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WORK TITLE: The Hell of It All
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://bobkroll.net/
CITY: Halifax
STATE: NS
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
http://bobkroll.net/Bob_Kroll/Welcome.html * https://murderincommon.com/2017/03/08/bob-kroll-the-hell-of-it-all-qa/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: n 85330503
Personal name heading:
Kroll, Robert E., 1947-
Variant(s): Kroll, Bob, 1947-
Found in: Fetch. Intimate fragments, c1985: t.p. (Robert E. Kroll)
NLC 1-15-86 (AACR 2: Kroll, Robert E., 1947- )
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
PERSONAL
Born 1947.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
Also author of stage plays, radio dramas, TV documentaries, and historical docu-dramas for Canadian and American museums.
SIDELIGHTS
Bob Kroll has written about crime in Halifax, Canada, since the 1970s. Kroll is the author of the “True Stories of Maritime Lives and Legends” nonfiction series, which includes 2011’s Rogues and Rascals and 2013’s Scamps and Scoundrels.
The Drop Zone
In 2015 Kroll published the novel The Drop Zone. Detective T.J. Peterson is stressed by his job and life in general but finds solace in drinking away his sorrows. His estranged daughter frequently video calls him creating even more drama in his life. At work, he is tasked with the murder of a Catholic priest, who was beaten to death inside the church. An unidentified woman’s body then adds to his workload. He believes that a troubled teenager is a witness to the murder and must delve into his world of underage prostitution and human trafficking in order to find the killer.
In an interview in the Murder in Common Website, Kroll shared that Peterson’s character has always been a part of his being, admitting that “he has been like a shadow, both literally and figuratively.” In the same interview, Kroll also talked about how the city of Halifax fits into the series. “The dark atmosphere in my writing comes from years of researching Halifax’s historic underworld. So when it came time to create a setting for my crime novels, I could not help but make it Halifax.”
A contributor to the Lost in the Rain Website mentioned that “the overall feel of the book was like film noir, gritty, and real. Kroll brings us such a beautifully flawed character with Peterson. Flawed, resilient, frustrated, and combating his own demons.” In a review in the Chronicle Herald, Joann Alberstat recorded that “this book’s plot has a local flavour, with more than one true-life crime story woven into the mix. And Kroll’s broadcast background is apparent in the snappy dialogue and ever-moving action.” Alberstat reasoned that “nothing seems too dark and murky for Peterson, making Kroll’s crime fiction an engrossing read.”
The Hell of It All
Kroll published the novel The Hell of It All in 2017. Peterson has become distant from his friends and relies too heavily on his ex for getting any work. And his daughter continues to send him cryptic phone messages. When a recently released convict makes revenge against Peterson his main purpose in life, Peterson finds that he is in mortal danger. Kroll must once again explore Halifax’s dark underbelly in order to root out his would-be attacker before he gets the better of him.
A contributor to Publishers Weekly said that there is “enough dark wit and intricate plot to make this worth a read.” However, the contributor lamented that the novel “lacks the finesse of the hardboiled greats.” In a review on the Atlantic Books Today Website, Corey Redekop remarked that “the the mystery itself is solid, the plot machinations logical and Peterson is an engagingly pessimistic (if thoroughly miserable) protagonist. Kroll understands that no matter how complicated the mystery it’s the personalities populating the pages that keep readers coming back. He takes pain to root his story in character as much as plot.” Redekop concluded that the novel “may stumble occasionally, but it’s a solid crime thriller that leaves the reader wanting more, if, arguably, less enthusiastic about visiting Halifax.” A contributor to the Lost in the Rain Website pointed out the existence of “a considerable amount of dialogue in the novel, many different characters to keep track of—quite a bit of cop speak,” but admitted that “this just adds to the atmosphere Kroll has created.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2017, review of The Hell of It All, p. 40.
ONLINE
Atlantic Books Today, http://atlanticbookstoday.ca/ (August 31, 2017), Corey Redekop, review of Hell of It All.
Chronicle Herald, http://thechronicleherald.ca/ (July 19, 2015), Joann Alberstat, review of Drop Zone.
Lost in the Rain, https://www.lostintherain.com/ (December 1, 2015), review of Drop Zone; (April 29, 2017), review of Hell of It All.
