Doug Childers has a review of Howard Owen’s new book, ‘Grace’, in the Times Dispatch. It’s once again set in Richmond and one of the main characters is a minister named Sam McNish, whose background includes growing up poor and fatherless in Oregon Hill. Like “Oregon Hill”, a previous Owen novel, this features his hero/reporter protagonist Willie Black.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the review:

Richmond’s building a reputation as a highly creative city, with everything from art shows to ad agencies getting national press. Few of the city’s creative types have built a following by writing about Richmond’s crimes, though.

Of course, the crimes that Howard Owen describes in his critically acclaimed Willie Black series are fictional. But the books are so thoroughly rooted in recognizable locales that it sometimes feels as if local readers following Black’s path through the city might bump into him.

In fact, each installment in the series takes its title from a Richmond neighborhood or landmark. Owen’s latest, “Grace,” refers to Grace Street. As Black tells us, “(T)he city’s history is laid out along its chopped-up route.”