{"id":362947,"date":"2025-11-07T20:27:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362947\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T20:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:27:19","slug":"a-new-book-drop-scavenger-hunt-hits-nyc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/362947\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Book-Drop Scavenger Hunt Hits NYC"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Yorkers love a good mystery and crime novelist Jason Starr<\/a> is giving the city one you can actually solve\u2014if you\u2019re quick enough. To celebrate the release of Supermax,\u00a0the new collected trilogy\u00a0he worked on alongside\u00a0the 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to launch Supermax in a way that felt true to noir, something that wasn\u2019t only a book promotion, but an interactive experience,\u201d Starr\u00a0told\u00a0Time Out. \u201cSupermax is a trilogy of crime novels set mainly in New York City and I wanted the city to be part of the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201cstumble across the books the same way characters stumble into trouble in noir, suddenly and without warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

The locations are a mix of iconic film backdrops (including so-called Needle Park<\/a> and the Empire Hotel<\/a>), literary landmarks like the steps of the New York Public Library<\/a> and what he calls \u201ctimely locales,\u201d like Gracie Mansion (well, right outside of it). Sixteen of the 25 planned copies are already out in the wild and each find\u00a0comes along with\u00a0a $100 McNally Jackson<\/a> gift card. The campaign has taken on \u201ca life of its own,\u201d with readers reposting their discoveries and treating the hunt like a citywide game.<\/p>\n

The project is also a tribute to Bruen, who passed away earlier this year. \u201cKen loved New York, visited here often and absolutely believed crime fiction belongs in the street, among everyday New Yorkers,\u201d Starr said. Letting the books loose\u2014not shelving them\u2014felt right. \u201cHe would have loved the guerilla-style aspect of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because every noir needs narration, Starr has also been sharing Bogart-style voiceover clips as he makes the drops: \u201cplayful, streetwise, very old-school noir,\u201d he said. \u201cIt turns each drop into a little scene, like mystery playing out in real time across the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll keep going until publication day on November 11, when a final cluster of five copies will appear somewhere in Prospect Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Yorkers love a good mystery and crime novelist Jason Starr is giving the city one you can…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":362948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,10336,405,403,30302,5226,5225,5228,5227,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-362947","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-categories-things-to-do","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news-weird-wonderful","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-things-to-do","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115510302981378523","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}