Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of Crooked Numbers by Tim O'Mara

Crooked Numbers by Tim O'Mara

Crooked Numbers

Raymond Donne Mysteries

by Tim O'Mara

  • Published:
  • Oct 2013, 320 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

When one of Raymond Donne's former students is found stabbed to death under the Williamsburg Bridge, Ray draws on his past as a cop to find the truth in Tim O'Mara's second New York mystery.

Raymond Donne's former student Douglas Lee had everything going for him thanks to a scholarship to an exclusive private school in Manhattan, but all of that falls apart when his body is found below the Williamsburg Bridge with a dozen knife wounds in it. That kind of violence would normally get some serious attention from the police and media except when it's accompanied by signs that it could be gang related. When that's the case, the story dies and the police are happy to settle for the straightforward explanation. Dougie's mom isn't having any of that and asks Ray, who had been a cop before an accident cut his career short, to look into it, unofficially. He does what he can, asking questions, doling out information to the press, and filling in some holes in the investigation, but he doesn't get far before one of Dougie's private school friends is killed and another is put in the hospital.

What kind of trouble could a couple of sheltered kids get into that would end like that? And what does is have to do with Dougie's death? None of it adds up, but there's no way Ray can just wait around for something to happen.

Following on the heels of his acclaimed debut, Tim O'Mara's Crooked Numbers is another outstanding mystery that brings the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan to life and further solidifies O'Mara's place among the most talented new crime fiction writers working today.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. The plot is intricate without being elaborate, and the likable lead makes a plausible investigator." - Publishers Weekly

This information about Crooked Numbers was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Tim O'Mara

Tim O'Mara has been teaching math and special education in the New York City public schools since 1987. His top-selling debut mystery, "Sacrifice Fly" has been nominated for the 2013 "Best First Novel" Barry Award. The novel introduced the series hero Raymond Donne, a Brooklyn public schoolteacher who was once an up-and-coming police officer until a tragic accident destroyed his knees and the future he envisioned on the force.

O'Mara was inspired to write Sacrifice Fly and create the character of Raymond Donne after making home visits while a schoolteacher in the poorer section of the Williamsburg neighborhood in Brooklyn. Further moved by his many interactions with the Youth Officers of the NYPD while he served as a middle school dean and his brother's stories as a police sergeant, O'Mara believed that a character with experience in both worlds would make a great protagonist.

For the past 13 years, he has hosted and produced a bi-weekly reading series of poetry and prose in New York's East Village. He lives with his family in Manhattan, where he currently teaches middle school math, and is a proud member of Mystery Writers of America, Crime Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, Irish American Writers and Authors, Inc., and several teacher unions.

O'Mara is currently writing his third Raymond Donne mystery, "Dead Red."

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked Crooked Numbers, try these:

  • The Recruit jacket

    The Recruit

    by Alan Drew

    Published 2023

    About this book

    An idyllic California town. A deadly secret. A race against killers hidden in plain sight...

  • Suburban Dicks jacket

    Suburban Dicks

    by Fabian Nicieza

    Published 2022

    About this book

    From the cocreator of Deadpool comes a hilariously entertaining debut featuring two unlikely and unforgettable amateur sleuths. An engrossing and entertaining murder mystery full of skewering social commentary, Suburban Dicks examines the racial tensions exposed in a New Jersey suburb after the murder of a gas station attendant.

  • The Thursday Murder Club jacket

    The Thursday Murder Club

    by Richard Osman

    Published 2021

    About this book

    Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
    A female cop with her first big case
    A brutal murder
    Welcome to...
    THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB

We have 10 read-alikes for Crooked Numbers, but non-members are limited to three results. Join free to see the complete list of recommendations.
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
When No One Else Will
by Amanda Skenandore
1940s Chicago nurse risks everything at an illegal women’s clinic during a high-profile trial of courage and sisterhood.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Look What You Made Me Do
    by John Lanchester
    A propulsive tale of intergenerational tension and revenge from the Booker Prize nominee.
  • Book Jacket
    The Jellyfish Problem
    by Tessa Yang
    A marine biologist rescues a Maine island menaced by a giant glowing jellyfish in this inventive debut.
  • Book Jacket
    Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young
    by Zayd Ayers Dohrn
    Son of Weather Underground radicals recounts life on the run and decades of revolutionary struggle.
Who Said...

In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

Q S, S

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.