Malcolm Fox
crime fiction
Series · hardboiled mystery
Joe Serpe
The Joe Serpe series by Tony Spinosa has 3 books and is best read in publication order, starting with Hose Monkey (2006).
- Books
- 3 books
- First published
- 2006
- Status
- completed
- Last checked
Start here: Hose Monkey (2006) — then read straight through in publication order.
Reading order
The order the books were released — the default way to read the series.
- Book 1:
Hose Monkey
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Hose Monkey - Book 2:
Gun Bunnies
Alternative text for cover: Cover of Gun Bunnies - Book 3:
The Fourth Victim
Alternative text for cover: Cover of The Fourth Victim
About the Joe Serpe series
Joe Serpe is a disgraced former NYPD narcotics detective driving a heating-oil delivery truck on Long Island, trying to outrun a reputation built on a corruption scandal that ended his career. Reed Farrel Coleman wrote the trilogy under the pen name Tony Spinosa, a deliberate break from the literary, elegiac voice of his Moe Prager novels — the Serpe books are pulpier, faster, and rooted in the blue-collar, oil-truck-and-diner world of Long Island's North Shore rather than Brooklyn's old neighborhoods. Serpe's uneasy partnership with Bob Healy, the former Internal Affairs investigator who helped bring him down, gives the series its central tension: two men who despise what the other represents, forced into the same business ventures and the same cases.
Hose Monkey (2006) opens with Serpe discovering a woman's body in the snow beside his delivery route, dragging him back into investigative work he'd sworn off. Gun Bunnies (2007) and The Fourth Victim (2008) continue the Serpe-Healy partnership, widening out from oil-truck routes into gun trafficking and other Long Island criminal enterprises. Coleman has said the Spinosa name let him write in a rougher register than his own name carried by that point in his career, and the trilogy reads as a deliberate genre exercise — tighter and more plot-forward than the Moe Prager books, without their generational weight.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tony Spinosa a real person?
No -- Tony Spinosa is a pen name used by Reed Farrel Coleman for this trilogy, distinct from the more literary voice of his Moe Prager novels.
How many Joe Serpe books are there?
Three: Hose Monkey (2006), Gun Bunnies (2007), and The Fourth Victim (2008).
Why did Reed Farrel Coleman use a pen name for these books?
He's said the Spinosa name let him write a pulpier, faster-paced series without it being read against the more literary reputation his own name carried from the Moe Prager novels.
What order should I read the Joe Serpe books in?
Publication order: Hose Monkey, Gun Bunnies, The Fourth Victim. Joe Serpe's partnership with Bob Healy develops across all three.
Is the Joe Serpe series connected to Reed Farrel Coleman's other work?
Not through shared characters, but Coleman revisits similar working-class New York settings across his catalogue; Serpe's world (Long Island oil trucks and diners) is a deliberate change of scenery from the Brooklyn of Moe Prager.
If you like the Joe Serpe series
Reading order last verified .