Urban Townes was completed under the affects of unemployment. This 'purely' fictional novel takes place in a midwestern American town called Forest City. A majority of the novel is seen through the eyes of a struggling, short story writer who has few readers. What follows has been described as a novel with no direction. Told, also, through the eyes of acquaintences of the short story writer - Warren Teare - they begin to see him differently; or as someone who may not be all that he appears to be. Did he have the capacity to kill the local bartender who had gone missing? Was it a senseless murder? Not defining any genre, really, this basic character study could be regarded the first 'anti-mystery'. As one character in retrospect says to the reader: '...he is getting tired of thinking like a detective in a cheap, dime-store novel.' In places like 'Urban Townes', where lives are still relatively young and just getting under way, death is for the old and extremely unfortunate. Not someone you know.