Spotted

How To Ask A Question At Bouchercon

2011-09-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

Got back a few days ago from the best convention anywhere, and I'm finally returning to normal. I'm almost over the Bouchercon flu, and after playing in the annual basketball game, my knees have almost returned to normal size (my ankle, though, is still fat and full of bruises).

Though I'm shutting the barn door here, I thought I'd review an important etiquette tip, since some people don't seem to get it. Here, then, is the Official CrimeSpot.net Guide To How To Ask A Question At Bouchercon:

1) You must ask a question you want to know the answer to. Don't ask questions just to sound cool*. Ask something you really want to know.

2) You must ask a question other people want to know the answer to. No one wants to listen to you ask probing questions about the bartender who appears on page 46 of your favorite author's latest book, even if he does "sound cute."

3) See all those people around you? You're not the one they want to listen to. So please keep your question short.

4) If you utter the words, "In my own book," or anything similar, your question is disqualified and you will be summarily ejected.

5) Finally, ask a question that lets the author talk for a bit. This is really the most important one - ask something the author can expand on. Give them room to start a conversation.

Although lots of the fun of Bouchercon takes place off stage (at the bar, etc.), the panels can really be enjoyable, especially when it turns into a real conversation, wiht the panelists all talking over each other and sparking ideas. If you have to ask a question, be sure you're helping them out.

* I was guilty of this once, at the late, lamented ConMisterio in 2005. I was listening to a panel called "How To Be Hip" in which all the authors agreed that part of being hip was low sales. So I asked, "Would you rather be hip - or sell out?"

The answer was instantaneous and unanimous.

Bourchercon Bound

2011-09-13T18:58:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I head off to St. Louis for Bouchercon (or, as some would have it, Debouchercon). I had a great time in Indianapolis two years ago, and I can't wait to meet some more of the people I only know online, such as the great and magnificent Gerald So, who (if I recall arightly) accepted a submission from me at The Thrilling Detective ten full years ago.

If you see me, just mention how much you love CrimeSpot, and I may buy you a drink. Chances go up the more drinks I've bought myself. See you there!

I Really Have Nothing To Add To This

2011-09-06T11:44:00.000-07:00

The Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp Fiction Appreciation Society (not safe for work, natch). Via Christa Faust.

Spotty Reception

2011-08-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

The site has not been updating regularly for the past week, but I have finally fixed the problem. This is why we in Information Technology never make two changes at once: In the same week I moved, and my hosting company changed some of their DNS (name-to-Internet address) servers.

So I spent a lot of time troubleshooting my connection here at the new house, when in fact the problem was that I needed to update CrimeSpot.net to use the correct servers. One of them was still good, which is why it worked sometimes and not others.

Another case of "technician, heal thyself."

Aaaand We're Back

2011-08-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the unexpected hiatus over the weekend. The CrimeSpot Command Center moved to new digs in lovely Euless, Texas, last Friday. I thought about putting up a message warning about a possible outage, but since I had already set up Internet installation for Friday, I though "Why bother?"

Well. When I was administering a wide-area network, my general rule was that any outage could, without even investigating, be blamed on the phone company with 99% certainty. So I should have bothered. But we're back and none the worse for wear.

More Good News for Private Eye Lovers

2011-06-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Er, that's for lovers of private eye fiction, not of the private eyes themselves (although the domain PrivateEyePersonals.com is available!). John Lutz's early Alo Nudger books are coming back in print and e-book formats.

For those of you not familiar with Nudger, he's not really cut out for private eye work. He gobbles antacids under stress. Never much of a fighter, he's not much of a lover, either. He's not even quick with a quip. The one quality he does possess is persistence, the dogged determination to get to the bottom of things.

I've been a fan of the series since I first ran across the short story "Where's Harry Beal?" many years ago, still one of my favorites, so yeah, I'm pretty chuffed about this.

(Many years ago I interviewed John Lutz for my now nearly-decrepit site Bleeker Books.)

Big News for Nathan Heller Fans

2011-06-14T11:12:00.001-07:00

Today on his blog, Max Allan Collins reveals that all twelve novels featuring Chicago/L.A. private investigator Nathan Heller are coming back into print. In addition there will be a new collection of the Heller short stories, Chicago Lightning, which will contain all the short stories from Dying in the Post-War World and Kisses of Death, as well as several uncollected stories.

