Dave White is a Derringer Award

Derringer Award

The Derringer Award is the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s annual award honoring excellence in Short Mystery Fiction. The awards were created in 1997 and named derringer after the palm-sized handgun, chosen as a metaphor for a short Mystery or Crime story....

-winning mystery author and educator. White, an eighth grade teacher for the Clifton, NJ Public School district

Clifton Public Schools

The Clifton Public Schools is a comprehensive community public school district that serves students in kindergarten through twelfth grade from Clifton, in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States....

, has written two novels featuring former New Brunswick, New Jersey

New Brunswick, New Jersey

New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...

 police detective turned private investigator

Private investigator

A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...

 Jackson Donne. The novels take place in locations around northern New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. White grew up in Clifton, New Jersey

Clifton, New Jersey

Clifton is a city in Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 84,136. The 2010 population represented an increase of 5,464 residents from its population of 78,672 in the 2000 Census, making it the state's 11th largest...

. He attended Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

 and received his MAT

Master of Arts in Teaching

The Master of Arts in Teaching degree is generally a pre-service degree that usually requires a minimum of 30 semester hours beyond the Bachelor's degree. While the program often requires education classes in order to meet state licensure requirements, it emphasizes advanced course work in a...

 from Montclair State University

Montclair State University

Montclair State University is a public research university located in the Upper Montclair section of Montclair, the Great Notch area of Little Falls, and Clifton, New Jersey. As of October 2009, there were 18,171 total enrolled students: 14,139 undergraduate students and 4,032 graduate students...

White's two novels follow the characters established in his 2002 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 "Closure," which won the Derringer Award for Best Short Mystery Story the following year. Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly

Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

has given both novels starred reviews calling When One Man Dies an "engrossing, evocative debut novel

Debut novel

A debut novel is the first novel an author publishes. Debut novels are the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to publish in the future...

" and writing that his second novel "fulfills the promise of his debut." Roland Person writes in his Library Journal review that "his first novel is awkwardly written and marred by contradictions and improbable events."