Dry Heat

Overview

Dry Heat is a crime novel about a young man who loses everything but his heart.

The day All-American Joey Blade turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, is betrayed by his new girlfriend, and is arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers. Then things get bad.

Dry Heat will appeal to readers who enjoy suspense thrillers like Noah Hawley's Before the Fall or heartfelt sagas like Nickolas Butler's Hearts of Men.

Reviews

On Everyone Dies Famous: "Len Joy's Everyone Dies Famous is a clear-eyed examination of how we live in an uncertain world. By creating imminently understandable characters and skillfully linking them to a specific landscape, one that is so evocatively described, he shows us all the ways in which we're connected, how fragile those threads are. In clear prose, Joy does real work here. I'm grateful for it." —Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

 

". . . a striking depiction of small-town America at the dawn of the 21st century." —Kirkus Reviews

 

"Len Joy is a writer with a heart. Learn something from him." —Sasson Magazine

 

". . . Everyone Dies Famous looks through a keyhole at one group of people to reveal the parallels in all of us. Like with all great works of fiction, this story makes me think of the writing adage: The macro in the micro." —Margaret Lukas, author of River People

 

"This is the first Len Joy book I have read but it won't be the last. There's something magical about Joy's writing that keeps the reader hooked to the story unil the end." —Dehka, The Book Decoder

 

". . . Len Joy creates a tight circle with his novel, tying the end back to the beginning. It starts with a Prologue that in an ironic twist of the term 'Prologue' focuses on the end of the book, and we begin to understand the devastation---and the redemption---of living in a small town" —Melissa Gouty, LiteratureLust.com

"The dry heat which is the title of his story is present both in a physical and a metaphysical manner, and is creatively described in passages which link Joey to the world in many different ways: 'The temperature was already into the eighties and the sun was still just below the horizon. It felt comfortable running. That was the danger of dry heat. Your body didn't notice the heat like it did when there was humidity. Sweat quickly evaporated, making the body feel cool. But stay out there too long and the dry heat would kill you before you knew what hit you.'" --Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

Author Biography

Len Joy is the author of four books that have have received shining reviews and several awards. Everyone Dies Famous, published in 2020, won 1st Prize in the 2020 Top Shelf Book Awards and was described by Kirkus as ". . .a striking depiction of small-town America at the dawn of the 21st century." NY Times bestselling author Kevin Wilson described it as "A clear-eyed examination of how we live in an uncertain world. . . In clear prose, Joy does real work here. I'm grateful for it." Len lives in Evanston, Illinois with his wife Suzanne.