Busted Flush Press.