Murder in Common, https://murderincommon.com/ (March 8, 2017), June Lorraine Roberts, author interview.*
Bob Kroll
USA flag
Full name: Robert E. Kroll
Bob Kroll has been writing professionally for more than thirty-five years. His work includes books, stage plays, radio dramas, TV documentaries, as well as historical docu-dramas for Canadian and American museums. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Series
T.J. Peterson Mystery
1. The Drop Zone (2015)
2. The Hell of It All (2017)
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Non fiction series
True Stories of Maritime Lives and Legends
Rogues and Rascals (2012)
Scamps and Scoundrels (2013)
Bob Kroll: The Hell of it All + Q&A
by June Lorraine Roberts on March 8, 2017 in New to me authors, Persons of Interest • 0 Comments
hell-of-it-all bob kroll june lorraine roberts murder in common
Halifax Noir
A body long buried and undiscovered. An ex-con with vengeance raging in his brain. A prostitute with personal history with Peterson, and a missing daughter. All underscored by pain, loss and regret.
T.J. Peterson takes the hard way through everything, leaving those in his wake either gasping or puzzled. For him it’s not the hard way through it’s the only way through.
Kroll goes unexpectedly deep and narrow into subordinate characters like a funnel into their soul. The scenes are poignant and wounding. He knits together these people and scenes, doling them out in small packages. The end yield with comes with a chunk of Peterson’s guilt.
~ June Lorraine
&&&&&&&&&&
bob kroll murder in common the hell of it all
Q&A with Bob Kroll
– with text from The Hell of it All
He looked without seeing Halifax as the “vibrant and safe capital city by the sea” promoted by the tourist board. He saw something else. He saw what cops see: the hard side, the ugly side, the side unreported in the press.
You use Halifax, where you currently live, as Peterson’s city. Intrinsic or extrinsic?
I have been writing about crime and punishment in Halifax since the 1970s, about Halifax past and Halifax present. Halifax is a port city, and like most port cities, it has a strong undercurrent of crime, which goes back to the city’s founding in 1749.
Some characters from Halifax’s recent past people my writing, some have stepped off today’s front pages, and a few, such as the Runt in The Hell Of It All, have climbed from brown cardboard boxes containing dusty court documents in the Nova Scotia Archives.
The dark atmosphere in my writing comes from years of researching Halifax’s historic underworld. So when it came time to create a setting for my crime novels, I could not help but make it Halifax.
His head brewed with shame for feelings thick with disappointment. For friendships scoured down to loneliness.
How long did Peterson live in your head before you got him on ‘paper’?
In one form or another, Peterson has been following me around for most of my adult life. He has been like a shadow, both literally and figuratively.
He was shaking and he was crying, and he was wondering if being born was worth the cost of living.
What does Peterson want?
Peterson seeks purification. The opening lines of Dante’s Inferno are:
“Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”
Peterson must descend the broken pathway to the bottom of hell before he can climb up the frozen body of Satan in order to re-enter the light.
Usually he opened the journal just anywhere and read a single entry, not so much for content as for the intimacy of the scrawl of words.
It’s a foggy Thursday at 2PM and you’re sitting at your local. What author would you like to tip a glass with?
I’ll make mine a mug of black coffee, and the author I would like to be drinking it with is John Williams. He wrote one of the finest novels I have ever read – Stoner.
It is not a well-known novel. The New Yorker magazine considered it “the greatest novel you have never heard of”. Nor is it a crime novel. It is simply ax heartbreaking story that is beautifully written.
What would I want to talk about with John Williams? The depth of human sadness, the tragedy of life, the angst of failure in the face of death – all the things I have tried to explore through my anti-hero, Peterson.
