Interview: Judge Crater and the Ever-Vanishing City
The Wall Street Journal
"Peter Quinn's two previous historical novels are in some sense about vanishing New York, but his latest tackles the theme directly. In "The Man Who Never Returned," out this month, Mr. Quinn revisits the case of Joseph Force Crater, the real-life New York State Supreme Court judge who mysteriously disappeared in 1930.
New Yorkers of a younger vintage will draw a blank at Crater's name, but for years the line "Judge Crater, call your office" was an in-joke among city residents. Mr. Quinn sets his story 25 years after the judge's disappearance, when a media baron hires a detective named Fintan Dunne to solve the case."