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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260919T170000
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SUMMARY:Don Winslow Brings Crime\, Corruption and The Final Score to Mystic & Noank Library Author Talk
DESCRIPTION:Don Winslow Brings Crime\, Corruption and The Final Score to Mystic & Noank Library Author Talk on Saturday\, Sept. 19\, when the bestselling crime novelist sits down with writer and longtime local arts journalist Rick Koster inside Snediker Yacht Restoration in Old Mystic. \nThe Mystic & Noank Library’s fifth annual Author Talk runs from 5 to 7 p.m.\, beginning with an hour-long reception featuring wine and hors d’oeuvres before Winslow and Koster take over the conversation at 6 p.m. Bank Square Books will also be there with copies of Winslow’s books available for purchase. \nThis isn’t simply a stop on a book tour. The $125-per-person evening is one of the library’s major annual fundraisers\, with proceeds helping support its programs and services. It also brings together an interesting combination: a crime writer who grew up in coastal Rhode Island\, a Connecticut journalist and novelist who has spent decades writing about this corner of New England\, and a working Old Mystic boat shop devoted to preserving vessels from another era. \nDon Winslow Took a Long Road to Crime Fiction\nBefore Don Winslow became a bestselling novelist\, he accumulated the kind of résumé that sounds suspiciously like research for one. \nThe son of a sailor and a librarian\, Winslow grew up in a small coastal community in Rhode Island. He left at 17 to study journalism at the University of Nebraska\, where he also earned a degree in African Studies. \nThen things got less conventional. \nWinslow traveled through southern Africa\, worked as a movie theater manager in New York and became a private investigator in Times Square. He earned a master’s degree in military history\, worked for a photographic safari company in Kenya\, led hiking expeditions in China and directed Shakespeare productions during summers in Oxford\, England. \nThrough all of it\, he was writing. \nHis first novel\, A Cool Breeze on the Underground\, introduced private investigator Neal Carey and earned an Edgar Award nomination. Investigative work later took Winslow and his family to California\, where they lived in hotels for nearly three years while he worked cases and served as a trial consultant. \nEventually\, a publishing and film deal for The Death and Life of Bobby Z allowed him to leave investigative work behind and write full time. \nThe detective work\, travel and years spent watching people in unusual circumstances left fingerprints all over the fiction that followed. \nFrom The Power of the Dog to City on Fire\nWinslow has written more than 20 novels\, but two sprawling crime sagas account for a large part of his reputation. \nThe Power of the Dog\, published in 2005\, opened an ambitious fictional chronicle of the drug trade and the decades-long conflict surrounding it. Winslow continued the story with The Cartel and The Border\, creating a trilogy stretching across roughly four decades of the war on drugs. \nThen he came back toward home. \nCity on Fire\, published in 2022\, begins another trilogy\, this time centered on Irish and Italian organized-crime families in Rhode Island. City of Dreams followed in 2023 and City in Ruins completed the trilogy in 2024. \nThe Rhode Island setting brings Winslow’s crime fiction back to the landscape where he grew up. It’s also likely to give Saturday’s Old Mystic audience something familiar beneath the gunfire and betrayals: coastal New England\, family loyalties\, neighborhood identities and communities where everybody seems separated by only a few degrees. \nWinslow’s books have also repeatedly attracted Hollywood. Savages became a 2012 Oliver Stone film\, while The Death and Life of Bobby Z was adapted for the screen earlier. His work has drawn interest over the years from filmmakers and actors including Michael Mann\, Martin Scorsese\, Ridley Scott\, Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio. \nSix Crimes\, Six Stories in The Final Score\nSaturday’s conversation arrives with a newer book on the table. \nThe Final Score trades the enormous canvas of Winslow’s trilogies for six shorter crime novellas. The stories stand independently\, but Winslow returns to familiar territory: criminals making calculations\, ordinary people being pushed into extraordinary choices\, corruption\, loyalty and the moment when somebody decides the risk is worth taking. \nThe title story begins with an irresistible premise for crime fiction: an impossible multimillion-dollar casino robbery. \nA legendary thief facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars sees precisely what everyone else sees. The score can’t be pulled off. \nThat’s what makes him want to do it. \nElsewhere\, a college-bound teenager delivering illegal alcohol finds his future threatened by a crooked police officer\, a customer and a phony guru. Two mobsters swap stories over breakfast in another tale\, while The North Wing puts an otherwise honest patrol officer between loyalty to his profession and loyalty to a troublesome cousin. \nThe shorter form changes the machinery. Winslow doesn’t have hundreds of