The Hell of It All
264.1 (Jan. 2, 2017): p40.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
The Hell of It All
Bob Kroll. ECW (Perseus/Legato, U.S. dist.; Jaguar, Canadian dist.), $14.95 trade paper (312p) ISBN 978-1-77041-338-2
It's clear in this gripping second book in Kroll's noir detective series that retired detective T.J. Peterson's life is reaching a nadir. He's become a pariah to former friends. He relies on his past partner throwing scrap cases his way to get by. A recently released convict has targeted him for revenge. His long-absent daughter sends him mysterious phone messages. And a former lover is begging him to help find her daughter. Caught in the midst of it all, Peterson is doing his best just to remain upright. This book effectively builds on events in its predecessor, The Drop Zone, while presenting enough information to permit the novel to stand alone. Yet while Kroll's tale dips into the dark underbelly of Halifax, Nova Scotia--rife with crack houses, contract killings, and red herrings galore--Kroll's writing isn't quite up to snuff. His style is often leaden, and on-the-nose lines such as "He may have been staring at [his wife's grave], but he was really looking at himself' land with a thud. There's enough dark wit and intricate plot to make this worth a read, but it lacks the finesse of the hardboiled greats. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Hell of It All." Publishers Weekly, 2 Jan. 2017, p. 40. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA478696494&it=r&asid=afbac34763223cae2d7d4d1e8d5e6d50. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A478696494
Bob Kroll’s Bleak Metropolitan Nightmare
#83 Spring 2017, Editions, Fiction, ReviewsAugust 31, 2017
by Corey Redekop
The Hell of It All is a solid crime thriller that leaves the reader wanting more
“He had parked with the Jetta aimed at the harbour mouth, giving himself a postcard perspective of the naval base, two islands, and the concrete and glass of the downtown. He looked without seeing Halifax as the ‘vibrant and safe capital city by the sea’ promoted by the tourist board … He saw what the cops see: the hard side, the ugly side, the side unreported in the press.”
No city can possibly claim to be perfect and doubtless the municipality of Halifax, Nova Scotia is no exception. Despite its reputation as being a beautiful and outwardly friendly place to visit, Halifax cannot possibly be as idyllic a destination as tourism commercials would have us believe. Yet you’d be hard-pressed to find a depiction of a major Canadian city as unremittingly bleak as the metropolitan nightmare author Bob Kroll makes of Halifax.
The Hell of It All, the second in a planned trilogy of T.J. Peterson mystery crime thrillers (after The Drop Zone), is another two-fisted descent into urban chaos. Like the first novel, Hell is a dark, densely plotted, sink-or-swim tale. Kroll is not afraid to throw you headfirst into the deep end.
Peterson is a former police detective in a bad state. Forced to retire (after events in the first novel), Peterson now spends his days working crimes under the table for his former partner. While running down a rumour of a thirty-year-old murder, a past lover tracks Peterson down and begs him to find her daughter, a drug addict who has taken up with a local pusher. Unwilling yet unable to turn her down, Peterson quickly finds himself trapped in a byzantine puzzle that leads him through the dark depths of Halifax, filled with crack houses, prostitution, money laundering and more.
Drawing on the classic hardboiled influences of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald, as well as modern crime authors such as George Pelecanos and Canada’s John McFetridge and Robert Rottenberg, Kroll thrusts us into a stylized, dialogue-heavy crimescape where every statement hides an angle and no one is to be trusted. In this world, a minor criminal is described as “the kind who talks speed but cruises twenty clicks under the limit,” a face “looked like it could cry on sunny days” and a man gets tossed down a flight of stairs and “deserved every step he hit.” Numerous nefarious characters with names like Sammy O, Turtle and the Runt hurry through the pages. It may take a little patience with the tough-guy cadence of Kroll’s narrative to fully chart the ins and outs of Peterson’s sleuthing.
As much nasty pleasure as there is to be found in Kroll’s Halifax, he hasn’t yet quite mastered the style of his criminal writing forebears. Often the story becomes a case of an author telling rather than showing, not trusting the action to make the point clear. This burdens characters with unwieldy soliloquys such as: “There used to be something that made us obey the law. Not because it was the law, but because it was the right thing to do. But now there’s nothing keeping people from doing whatever they want. Nobody cares about anyone else but themselves.”
At one point, Peterson tells a pair of homeless teenagers, “I was a homicide detective. A cop for more than twenty years. What comes with all that time on the job is instinct. You get a feeling about what people know and what they don’t know. Now I’m retired. I have nowhere to go and nothing to do.” It’s one thing to define Peterson as a character through action and circumstance, another entirely to have him summarize himself in such a clunky fashion.
Luckily, the mystery itself is solid, the plot machinations logical and Peterson is an engagingly pessimistic (if thoroughly miserable) protagonist. Kroll understands that no matter how complicated the mystery it’s the personalities populating the pages that keep readers coming back. He takes pain to root his story in character as much as plot and finagles Peterson through the requisite twists and turns of this labyrinth with aplomb.