Another new volume, Triple Play, will contain the three Heller novellas. Finally, the thirteenth Heller novel will be out in August. It's called Bye, Bye Baby, and finds Heller investigating the death of Marily Monroe.

Heller has always struck me as being one of the private eyes most faithful to those created in the genre's golden age, and especially similar to no-nonsense detectives such as Brett Halliday's Mike Shayne and William Campbell Gault's Brock Callahan.

Killing Ways, by Steven Torres

2011-02-10T07:47:00.000-08:00

Another new ebook makes its debut today - Killing Ways, a collection of stories by the estimable Steven Torres, author of the "Precinct Puerto Rico" books, among others. I may have had a hand in this one, as I badgered Steven about putting together some of his short stories and even volunteered to format them for the Kindle. I'm pretty happy with the results:

And the inside is even better. Two brand new stories featuring Ray Cruz, a mob enforcer in 1970s New York City. Four stories about Russian mercenary Viktor Petrenko. And three never before seen stories of horror, urban fantasy, and science fiction (one of each, actually).

If you've never read Steven, check out "Padrino", a Ray Cruz story from last summer's Plots with Guns.

I'm chuffed beyond words at how this turned out, and you will be too, once you get off your bum and grab a copy.

Crowdsourced Writing Advice: Writers.StackExchange.com

2011-02-08T11:35:00.001-08:00

A few years ago, a couple of programmers got together and created a question-and-answer site for other programmers, called StackOverflow.com. The site proved useful at connecting those with questions and those who knew the answers, and eventually expanded to sibling sites ServerFault.com (system administration) and SuperUser.com (end users).

Now they've expanded it again, into a whole network of q-and-a sites called StackExchange. And one of the newest additions is a writing advice site, Writers.StackOverflow.com.

It's true that many of the questions are overly broad ("How can I create memorable characters?") or relate more to voodoo techniques than writing itself ("What's the best word processor for writers?"), but there's a lot of good advice there. And it's fun to offer your wisdom (or, in my case "wisdom") to others who are just getting started.

Give it a test drive, I guarantee you'll be there all day.

Reed Farrel Coleman Interview

2011-02-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

There's a new-ish interview of Reed Farrel Coleman up over at The Thrilling Detective, conducted by Jack Bludis - a pretty damn fine writer himself (exhibit A: "Munchies"). Reed talks a bit about the life and times of Moe Prager, his influences, and his experience as Ken Bruen's sidekick.

(hat tip: Kevin Tipple)

More eBook Goodness from Mssrs. White and Tinsley

2011-01-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

This is, to me, the reason the Kindle was invented. Just a week or so after AN Smith's Choke on Your Lies debuts, we've got new collections by two of my favorite private eye writers of the last ten years.

Many people are familiar with Dave White, because he's published a couple of novels and because he's a frequent Internet presence (including writing for the group blog at Do Some Damage). Now he and Needle Magazine have announced the forthcoming anthology titled More Sinned Against, rounding up the sevon Donne stories.

Included is Dave's well-known "Closure", winner of the Derringer award, and "God's Dice", selected by the editors of The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories for their year-end anthology. "Closure" is still my personal favorite; his writing continued to get better, but there's something special about that story.

Robert W. Tinsley was a frequent contributor of private eye stories in the first half of the decade, many of them appearing in The Thrilling Detective, and now his tales of ex-Navy Seal, ex-Border Patrol agent, now El Paso private eye Jack Brady are available in a single volume. Called The Brady Files, it features eighteen (!) stories, many new to me.

In addition to his fiction, for a couple of years Bob reviewed short stories daily at The Short of It. He's more-or-less dropped out of sight since then (my sight, anyway), and I'm glad to see he's back with the new book. As we say down here in Texas, y'all check it out.

Let's Give Anthony Neil Smith A Boost

2011-01-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

The illustrious Anthony Neil Smith, editor of Plots With Guns, has just released a new novel, Choke on Your Lies. I've read the first few chapters, and it's excellent, maybe the best thing Neil has written. It's the story of sad-sack Mick, English professor and sensitive poet, whose wife has just dumpled him, and his good friend Octavia VanderPlatts, who's going to help him... punish her. Octavia is shrewd, manipulative, and rich enough not to put up with any bullshit. A good friend to have in such a situation.

So Neil's running a special on the book: for the next two weeks, you can get it on your Kindle (or Nook, or whatever) for just 99 cents. A thought experiment: think of all the songs you bought from iTunes. Now think of the absolute crappiest one, the one you bought when you were drunk, or bought because your ex liked it, or bought by mistake. Isn't a new ANS novel worth at least that much?

