Skip to Main Content

About The Book

Minneapolis, 1953—A wild crime spree stuns the Upper Midwest, leaving a trail of blood and betrayal that terrifies a region and shatters the family at its core.

Thirty-eight years later, the tattered remnants of the notorious LaVoie crime family—sisters, brothers, and children too young to remember or understand—gather for an edgy reunion in a Minneapolis suburb. Among the guests is Joe LaVoie, sole survivor of the fraternal gang behind the ’50s bloodshed, a convicted cop-killer crippled by a police bullet during the final shootout. Now, an old man facing his own death, Joe is both desperate and terrified to learn the cause of his family’s demise. Was it the abject poverty they were raised in, their abusive, alcoholic father, some kind of inexorable curse . . . or the unthinkable treachery of one of their own? Only by confronting the family's tortured ghosts—and reckoning with the part he played in its violent past—will he ever learn the truth.

Inspired by actual events, My Name Is Joe LaVoie is hard-boiled crime fiction expertly woven into a tragic family saga told by Joe Lavoie himself.

About The Author

Writing as W.A. Winter, Minneapolis journalist William Swanson is the author of four noir suspense novels, including The Secret Lives of Dentists, described by Publishers Weekly as “a riveting crime novel” and the New York Journal of Books as “a masterful work of narrative fiction.” Swanson’s nonfiction includes three true-crime books, including Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson and Black White Blue: The Assassination of Patrolman Sackett. For more information, go to WAWINTERBOOKS.COM

Product Details

  • Publisher: Seventh Street Books (August 16, 2022)
  • Length: 240 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781645060697

Browse Related Books

Raves and Reviews

This is a compelling, complex narration of a career criminal as he reflects on the realities and imaginations of his life.

Historical Novel Society

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: W.A. Winter