The Hell of It All may stumble occasionally, but it’s a solid crime thriller that leaves the reader wanting more, if, arguably, less enthusiastic about visiting Halifax.
The Hell of It All
Bob Kroll
ECW Press
[Book Review] The Hell Of It All by Bob Kroll
categories: Book Reviews
Here is the publisher’s blurb, my review will follow :
Retired detective T.J. Peterson is working the table scraps that his former partner, Danny Little, sometimes throws his way. One of them has Peterson hearing from a snitch about a body buried 30 years ago, the same time a drug kingpin went MIA. Peterson is also ducking an ex-con with a grudge, a hitman who likes playing jack-in-the-box with a 12 gauge. Then a former lover re-enters Peterson’s life and begs him to find her daughter, an addict who knows too much about the local drug trade for her own safety. The search for the girl and the truth about the 30-year-old corpse takes Peterson down into the hell of it all, deep into the underworld of crack houses, contract killing, money laundering, and crooked professionals doubling down on their investments of black money.
It was nice to find myself with T.J. Peterson once again. I missed him the second I finished reading The Drop Zone.
I found this novel a nice change of pace from my two previous reads. Bob Kroll not only brought me straight into dark side of Halifax but he also took me deep within the darkest recesses of T.J Peterson. From my cushy leather sofa, Kroll transported me into The Hell Of It All!! (and it is indeed a frightening place)
In this second novel of the T.J Peterson series, Peterson is being hit from all sides, I don’t know how he manages to keep it all together and get through day after day. He’s resilient and a fighter. I like Peterson’s dark side, I like that he’s broken, vulnerable and so perfectly flawed. He is definitely navigating a very thin line. This “Hell” is all around Peterson; inside his head, on the streets and following him around in the shadows.
There is a considerable amount of dialogue in the novel, many different characters to keep track of — quite a bit of cop speak. This just adds to the atmosphere Kroll has created. There is no faffing about, the novel moves quickly, sometimes I found it hard to keep up. Yet, as I plowed through the novel I thought to myself, Kroll must have been a cop in a previous life, this just seems all too real.
While this is the second book in the T.J Peterson series, it reads perfectly well as a stand-alone.
Kroll has said himself that Peterson is an anti-hero, I couldn’t agree more. I hope this isn’t the end of the T.J. Peterson saga, there is so much that I still need to know. This book is for fans of dark, gritty police/mystery dramas. If this is your genre, then The Hell Of It All should definitely be on your reading list.
P.S to Bob Kroll : I’d definitely subscribe to T.J Peterson’s twitter account.
My review of The Drop Zone, the first T.J. Peterson novel can be found HERE
The Hell Of It All by Bob Kroll
Published by ECW press
ISBN: 9781770413382
Pages: 312
Available now
Thank you ECW press for sending me a copy for review.
The Drop Zone by Bob Kroll – book review
categories: Book Reviews
The Drop Zone
Through my reading adventure this year, I learned that I like a good crime/mystery novel. Well, I can find myself getting lost in just about any genre as long as it is well written. The Drop Zone didn’t really keep me guessing but it hooked me with T.J. Peterson’s character and the situation with his daughter. I really, REALLY wanted to know what happened with her.
It is definitely not a Disney ending type of book where everything is tied up in a neat little bow. Not in the least bit. If you pick up this book you can expect : cops, good ones and bad, criminals, child prostitution, infidelity, psychiatric issues, drinking and murder.
The overall feel of the book was like film noir, gritty and real. Kroll brings us such a beautifully flawed character with Peterson. Flawed, resilient, frustrated and combating his own demons. There is such an old school feel with this book.
I’m guessing that this is just the first taste we get of Peterson’s character. I’m hoping that there will be a sequel to this novel and my questions are answered in the next book. Fingers Crossed.
This was my first novel by Bob Kroll. I’ve discovered so many brilliant Canadian books this year, we really do have something to be proud of.
SOME RAMBLINGS
If you follow me on Instagram, you must have noticed that I did the #nosweatnovember book photo challenge. I took this wonderfully cute image of The Drop Zone. I’ll be doing another challenge this month although I don’t think I’ll be as focused as with this one. There may be days that slip through the cracks.
The Drop Zone
Pulling out my Mark II and pushing myself to be creative with the shots did me some good. Since I’ve left my photography career behind, there is a void that needs filling and I’m still trying to find out what that will be. This type of creative challenge is a great outlet. It becomes almost routine. Quite fantastic actually !
