Steve Lopez Books In Order

Third And Indiana

Set in Philadelphia’s badlands, where drug gangs rule the streets, this debut novel has the explosive authenticity, the narrative drive, and the tender passion to knock you out of your seat!Fourteen year old Gabriel’s father skipped two years ago. Now his mother, Ofelia, is searching for her runaway son, riding her bicycle at night through the city’s darkest, most violent stretch. The pavement beneath her is mysteriously painted with chalk outlines of bodies. Each time a child is killed, another white outline appears. While Ofelia tries to outrun a vision of her son’s death, her son tries to outrun the neighborhood, taking cover with a drifter; but Gabriel is already trapped, at the mercy of Diablo, the ugliest of the dealers, a man who kills for fun.

The Sunday Macaroni Club

A hilarious tale of Philadelphia politics at the gritty street levelNewly repackaged and available for the first time in trade paperback, The Sunday Macaroni Club is a magnificently told story by a powerful author. Steve Lopez gives readers a vivid and rich portrait of local politics gone amok, and one woman’s quest for happiness and fulfillment. Fleeing a disastrous love affair in Boston, Assistant District Attorney Lisa Savitch beautiful, brilliant, brave relocates to Philadelphia, where she is partnered with ex FBI agent Mike Muldoon. Lisa is assigned to get the goods on The Sunday Macaroni Club an old time, South Philly political machine led by Augie Sangiamino, a former United States Senator, and his two cronies, state representative ‘Ham’ Flaherty, who’s running for Congress, and Judge ‘Izzy’ Weiner. In the style of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, Lopez tells a story that is as funny as it is true to life.’Richly knowing, very funny.’ The Washington Post’Lopez entertains with a style that’s crisp and colorful.’ San Diego Union Tribune’Steve Lopez’s message has never been more human, or more entertaining.’ Philadelphia Inquirer

In the Clear

Albert LaRosa has spent his whole life just trying to get from yesterday to tomorrow. Born, raised, and now the sheriff of a small New Jersey island town, he was forced back to his hometown of Harbor Light after his shot at the big time as a cop in Philadelphia was destroyed by the events of one dark night.

Twenty five years and one marriage later, it looks as if life might finally give him a break. Albert is offered a job as chief of security at a new casino at a salary he has only dreamed of. Not that his dreams were ever very grand.

Of course, not everyone in town is equally happy. Albert can live with the death threats. And the bombings. Even a dead body provides some professional excitement. He can take his father’s tirades about selling out and he can cope with his girlfriend, Rickie, losing her business at least he’s always been a good friend to her son, Jack. What bothers him is that he might have to arrest one of them for murder.

Lopez throws his irresistible characters into the whirlwind that threatens to destroy the increasingly fragile world of Harbor Light, and makes us care both for them and for what they tell us about getting from one day to the next. As Albert realizes, you can get to your future only by way of your past.

Land of Giants

The best of Steve Lopez’s Inquirer columns are now together in a wonderful book. Now you can share Steve’s refreshingly candid views in one volume. See for yourself why his readers love him and his targets wish he were almost anywhere else. One of the guiding principles of the column for Steve Lopez is: ‘H. L. Mencken once described his mission as a journalist this way: Confort the afflicted, afflict the confortable. Obviously, my goal hasn’t been that noble, or even close to it. Sometimes the idea was just to tell a story, or have some fun. But the Mecken line has been something of a guiding principle for me. So has the idea that a column be a tool against ignorance and hyprocrisy, whether written from a street corner in Philadelphia, the halls of Congress, or a battlefield in Bosnia. Part of what a column should do, it seems to me, is hold people up to their potential. To remind them not just what it is, but what can be.’

The Soloist

A moving story of the remarkable bond between a journalist in search of a story and a homeless, classically trained musician destined to be a major motion picture from DreamWorks, starring Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. When Steve Lopez saw Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two string violin on Los Angeles skid row, he found it impossible to walk away. More than thirty years earlier, Ayers had been a promising classical bass student at Juilliard ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African Americans until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia. When Lopez finds him, Ayers is homeless, paranoid, and deeply troubled, but glimmers of that brilliance are still there. Over time, Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers form a bond, and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers’s life. Lopez collects donated violins, a cello, even a stand up bass and a piano; he takes Ayers to Walt Disney Concert Hall and helps him move indoors. For each triumph, there is a crashing disappointment, yet neither man gives up. In the process of trying to save Ayers, Lopez finds that his own life is changing, and his sense of what one man can accomplish in the lives of others begins to expand in new ways. Poignant and ultimately hopeful, The Soloist is a beautifully told story of friendship and the redeeming power of music.

Dreams and Schemes

Dreams and Schemes: My Decade of Fun in the Sun is a collection of Lopez’s most controversial, irreverent, trouble-making, and heart-warming columns. He writes through the eyes of the region and its people, unflinchingly taking on the movers and shakers, and poking about in places where other reporters wouldn t dare go. This collection offers an entertaining and insightful look into the workings of modern-day life that will delight not only people who know the players and locations well, but will resonate with people anywhere because people, politics, and situation that catch Lopez’s eye are universal. Whether read straight through, read at random, or read aloud to share with someone, the columns will amuse and enlighten all readers