May 20, 2015
Partridge ’61 weaves PC into latest mystery novel
Attorney and novelist John J. Partridge, Esq. ’61 & ’11Hon. packs references to and descriptions of the city of Providence in his Algy Temple murder-mystery series, so it shouldn’t be surprising that the third and most recent book in the series, Scratched, includes his alma mater and a fictitious Dominican faculty member at Providence College.
Published in fall 2014 by Köehler Books, Scratched again casts pool-playing amateur detective Algy Temple, the legal counsel for Ivy League “Carter University” of Providence, in the middle of a suspicious death — in which the victim is found floating in the river during WaterFire.
The novel is filled with intrigue and descriptions, as well as landmarks and taglines of life in Providence and contemporary society. Partridge’s zesty work incorporates the city’s Italian-American heritage, a mendacious mayor, a powerful family crime organization, a decades-old vendetta, town and gown politics, a Ponzi scheme, and more.
Partridge adds Providence College to the mix in Scratched. Father Pietro Sacchi, O.P., a PC professor of Thomistic philosophy who teaches in the Liberal Arts Honors Program, is one of the novel’s more prominent characters.
Father Sacchi plays an important role in unravelling the death of his friend, a retired professor of the history of philosophy at Carter. At one point, the priest-professor is visited on campus by Temple because he has become impressed by the sage advice and critical analysis provided by Father Sacchi which is crucial to the plot.
Beyond the College and Dominican elements, Partridge feels Scratched is a solid mystery novel that will interest alumni and campus community members not only because it contains a Thomistic theme “of the conflicts between the secular and the theological,” but because of its characters, plots, and locales, including Rome and the Boot of Italy.
Scratched has received favorable reviews nationally and locally by diverse publications, from The Providence Journal, to the Los Angeles Review of Books, to Pool & Billiards magazine. It has been acclaimed as “a witty and well-written whodunit” by Publisher’s Weekly and as a “densely detailed and cleverly spun tale.” Scratched is nationally distributed to bookstores and is available on Amazon.com and on all electronic readers.
Finding time for a passion
Partridge, who asked College President Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. ’80 to review references to the Dominicans in Scratched, launched a writing career more than a decade ago with Carom Shot (Chukar, 2005), followed by Straight Pool (Chukar, 2008). He finds writing relaxing. He wrote his first Algy Temple mystery, Carom Shot, as a Christmas present to his children.
“You make time for things you like. This is completely different from what I do on an everyday basis,” says the founder and senior counsel of the law firm of Partridge, Snow & Hahn of Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
A Providence resident, Partridge writes at home in the evening and on weekends. He says writing for publication is a long process dictated by the publisher. In addition to friends who “patiently” review his manuscripts for pace and chronology, he deals with his agent, the publisher’s staff, a general editor, and a copy editor before publication.
Partridge, who is a member of the College’s Providence President’s Council, Rhode Island Campaign Committee, and the Liberal Arts Honors Program’s Leadership Council, admits there is relief and satisfaction at the end of each book cycle.
“I’m happy … when it is time to make appearances, sell, and sign books. That’s fine by me,” he says.
