Reviews

[A] savagely funny first novel… The beauty of the novel is Segura’s ability to walk a line between the comedy and the horror.

—Patrick Anderson / Washington Post / full review

Occupational Hazards boasts a punchy yet world-weary voice, a tight plot, and a seedily realistic depiction of rampant corruption in present-day Omaha—kind of like a shotgun wedding of Elmore Leonard and Chuck Palahniuk.

—Radar

[A] wildy foul-mouthed…fun little book that pops just often enough to make you think Jonathan Segura will do less deputy editing for Publishers Weekly and more novel writing.

—Max Abelson / New York Observer  / full review

Bernard Cockburn, a beat reporter in his early 30s for the Omaha Weekly News-Telegraph, pounds the fearsome streets of Omaha, Neb., in Segura’s crisp, raunchily amusing debut…. Cockburn is the sort of dysfunctional dude—immature, posturing, hapless—that will keep readers intrigued and should appeal especially to fans of Chuck Palahniuk and Arthur Nersesian.

—Publishers Weekly

From Publisher’s Weekly deputy reviews editor Segura, a profane, grimly witty newsroom noir set on the mean streets of Omaha… smart, fast-paced, cleverly plotted and with a gritty and persuasive city setting—an auspicious debut.

—Kirkus

It’s a wickedly fun book, partly because spending time with Cockburn makes you appreciate that you are not him… [F]ans of hard-boiled noir will have some fun on the mean streets of Omaha. This talented young author writes like he owns them. 

—Jason Kuiper / Omaha World-Herald / full review

[T]his is no academic poseur’s self-conscious first novel. Instead, it’s a dark, cynical, hilarious and occasionally violent mystery-cum-commentary on urban life that channels the best instincts of authors such as Jay McInerney, Dennis Lehane and Tim Cockey. It races along with tight plotting, uncomfortably believable characters, snappy dialogue and Segura’s stream-of-wiseguy asides.

—Gerald Ensley / Tallahassee Democrat / full review

Segura knows how to balance pathos and suspense, creating a surprisingly humane narrator who rapidly leads the way into a dark world. There’s something engrossing about watching Cockburn dance with the lowest rung of society, which may be Segura’s deftest move: reminding us that, like Cockburn, we like the muck.

—Robert Duffer / Time Out Chicago / full review

This is a bold, uncompromising first novel that succeeds so well because Cockburn is a morally complex character whose principles–largely absent though they may be–trump the morality of the upstanding citizenry of Omaha.

—Guy Savage / Mostlyfiction.com / full review