“Monkey Man: A Crime Story” set in lower Fairfield County is Darien resident David Scott Moore’s first novel, in good part about a subject he learned of as a banker — money laundering.
Author David Moore of Darien with his book, Monkey Man.
The story takes place in Greenwich and Stamford, in places that Darien readers will recognize.
“You never see a story with money laundering as the main theme,” Moore said in a recent interview. He described the book as “kind of like a preppy ‘Goodfellas.'”
Reptiles doing reprehensible things in rep ties?
It’s not as if Fairfield County hasn’t had its share of tales of fraudsters and underhanded behavior. Andrew Kissel, murdered in his Greenwich home in 2006, was accused of defrauding a New York co-op board of millions of dollars. The town of Fairfield wishes it never heard of Bernie Madoff. Check the latest headlines for more examples in Darien and elsewhere.
Moore, 53, who grew up in Greenwich and works there at Greenwich Bank & Trust (part of the same Connecticut Community Bank as Darien Bank & Trust), said his novel evolved as he wrote it.
“I wasn’t intending to write a crime story at all,” he said. “I was taking money laundering courses as a banker and just started saying, ‘Wow, that would be an interesting direction to go.”
Moore studied English in college and received his master’s degree in English writing from Western Connecticut State University. He’s written business articles for various local publications and penned some short stories and plays. He moved to Darien last year with his wife and two children — a three-year-old boy and a girl, 11.
What became “Monkey Man” started a decade ago as a play, then morphed into a short story and grew from there. He developed a hard routine, every night, of sitting down at 8 p.m. to add another 1,500 words to the manuscript. Or if he couldn’t add more words, he’d open the document and edit it. Over time, it added up.
“I tried outlines, note cards — everything” to organize the process. “I ended up throwing it all out the window.” Instead, he went where his imagination took him, not knowing where that would end up. “It made it fun — only having the goal of 1,500 words a day.”
He wound up with a 234-page book, which you can hear more about at Barrett Bookstore at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 27. Moore will talk about money laundering and his novel and sign copies.
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Check out the author’s website www.davidscottmoore.net
David Moore on Twitter @DavidDeplume