About the Artist

The Book Club is back!   You know the old, very popular Arlington Heights book club held in one of our great downtown Arlington Heights establishments? Well, that club is back as the Hey Nonny Book Club. The featured book for our opening meeting on March 26 will be Bleak Harbor by Chicago author Bryan Gruley. For this opening event, $40 gets you admission to the event, a copy of Bleak Harbor, and a glass of great wine or beer from the Hey Nonny collection. Just buy your ticket right here, and then stop in to Hey Nonny to pick up your book. You don’t need a ticket – your name will be on the guest list when you arrive for the 7 p.m. event on March 26. Tell your friends – but admission is limited to the first 90 to sign up.

Bleak Harbor is a thriller set in (no surprise here) Bleak Harbor, Michigan, and focused on the Peters family. Wife Carey is descended from the Bleak family founders of the town. Husband Pete Peters (there is no end to the fun Gruley has with names!) is a former Chicago commodities trader fallen on hard times and back in Bleak Harbor. There are things Pete and Carey have not told each other. But they do know that Carey’s son — Pete’s step-son — 15-year old Danny, is missing. Danny is on the autism spectrum, which only makes it worse when Pete and Carey get a ransom demand. And then . . . you’ll have to read Bleak Harbor to see what happens!

For this First Meeting, author Bryan Gruley will be present to discuss the fascinating twists and surprises in Bleak Harbor. Many of you know Gruley from his fantastic prior books, Starvation Lake, The Hanging Tree, and The Skeleton Box. Gillian Flynn read Bleak Harbor and said it is “an electric bolt of suspense” and “a masterful follow-up to his Starvation Lake trilogy.” When Gruley isn’t writing fiction, he’s a staff reporter for Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. The former Chicago bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, Gruley shared in a Pulitzer Prize given that newspaper in 2002 for coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Gruley is a graduate of Notre Dame, an avid hockey player, and an amateur musician. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Pam.