About the Book

When Sal Milano named his Greenwich Village dive bar "Characters," he had no idea how serendipitous the name would be. 'Regulars' like Black Lil, Old Man Eddie, and Miguel, the in-house coke dealer, might be joined on any given night by Kenny, an Australian hermaphrodite, Edgar, the after-hours DJ, his stripper/girlfriend, Amber, and the gang of local neighborhood thugs affectionately known as "the Bowery Boys."

There's also a steady stream of "irregulars," some famous, some infamous, and all of them endlessly fascinating to the bartender, Billy. When a once-respected journalist named Samantha Bigelow approaches Billy with a proposition for him to start feeding her celebrity items for her new column, he figures, "What could go wrong?" As it turns out, quite a bit, and Billy soon finds himself thrust into a maelstrom of murder and mayhem as he races against the clock to prevent his entire world from imploding.

About the Author

William Collins studied theater at the University of Connecticut before moving to New York City, where he worked as a bartender, private investigator, waiter, photographer's assistant, actor, writer, and director. "Characters" is his first novel.