The Drop Zone
A T.J Peterson Mystery
By Bob Kroll
Published by ECW
In exchange for an honest review, a copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher.
MYSTERIES: Kroll pens first instalment in Halifax trilogy
JOANN ALBERSTAT MYSTERIES
Published July 19, 2015 - 5:18pm
Last Updated July 19, 2015 - 5:38pm
Author Bob Kroll’s book The Drop Zone features T.J. Peterson, a hard-working and hard-drinking detective with an unnamed police force on the East Coast. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff)
Author Bob Kroll’s book The Drop Zone features T.J. Peterson, a hard-working and hard-drinking detective with an unnamed police force on the East Coast. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff)
Abandoned books left on New York City commuter trains some five decades ago are what prompted Halifax author Bob Kroll to recently try his hand at crime fiction.
Kroll, author of The Drop Zone, has been a fan of the genre since he was a boy growing up in New Haven, Conn. His father, who worked as a railway engineer, would collect books — crime novels, potboilers and the odd literary work — left behind on the trains so his son would have something to read.
“What he would bring me home were Ellery Queens and Mickey Spillanes, and the Raymond Chandlers and the Dashiell Hammetts,” Kroll said in a recent interview at a coffee shop in his north-end Halifax neighbourhood.
Kroll, 67, made a living for almost four decades writing for radio and television, including commercials, documentaries and educational and industrial film scripts. And he’s also a well-known historian, having penned two works of non-fiction on Maritime folklore.
(His biography on the Crime Writers of Canada website says he’s been writing professionally “since Moses was an altar boy.”)
But the veteran writer decided a couple of years ago to change tack and try his hand at writing the type of fiction he’s enjoyed since discovering the Hardy Boys during childhood.
The result is the first in a trilogy featuring T.J. Peterson, a hard-working and hard-drinking detective with an unnamed police force on the East Coast.
Although the author doesn’t name the port city, The Drop Zone is obviously set in Halifax. Readers will recognize various landmarks and neighbourhoods.
But Kroll has taken liberties, including the appearance of a waterfront full of abandoned warehouses and graffiti-strewn hovels.
He said the setting is also a combination of Halifax past and present. Other port cities in which he has lived, including New Haven and Montreal, also help shape the novel.
And those aren’t the only reasons he deliberately avoids naming Peterson’s patch.
“I don’t want to get lost in what street something is, and where something is,” he said. “I find that when I read some of that stuff, and if I know the city, then you start paying attention to that and you start losing track of the story.”
And this book’s plot has a local flavour, with more than one true-life crime story woven into the mix. And Kroll’s broadcast background is apparent in the snappy dialogue and ever-moving action.
The novel opens with an anonymous phone call to police about the body of a woman recently found near the airport. Then Peterson is called to a church after a priest’s body is discovered in an apparent ritual killing.
And that’s just the start of the mayhem as the veteran detective is drawn ever deeper into the city’s seedy side and the prostitution trade.
Haunted by his wife’s death and a strained relationship with a faraway daughter, Peterson prowls the night streets for clues and information from low-life informants.
His fellow detectives think he sleeps at his desk but he’s more likely to spend the night sifting through cold-case files. Or looking for information — and drinking — in dodgy after-hours clubs.
“You’re chasing ghosts, Peterson,” the deputy chief tells the troubled cop, who’s always in trouble for not following the rules.
Kroll, a grandfather of six, said his protagonist is definitely a flawed character but a decent man at heart.
“What is always in my mind when writing this series is the moral question of what a moral man does in the face of a violent and unjust world,” he said. “How does he rise above or succumb to the seductive shame and sinfulness of our society?”
Kroll is now working on his second Peterson novel. He’s coy about the storyline, although he does say the drug trade will play a role.
We can also expect to learn more about the rogue investigator’s troubled past, including his childhood.
But with Peterson’s debut now under his belt, Kroll said he doesn’t think it was a big leap going from writing folklore to mysteries.
After all, he read scads of 18th- and 19th-century court records during his research for two collections of Maritime tales, Rogues and Rascals, and Scamps and Scoundrels.
“There’s an incredible amount of stuff that never made it into the books because things were just too cruel.”
But nothing seems too dark and murky for Peterson, making Kroll’s crime fiction an engrossing read.