Laramie Wyoming Businesses and Culture Inspire Novelist

Oct. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- Author E. Cooper Ostresh drew on his home town to inspire many characters and locations in his most recent book, “Boxman.” (http://the-boxman.com/ ) The book is a crime thriller about a safe cracker and his crew. The lead character is a Laramie resident who works at the rail welding plant in the Laramie rail yards. Ostresh says that it is the perfect environment to create a believable safe cracker. “Real safe crackers tend to come from working class backgrounds but at the same time they tend to be well educated, either institutionally or from self study. I worked at that rail plant back in 2000 and was impressed by how well read many of the employees were. Indeed many of them had more nuanced conversations about the world than coworkers I had when I had worked at the University Libraries. So when I was looking for a character that could have both the technical skills and the overall intelligence to be a safe cracker the welding plant was the perfect fit.”

Other locations around the Laramie and Front Range areas are featured in the novel. The rest of the cast of characters includes a college student from the Colorado School of Mines, a fitness instructor from Ft. Collins, and a pawn shop owner from Cheyenne. The author says, “It was partially a practical matter, since you always write what you know better than what you research, but it was also a matter of trying to step outside of the standard heist story format. I mean, Carey Grant and George Clooney have done great jobs portraying classy debonair masterminds but I think that has also become somewhat of a tired archetype. It is time for something new in the genre and I have worked hard to bring that to the book.”

Whether Boxman will be a success is yet to be seen but it should be of interest to residents of Wyoming as well as fans of the crime thrillers who are ready for a fresh take on the genre.  Boxman is now available at Amazon.com.