Please check out my interview with El Abuelo of Puerto Rican Crime Fiction, the author of Carlito’s Way and Q&A, NY Supreme Court Justice Edwin Torres on CrimeReads. Torres turned 90 this year, so we celebrated by discussing his life in Spanish Harlem, his work as a judge, and his excellent novels.

Excerpt:

Torres’ writing career started while he was still an attorney. He and his wife Vickie had gone to see Across 110th Street, the 1972 gritty crime drama based on the novel by Wally Ferris.

“When we came out, I said, ‘That’s not the way it goes down.’ And she says to me, ‘So why don’t you write to see if you can do it better.’ I said, ‘I’ll show you.’”

So every night, after a day of defending clients, he wrote his first novel, in longhand.

Big gracias to poet and literary critic Urayoan Noel and Professor Emerita at Brooklyn College Virginia Sanchez Korrol for their perspectives on Torres. (Sorry. I didn’t get to use your quotes this time.) Gracias also to Wallace Stroby and Michael A. Gonzales for helping to open this door for me, and of course thanks to Dwyer Murphy and CrimeReads.

You can read the interview here: https://crimereads.com/edwin-torres-way/