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New Yorkers love a good mystery and crime novelist Jason Starr is giving the city one you can actually solve—if you’re quick enough. To celebrate the release of Supermax, the new collected trilogy he worked on alongside the late Irish writer Ken Bruen, Starr has turned the five boroughs into a noir-inspired treasure hunt, hiding free, signed copies in places that practically smell like cigarette smoke and moral ambiguity.
“I wanted to launch Supermax in a way that felt true to noir, something that wasn’t only a book promotion, but an interactive experience,” Starr told Time Out. “Supermax is a trilogy of crime novels set mainly in New York City and I wanted the city to be part of the story.”
He means that literally. Starr started leaving signed and numbered copies around town, from benches to subway stations and parks. While he drops the occasional clue online, Starr says most people “stumble across the books the same way characters stumble into trouble in noir, suddenly and without warning.”
The locations are a mix of iconic film backdrops (including so-called Needle Park and the Empire Hotel), literary landmarks like the steps of the New York Public Library and what he calls “timely locales,” like Gracie Mansion (well, right outside of it). Sixteen of the 25 planned copies are already out in the wild and each find comes along with a $100 McNally Jackson gift card. The campaign has taken on “a life of its own,” with readers reposting their discoveries and treating the hunt like a citywide game.
The project is also a tribute to Bruen, who passed away earlier this year. “Ken loved New York, visited here often and absolutely believed crime fiction belongs in the street, among everyday New Yorkers,” Starr said. Letting the books loose—not shelving them—felt right. “He would have loved the guerilla-style aspect of it.”
Because every noir needs narration, Starr has also been sharing Bogart-style voiceover clips as he makes the drops: “playful, streetwise, very old-school noir,” he said. “It turns each drop into a little scene, like mystery playing out in real time across the city.”
He’ll keep going until publication day on November 11, when a final cluster of five copies will appear somewhere in Prospect Park.