pages to slowly tighten the screws. Characters have to arrive quickly\, choices have to matter almost immediately and the trapdoor beneath them can’t take forever to open. \nThose six stories\, along with the much larger novels that preceded them\, give Koster plenty to work with Saturday night. \nRick Koster Takes the Other Chair\nThe person asking the questions is a writer himself. \nRick Koster spent decades as an arts journalist and columnist at The Day in New London\, covering music\, books\, food and the cultural life of southeastern Connecticut. Before journalism\, he spent years playing rock music\, and he’s also the author of several books. \nHis fiction includes White Ghost Blues\, a supernatural story steeped in New Orleans music\, along with other novels and nonfiction. \nKoster has become a familiar interviewer for the Mystic & Noank Library’s annual event. He also sat across from bestselling Connecticut novelist Wally Lamb during the library’s 2025 fundraiser at Snediker. \nThat local connection should make Saturday’s conversation different from a generic promotional interview. Winslow grew up in coastal Rhode Island and later returned to the state as the setting for the City on Fire trilogy. Koster has spent much of his professional life documenting southeastern Connecticut and its arts community. \nThere’s plenty of common New England ground between them. \nA Book Talk Inside a Wooden Boat Shop\nThe setting might be the most unusual part of the evening. \nSnediker Yacht Restoration isn’t an event hall dressed to resemble a boat shop. It’s the real thing. \nThe Old Mystic company has spent more than 30 years building\, repairing and restoring classic wooden boats using traditional construction techniques. Its small crew collectively represents about 150 years of boatbuilding experience. \nThe projects vary dramatically. Some boats return to the water to race or cruise. Others are museum pieces that may never sail again. \nAmong Snediker’s recent restorations is The Kid\, the last surviving American Yacht Club One-Design Class Raceabout. Designed by B.B. Crowninshield and built by Rice Brothers in 1902\, the boat was originally constructed for yachtsman Oliver Harriman Jr. and later raced on Long Island Sound under owner Clifford D. Mallory as Cliphora. Following an extensive restoration at Snediker\, the century-old boat sailed again. \nFor an author fundraiser in Mystic\, it’s hard to imagine a setting more rooted in the character of the region: wooden hulls\, old boats and the smell and machinery of a working restoration shop rather than rows of seats in a hotel ballroom. \nThe library has made the location part of the tradition\, too. Its 2024 annual report notes that author and historian Hampton Sides appeared for a fundraiser at Snediker while promoting The Wide Wide Sea. Wally Lamb followed in 2025 with The River Is Waiting. \nNow Winslow becomes the fifth annual Author Talk’s featured writer. \nAn Evening That Supports the Library\nBefore the books take center stage\, the evening begins socially. \nDoors open for a reception from 5 to 6 p.m.\, with drinks and hors d’oeuvres included in admission. Bank Square Books will offer Winslow’s books for sale\, and the conversation with Koster follows from 6 to 7 p.m. \nThe library will also recognize its 2026 Volunteers of the Year\, Friends of the Library Co-Presidents Kathy Busse and Patricia Menno-Coveney\, for their service to the organization and community. \nMost importantly\, the night raises money. \nThe Mystic & Noank Library is a nonprofit organization\, and the Author Talk is part of its 2026 annual fundraising effort. Proceeds help sustain and expand the library’s programs and services. Tickets are limited\, and the library says it expects the event to sell out. \nSo\, yes\, there’s a bestselling crime writer in the middle of a wooden-boat restoration shop on Saturday night. \nBut there’s also a library behind him. \nMore information is available at the Event Website link below. \nTo purchase tickets\, click the Event Ticketing link below. \nDetails\nEvent: 5th Annual Author Talk with Don Winslow at Snediker Yacht Restoration\nDate: Saturday\, Sept. 19\, 2026\nTime: 5–7 p.m.\nReception: 5–6 p.m. with drinks and hors d’oeuvres\nAuthor Conversation: 6–7 p.m.\nFeatured Author: Don Winslow\nInterviewer: Rick Koster\nFeatured Book: The Final Score\nLocation: Snediker Yacht Restoration\nAddress: 35 Campground Road\, Old Mystic\, CT 06372\nAdmission: $125 per person\nAge Group: Adults\nBooks: Bank Square Books will have Winslow’s books available for purchase\nFundraiser: Proceeds support Mystic & Noank Library programs and services\nHonorees: 2026 Volunteers of the Year Kathy Busse and Patricia Menno-Coveney\, co-presidents of the Friends of the Mystic & Noank Library\nAvailability: Space is limited\, and the library expects the event to sell out\nContact: Chris Bradley\, 860-536-7721 \n  \n  \nFeatured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people\, location\, or activities shown.
URL:https://thectbeacon.com/event/don-winslow-brings-crime-corruption-and-the-final-score-to-mystic-noank-library-author-talk/
LOCATION:Snediker Yacht Restoration\, 35 Campground Rd\, Old Mystic\, 06355\, United States
CATEGORIES:Snediker Yacht Restoration
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