Excerpt from Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Online, there are no photos of "Jack of Spades," only just reproductions of the writer's several (lurid, eye-catching) book covers, a scattering of reviews, and terse biographical speculation that makes me smile, it is so naïve, and persuasive—"Jack of Spades" is said to be the pseudonym of a former convict who began his writing career while incarcerated in a maximum security prison in New Jersey on a charge of manslaughter. He is said to be currently on parole and working on a new novel.

Alternatively, and equally persuasively, "Jack of Spades" has been identified as a criminologist, a psychiatrist, a professor of forensic medicine, a (retired) homicide detective, a (retired) pathologist who lives variously, in Montana, Maine, upstate New York and California as well as New Jersey.

"Jack of Spades" has also been identified, most irresponsibly, as a habitual criminal, possibly a serial killer, who has committed countless crimes since boyhood without being apprehended, or even identified. Invariably, his true name, like his whereabouts, is "unknown."

Excerpted from Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates. Copyright © 2015 by Joyce Carol Oates. Excerpted by permission of Mysterious Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.