Joshua Corey, "The Last Words of Jack Ruby" and Robert Archambeau, "The Bloomsbury Forgery"

About this event

About The Last Words of Jack Ruby:

Boxers, gangsters, and the JFK assassination: this historical noir novel follows two tough Jews from the streets of Prohibition Chicago to Dealey Plaza and the limits of American myth.

December, 1966. A young FBI agent is summoned by J. Edgar Hoover and sent to Dallas on a secret assignment to interview a dying man who may hold the truth behind one of the most infamous crimes in American history. That man is Jack Ruby—a murderer whose guilt was witnessed live on television, yet whose motives remain shrouded in mystery. Special Agent Bergman finds himself drawn into a web of paranoia and deception in a country unraveling in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. A disgraced former partner resurfaces, entangled in shadowy Bureau operations. A dancer from Ruby’s past hints at hidden connections. A rogue journalist unfolds conspiracy theories as plausible as they are fantastic. Meanwhile, Ruby— drugged, erratic, and haunted— fixates on his past: Chicago’s underworld, Jewish identity, and his lifelong bond with the boxer, war hero, and drug addict Barney Ross.

Blending historical noir with literary ambition, The Last Words of Jack Ruby explores conspiracy, identity, and the myths that shape a nation. Both gripping thriller and searching meditation, it lingers long after the final page.

About The Bloomsbury Forgery:

When young American painter Ida sails to England during the glittering Jazz Age, she’s chasing both art and passion—specifically, the brilliant poet T.S. Eliot, who might tempt her to leave her husband behind.

In the heady world of Virginia Woolf’s London, Ida brushes shoulders with geniuses and eccentrics before retreating to a grand, possibly haunted country estate to restore a damaged secret portrait of King James and his lover, the Duke of Buckingham. But what begins as an artistic commission soon unravels into a tangle of deceit, forgery, and danger.

As Irish gangsters, English aristocrats, and desperate lovers close in, Ida must rely on her wits—and a ragtag band of artists, heiresses, and dealers—to save a historic home, her family, and perhaps her sanity. Can art, nerve, and a touch of madness be enough to see her through?

About Robert Archambeau:

Robert Archambeau possesses the world’s least interesting international identity. Of French-Canadian ancestry, he was born in Rhode Island, raised in Canada, and spent summers in Maine or at his father’s art studio on a lake in the Canadian wilderness.

His passion for art led to his first novel, Alice B. Toklas is Missing, where the drama of a literary kidnapping takes place amid the artistic tumult of Paris in the 1920s. His ingenue protagonist, Ida Byrne, returns to make her way through gothic chills and literary farce in The Bloomsbury Forgery, where Ida leaves Paris behind for the England of the Virginia Woolf circle.

He lives just outside Chicago with his wife and daughter, who indulge him in his various vices: hanging out in art galleries and museums; collecting paintings and antiques; and owning more tweed and vintage Brooks Brothers clothing than any man should.