The Potrero Complex

by Amy L. Bernstein

Overview

Journalist Rags Goldner is battle-scarred and heartbroken after covering a devastating pandemic that rages in Baltimore for five years. She leaves the city with her partner in search of a simpler life in small-town Maryland—only to discover nothing in Canary is simple. A teenager is missing, and it falls to Rags to fight the forces of apathy, paranoia, and creeping fascism to learn the shocking truth about Effie Rutter’s fate—and the fate of thousands like her.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646032501
Publisher:	Regal House Publishing
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Amy L. Bernstein writes for the page, the stage, and forms in between. In addition to forthcoming novels, short plays have been published by Routledge and Leicester Bay Theatricals; short fiction by Flying Ketchup Press, Fleas on the Dog, and Parliament Lit; and poetry by Passaic/Voluspa, Yellow Arrow Journal, Erbacce, and Medium publications. She is a 2014 recipient of a Ruby Artist Award from the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance and an award-winning former journalist.

Editorial Reviews

08/08/2022

Bernstein (The Nighthawkers) explores a plausible dystopic near future in this effective thriller. For almost five years in the 2020s, a pandemic devastated the globe. The disease decimated many communities, including Canary, Md. In 2030, veteran newswoman Rags Goldner arrives in Canary to assume the helm of the local paper, the Courant, improbably still a going concern despite the town’s loss of about two-thirds of its population. She finds Canary preoccupied with the recent disappearance of 16-year-old Effie Rutter. But as there’s nothing new to report, Rags stops the Courant from continuing to run warmed-over articles about the teen on page one in favor of covering a local environmental hazard. Rags finds numerous oddities in her new job, including that the Courant has stayed afloat from an odd source of revenue—“print ads in a tiny newspaper serving a dying community in a digital world.” She finds other mysteries to unpack as well after a second teen disappears and the local health authorities move to impose harsh, seemingly unnecessary restrictions on the town’s residents. Bernstein’s imagination is matched by solid pacing and characterizations. Chris Holm fans will be pleased. (Self-published)

Publishers Weekly

"A near-future, post-pandemic novel of lost lives and liberties, The Potrero Complex speaks directly to the challenges of contemporary life. Amy Bernstein has written a scarily prescient novel that deftly explores the fraught connections between individuality, society, public policy, and technology." —Courtney Harler, Harler Literary LLC

"Bernstein sets us in a post-pandemic time just the barest bit beyond our own, on the way to a dystopia that feels too frightening and too familiar. A thoughtful, complex, well-executed novel—not a who-done-it? but a much scarier what-in-the-hell-is-happening?” —Robert Kanigel, bestselling author of The Man Who Knew Infinity and National Book Critics Circle award finalist

"An emotional, haunting tale leaves you with more questions than answers, and that's a good thing. A memorable and timely reminder that there are no easy solutions when fear and conspiracy feed like hungry beasts and the innocent exist simply for the taking." —PJ McIlvaine, screenwriter of My Horrible Year

"An intelligently conceived tale of an unthinkable yet credible future. A novel of dark deeds in dark times." —Karen S. Bennett, author of Beautiful Horse

"Richly textured, with many evocative threads [that] explore the culture of a post-pandemic small town—a town that camouflages its disturbing secrets. A cautionary tale." —Kathy Mangan, Professor Emeritus, McDaniel College, and author of Taproot

"A complicated tale of post-pandemic times in the not-so-distant future, where share cars, data phones, and respies figure into a plot that is scarily believable." —Avery Caswell, author of Salvation

"Anyone immersed in the experience and possible outcomes of social change after this pandemic will find The Potrero Complex frightening and hard to put down, presenting thought-provoking insights on the progress and erosion of freedom in the name of safety and social preservation. It's a story highly recommended for libraries interested not just in thriller and suspense stories, but accounts that encourage close examination of liberty, life, and making a stand to preserve both against all odds." —Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher