The Pulitzer Prize-winning author returns to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved bestsellers Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool.
Richard Russo Book order
Richard Russo is the author of seven previous novels, two collections of stories, and a memoir. His works often explore the lives of ordinary people, delving into themes of community, family, and loss. Russo masterfully captures the irony and humor of everyday existence, crafting characters who are deeply human and relatable. His writing is celebrated for its empathy and keen observational detail.







- 2023
- 2019
Exploring the themes of destiny and talent, Richard Russo reflects on his journey as a writer through a series of eleven essays. He recounts the story of a former classmate, deemed the star of their fiction workshop, who seemed destined for literary success. Russo questions the nature of fate and the unpredictable paths that lead to a writer's emergence, pondering how he surpassed expectations and carved his own path in the literary world.
- 2019
Destroying Angel
- 176 pages
- 7 hours of reading
"Truly gripping . . . a lot more realistic than most near-future SF, as well as being just plain better written than most of it." — Science Fiction Chronicle In the crumbling San Francisco of tomorrow, a former narcotics-squad cop is reluctantly drawn into the investigation of a serial killer's return. Louis Tanner recognizes the ugly work of the Chain Killer, a maniac who dispatches his victims two at a time, welding the corpses together in a grotesque embrace and dumping them into a body of water. Tanner's troubled conscience from a previous case compels him to reunite with his former colleague, Frank Carlucci. Together, they enter the city's notorious red-light district, chasing a vicious drug dealer who forces them even deeper into the underworld — where police are powerless and the foulest criminals live in contempt of the law. Author Richard Paul Russo twice received the Philip K. Dick Award: in 1989, for his second novel, Subterranean Gallery, and in 2001 for Ship of Fools. This hard-boiled thriller is the first volume of the critically acclaimed Carlucci Trilogy, consisting of Destroying Angel, Carlucci's Edge, and Carlucci's Heart. All three works offer a gripping combination of classic noir mystery and futuristic cyberpunk fiction.
- 2019
Carlucci's Heart
- 352 pages
- 13 hours of reading
"One of the best blends of SF and mystery yet written." — Science Fiction Chronicle "Russo's San Francisco is very Bladerunner, though clearly written by somebody who knows that city well … The characters in this book are strong, the writing is solid." — SF Site In the San Francisco of the not-too-distant future, detective Frank Carlucci agrees to look into the disappearance of his daughter's friend. His investigations reveal layer upon layer of corruption and decay, culminating in the discovery of "Cancer Cell," a mysterious renegade medical group. Operating out of the city's anarchistic free-zone, these terrorists possess a bioengineered form of hemorrhagic fever — a modern-day plague with the potential to kill millions — that they're ready to turn loose on the world. Author Richard Paul Russo twice received the Philip K. Dick Award: in 1989, for his second novel, Subterranean Gallery, and in 2001 for Ship of Fools. This hard-boiled thriller is the third volume of the critically acclaimed Carlucci Trilogy, consisting of Destroying Angel, Carlucci's Edge, and Carlucci's Heart. All three works offer a gripping combination of classic noir mystery and futuristic cyberpunk fiction.
- 2019
A master of the novel, short story and memoir, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Everybody's Fool now gives us his very first collection of personal essays, thoughts on writing, reading and living.
- 2019
Carlucci's Edge
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
"Russo has an excellent eye for the urban landscape [and] the crime writer's well-tuned ear for vernacular … from street punks right up to the high-level officials." — Asimov's Science Fiction In the San Francisco of the future, technology advances while society declines. Against a vividly realized urban backdrop, one of the police force's last honest cops is trying to trace the connection between a series of seemingly unrelated murders. Detective Frank Carlucci manages to thwart his crooked department's efforts to block his investigations — only to discover an even deeper pit of corruption in the form of a black market run by political officials. Author Richard Paul Russo twice received the Philip K. Dick Award: in 1989, for his second novel, Subterranean Gallery, and in 2001 for Ship of Fools. This hard-boiled thriller is the second volume of the critically acclaimed Carlucci Trilogy, consisting of Destroying Angel, Carlucci's Edge, and Carlucci's Heart. All three works offer a gripping combination of classic noir mystery and futuristic cyberpunk fiction. "One of the best blends of SF and mystery yet written." — Science Fiction Chronicle "Russo's latest SF crime novel is mean streets, callous megacorps, venal politicians, and ordinary lowlifes in a jam … Russo's characters succeed in stirring our empathy, but their strangeness is what holds our attention." — Analog
- 2019
Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Russo's first standalone novel in a decade is a gripping story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship.
- 2018
It Occurs to Me That I Am America
- 400 pages
- 14 hours of reading
A provocative, unprecedented anthology featuring original short stories on what it means to be an American from thirty bestselling and award-winning authors with an introduction by Pulitzer Prizewinning author Viet Thanh Nguyen
- 2017
Trajectory
- 256 pages
- 9 hours of reading
This dazzling collection of four stories features characters bound together by their parallel moments of reckoning with their pasts—and proves the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls is also a master of the short story. “Beautiful…. Will abruptly break your heart.” —The New York Times The characters in these four expansive stories are a departure from the blue-collar denizens that populate so many of Richard Russo’s novels. In “Horseman,” a young professor confronts an undergraduate plagiarist—as well as her own regrets. In “Intervention,” a realtor facing a serious medical prognosis finds himself in his late father’s shadow. “Voice” gives us a semiretired academic who is conned by his estranged brother into joining a group tour of the Venice Biennale. And “Milton and Marcus” takes us into a lapsed novelist’s attempt to rekindle his screenwriting career—a career that depends wholly, at a crucial moment, on two Hollywood icons (one living, one dead). Look for Richard Russo's new book, Somebody's Fool, coming soon.
- 2016
Richard Russo's new novel takes place in the decaying American town of North Bath over the course of a very busy weekend, ten years after the events of Nobody's Fool. Donald 'Sully' Sullivan is trying to ignore his cardiologist's estimate that he has only a year or two left. Ruth, his long-time lover, is increasingly distracted by her former son-in-law, fresh out of prison and intent on making trouble. Police chief Doug Raymer is tormented by the improbable death of his wife, while local wiseguy Carl Roebuck might finally be running out of luck

