Reaching for the rat-a-tat, “boil it hard—harder!” style of Mickey Spillane, Milwaukee’s Douglas Armstrong has penned a crime novel, Life on the Sun, that unfolds during the time of the Vietnam War. The setting he knows well: Armstrong was a reporter for many years (and eventually film critic) at the sadly defunct Milwaukee Journal and probably remembers the clack-clack of Underwoods on deadline. In Life on the Sun, a fire of suspicious origins on the city’s South Side turns up the body of a notorious draft dodger and fugitive (who happens to be the son of a conservative city official). Will a cub reporter trace the clues to their source? The plot thickens from then on.
Armstrong will talk about Life on the Sun at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 31, at Boswell Book Company.