I'll leave it up to you to decide, but it's a good book and you ought to give it a try.

"The Bloody Olive" - A Short Film

2010-11-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

I found this via Roger Ebert's blog. There's shootings (multiple), stabbings (multiple), poisonings (yes, multiple) - all in just 10 minutes! A film more noir that this? There is none. None more noir.

The New Phone Books Are Here!

2010-11-01T16:58:00.001-07:00

Or, at least, the new print-on-paper hold-it-in-your-hand copy of Crime Factory, Issue 5. Photo goodness:

That Will Look Great On My Bookshelf

2010-10-27T19:13:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of Crime Factory Magazine is now available, featuring lots of.. wait, did I say bookshelf? You're damn right I did! Crime Factory is now available as a printed book from Amazon's CreateSpace. So now there's a new print-on-paper 'zine out there, joining the ranks the Needle and Out of the Gutter (and others I'm sure I'm forgetting).

Rather disreputable company, but whatever. Some of the fictionistas in this issue include Charlie Williams, Sandra Ruttan, the prolific Patricia Abbott, Paul D. Brazil, and Jim Winter, plus many others, both known and unknown to me.

In other mystery-pub news, webzines Mysterical-E and The Back Alley have new issues out this week, too. The Back Alley's lineup is particularly strong, with stories by O'Neil De Noux, Wayne D. Dundee, and Simon Wood.

Parnell Hall is King - UPDATE: Bouchercon Edition!

2010-10-09T16:01:00.001-07:00

King of Kindle, that is. A palate cleanser after a busy week:

UPDATE: And here's the hot-off-the-presses Bouchercon 2010 edition:

Terrible News

2010-09-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

I just heard that David Thompson, co-owner of Houston's Murder by the Book bookstore, and publisher of Busted Flush Press (recently acquired by Tyrus Books), passed away yesterday at the age of 38. I didn't know David well, but I met him at ConMisterio in Austin in 2005, and again at BoucherCon last year. I'm going to be down in Houston next month and was looking forward to seeing him again.

My sincerest condolences to his family, especially his wife McKenna.

Sarah Weinman has a roundup of rememberances here.

Sorry About That, Folks

2009-11-30T17:44:00.001-08:00

The site was migrated to a new server at my hosting company today. As it happens this FUBARed my configuration, and I have just got it corrected. Please enjoy your regularly scheduled updates.

Thanks,

The Management

All Better Now

2009-11-23T06:46:00.001-08:00

My Internet service has been restored! And there was much rejoicing.

Internet Down at Casa CrimeSpot

2009-11-22T18:36:00.000-08:00

My Internet service is down right now, so CrimeSpot will not be able to update until it's restored (I'm posting this from work). Hopefully this will all be resolved tomorrow. Sorry about the inconvenience!

Bouchercon Bullet Points

2009-10-30T11:02:00.001-07:00

As I was driving home yesterday I saw this posted on the marquee of a bar not far from where I work: "Adventure is really just poor planning." And I have to say that the Indianapolis Bouchercon is a great example of this, because I had no plan whatsoever but managed to fall ass over backwards into a good time at every turn. To wit:

The "Behind the Black Mask" wrap party. I was standing in the hotel bar talking to Duane Swierczynski when a man I didn't recognize came up and said, "We're going, Duane, if you want to come along." Turns out this was Shannon Clute, who ran the Behind the Black Mask podcast with Richard Edwards. I managed to get myself invited along, and we were off to the Dorman Street Saloon - which was once a hangout of John Dillinger's - in a 1936 Cadillac.

Clute and Edwards had invited many of the past guests from their now sadly defunct show, so I got to hang out with Duane, Megan Abbott, Reed Coleman, Christa Faust, Seth Harwood (another podcasting hero), and others too numerous too mention.

It's clear that Shannon and Richard are passionate about what they do - I had an especially spirited conversation with Richard - and they were great hosts, as well.

I was already getting well into "I love you man!" territory when I discovered that the bar had Shiner Bock. Along with a few helpers, we managed to drink every bottle they had in the cooler.

Me and Richard Edwards

Seth Harwood and Me
Photos by Mark Coggins

So I got back to my hotel room a little after midnight and fell asleep flat on my back, which I never do. A few more drinks and I would be the crime fiction Keith Moon. It would have been kind of cool to be a legend, but since I wouldn't have been around to see it, I'm glad I, ahem, passed.

