False Negative Paperback - 2012

Media reviews

"Twenty years after Brides of Blood, Koenig weighs in with another gritty, no-holds-barred, hard-boiled whodunit set in the 1950s. Gifted journalist Adam Jordan, too tired to attend a congressman’s routine speech, fakes an article, only to learn later from his editor that the politician dropped dead before going on stage to deliver it. Now a pariah, Jordan manages only to land work with a seedy New York City true crime magazine, Real Detective. When he tries to solve the fetishistic strangulation murder of an attractive 22-year-old waitress found hog-tied on a Long Island beach, his probing leads him to more corpses and a narrow escape from death. Razor-sharp prose (e.g., “Wing’s dreams were short on specifics until he was in New York with a knife in his pocket”) and a fast-moving plot will please Mickey Spillane and Cornell Woolrich fans. With any luck, readers won’t have to wait another 20 years for Koenig’s next book." - Publisher's Weekly

Joseph Koenig (author of Little Odessa and Brides of Blood) returns from a 20-year absence from the publishing scene with a whopper of a thriller. While written in modern-day America, Koenig captures all the spirit and flavor of the 1950s. - Celebrity Cafe

“False Negative marks the return of a writer who knows dialog, colorful yet real characters, and how to make an original premise.” – Comic Attack