Glenville Obrian Lovell is the author novels, short stories and a number of prize-winning plays.

In 1995, his first novel, Fire in the Canes, was published by Soho Press to wide acclaim, as was his second novel, Song of Night, published in 1998.

Too Beautiful To Die, published by Putnam, introduced volatile black ex-cop Blades Overstreet as a new though somewhat reluctant hero, and garnered praise and comparisons to some of the most illustrious names in the mystery/thriller genre. This was followed by Love and Death in Brooklyn. Both novels, set in New York, are also available for electronic download at Amazon and other online sites. Mr. Lovell won the 2002 Frank Collymore Literary Award for his play Mango Ripe! Mango Sweet! In 2008, his play Going for Love played to standing room only at CARIFESTA X (Caribbean Festival of Arts), in Guyana.

Having toured the globe as a dancer before he became a writer, Glenville sometimes resorts to music and choreography to help understand and develop his characters.

Born in a chattel house in Parish Land, Christ Church, a village on the island of Barbados, he grew up surrounded by sugar cane, shadows and word-magicians. With storytelling all around him: in kitchens, under flamboyant trees at night, in rum shops, he spent as much time picking dunks and golden apples from his backyard as he did "pickin' words from big-people mouths," as his grandmother used to say. Many of these stories turned up in his first novel Fire in the Canes. Glenville now lives in New York and is currently working on a new Blades Overstreet book and another novel set in Barbados.

He wants to say thanks to all those who continue to support him, especially the Caribbean massive everywhere, and to all Bajans who share the pride: Large up wunna self!

 

Going Home in Chains (stories)
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Paperback: 182 pages
Publisher: Chattel House Books (January 16, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0984803300
ISBN-13: 978-0984803309
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches

 

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Themes of coerced displacement run through these stories as they shift between the Caribbean and America, arriving doused in magic, musicality and humor. From the title story about a man trapped in the nightmarish glare of post 9/11 scrutiny after he forgets a bag in Grand Central Station; to the deliciously funny but poignant Sweet Destine about a man unable to deal with his wife’s sexual awakening after they migrate to America; or the darkly comic and passionate Licks Like Peas, Lovell’s lyrical prose delights and captures the vibrant rhythms of love, longing and loss rooted in the Caribbean soul where home is not always where the heart is. 

 

Love and Death in Brooklyn
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ISBN: 0399151974
Format: Hardcover, 320pp
Pub. Date: July 2004
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group, The

Blades Overstreet returns in an atmospheric crime novel set in that mysterious world known as Brooklyn.

Glenville Lovell's first mystery, Too Beautiful to Die, was called a "page-turner" (New York Daily News) and "stylish entertainment" (Booklist). Now he's back with a story ripped from today's headlines-a brilliant young African-American politician gunned down as his career is about to take off.

Ex-cop Blades Overstreet is finally at peace. His case against the NYPD has been resolved, his estranged wife has come back, and the two of them, along with Blades's young daughter, have settled into a nice home and a nice life. But peace is ephemeral on the mean streets of Brooklyn, and when the son of a good friend and mentor is murdered right before his eyes, Blades knows he won't be able to rest until the killer is brought to justice.

 

Too Beautiful to Die
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ISBN: 039915048X
Format: Hardcover, 304pp
Pub. Date: June 2003
Publisher: Putnam Adult

A debut mystery by a highly regarded author of literary novels, a gritty African-American noir with the atmosphere of Dashiell Hammett and the multicultural appeal of Walter Mosely.

Set in New York, Too Beautiful to Die introduces Blades Overstreet, a black ex-cop, now at odds with the NYPD over the incident that prompted his resignation-a buy-and-bust operation gone bad when a white cop "accidentally" shot and nearly killed him. Now, the man who saved Blades's life prevails upon him to help a beautiful soap-opera star named Precious find her father. But that assignment quickly turns sour when Blades stumbles on the murdered body of an FBI agent, and he becomes the target of an FBI/NYPD manhunt.

Blades Overstreet is destined to become one of the great heroes of crime fiction and Glenville Lovell a new star of the genre.

 

Song of Night
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ISBN: 1569471223
Format: Hardcover, 256pp
Pub. Date: August 1998
Publisher: Soho Press, Incorporated

Cyan is nicknamed "Night" because she is so dark. Bottom Rock is her village, just five miles from Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados. Her father is known as "Steel"; he is a fisherman who teaches his daughter to love the unspoiled beauty of their island. Her mother, a foreigner from neighboring St. Lucia, is scorned as an outsider by the villagers. The smart one in the family is her sister, on whom her mother's ambitions are focused, but it is feisty Cyan who is her father's favorite. And then her father kills a man in a fit of jealous rage and Cyan's tranquil life is changed forever. 

 

Fire in the Canes: A Novel
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ISBN: 1569470448
Format: Hardcover, 272pp
Pub. Date: September 1995
Publisher: Soho Press, Incorporated

 In this enchanting novel, ancestral spirits lead Caribbean villagers out of the lingering shadow of slavery. In the little village of Monkey Road, almost everyone works in the cane field; the plantation still owns the land. But when Peata and her beautiful daughter Midra arrive, mysterious and wonderful things begin to happen. . . .

Fire in the Canes is an epic tale about murder, betrayal, love and longing, a unique Caribbean blend of the supernatural and of historic fact. It is the story of young lovers, parted forever after one magical night, and of a people overcoming the legacy of slavery and regaining pride in themselves and their ancestors.

 

Lovell is included in the following anthology:

 

Kingston Noir
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Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Akashic Books (May 29, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1617750743
ISBN-13: 978-1617750748
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.3 inches

Edited by Colin Channer

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Original stories by: Marlon James, Kwame Dawes, Patricia Powell, Colin Channer, Marcia Douglas, Leone Ross, Kei Miller, Christopher John Farley, Ian Thomson, Thomas Glave, and Chris Abani.

From Trench Town to Half Way Tree to Norbrook to Portmore and beyond, the stories of Kingston Noir shine light into the darkest corners of this fabled city. Joining award-winning Jamaican authors such as Marlon James, Leone Ross, and Thomas Glave are two "special guest" writers with no Jamaican lineage: Nigerian-born Chris Abani and British writer Ian Thomson. The menacing tone that runs through some of these stories is counterbalanced by the clever humor in others, such as Kei Miller's “White Gyal with a Camera,” who softens even the hardest of August Town’s gangsters; and Mr. Brown, the private investigator in Kwame Dawes’s story, who explains why his girth works to his advantage: "In Jamaica a woman like a big man. She can see he is prosperous, and that he can be in charge." Together, the outstanding tales in Kingston Noir comprise the best volume of short fiction ever to arise from the literary wellspring that is Jamaica.

 

 

Related Links

Lovell's Official Website
http://www.glenvillelovell.com/