Postscript: I got up the next morning to see an early panel, and grabbed a dress shirt and pair of slacks out of the closet. I felt like snail snot but I looked halfway respectable. Then, at the elevator, I ran into Duane. Who was still in his pajamas.
Crashing the Little, Brown dinner. So I spent the next day doing typical convention days, including meeting people I'd only corresponded with (Jim Winter, Bryon Quertermous - BTW, it's pronounced QueTERmous, people!), casing the dealer room, etc. Speaking of which, some of those dealers have more faith in humanity than I do. Example: I saw a $3000 first edition Chandler just sitting on a shelf. For anyone to take. Although it apparently requires more guts than I've got.

Moving on... So that evening I ended up running into Neil Smith and the Crimedog crew right around dinner time - secretly my plan all along - and we went across the street to a restaurant called the Weber Grill. There was a long wait for a table, so we stood around by the hostess station for a while, until someone said, "Hey, isn't that..." And it was (Blake Crouch, I think), coming out of a private room. And that's how we got invited to crash the Little, Brown party.

I got to talk to a couple of people from Booklist, Keir Graff and Bill Ott, who were very interesting people. Bill agreed with my choice of best George Pelecanos novels, which told me he was a man of great taste and acumen. And I got to meet YouTube sensation John Green, the Nerdfighter himself, who looks and acts just like he does on the Internet.

Much to my chagrin I didn't realize that Michael Connelly was in the other corner holding forth until he was actually leaving. I did have a swell view of his back, though.
Basketball. On Saturday I went with a group to play in SJ Rozan's annual Bouchercon basketball game, this year at the Atheneum. Supposedly Kurt Vonnegurt played in the gym there as a child, and I believe this to be true, because his ghost was still around and pushed many of my shots wide of the basket.

We played with a lot of enthusiasm, and somewhat less skill, although Parnell Hall surprised me with his one-legged jump shot which was pretty reliable. Jason Pinter turned out to be a banger, who once sent his own teammate crashing into the wall. But he was okay, and Jason was assessed a two minute minor for boarding.

And then there's Reed Coleman. Before you pass Reed the ball, you'd better make sure you're finished with it for a while, because you won't be seeing it again. I don't want to say he's a gunner, but every time he touched the ball it was like the last 10 minutes of Saving Private Ryan.

If you look carefully, you can see the top of my head.
Lee Child throws a party. I had never heard of the Reacher's Creatures party until Jack Bludis, Jan Long, and Debbi Mack said they were going. But each year, Lee Child throws a party for all of the Bouchercon attendees - just show your nametag and you're in. With an open bar. Lee doesn't have to do that to sell books, of course, but it's a wonderful gesture.

This year it was held at the Slippery Noodle, a bar that dated from the late 1800s and another of Dillinger's old haunts. I thought that sounded great because I was hungry again, but unfortunately for me there were in fact no noodles there. I did get to see everybody who was anybody, mostly while we waited in line at the bar (which was substantial - the line, not the bar). Reed showed why he's the smartest man in crime fiction by sending the lovely Sharon Doering to get a drink for him; naturally, she was served first.

I ended up spending quite a while talking to CrimeSpree's Jeremy Lynch, who seems to know everything that's going on in Hollywood. We had a good conversation, some of which I even remember, before the party burned itself out and we headed back to the hotel.
Saturday night's alright for... talking. It was already late but I didn't want to leave. I spent another couple of hours in the hotel bar, talking to pretty much anyone who came within range of my voice. I met Trey Barker in the restroom, where he agreed with Bob McClure that I have a "nice ass" (gee, thanks guys)(EDIT: this didn't come out quite the way I meant. I should note we were all fully clad at the time.). I greeted Harlan Coben by saying, "Very nice to meet you, Mr. Ilgauskas".

Big H vs. Big Z

I had to get up at six to pack and go to the airport, but man, it was hard to say goodbye. I finally bailed at one in the morning, and all I could think about was next year. See you in San Fran!

Video: "Kill 'Em", by Parnell Hall

2009-10-23T05:40:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Parnell Hall's "Stanley Hastings" books for years, but I didn't realize he was on my team at the annual Bouchercon basketball game until one of my teammates called, "Parnell! Parnell!" Being from New York, Parnell naturally shot it instead of passing.

Anyway, I was surfing his site at about 3am and found this delightful video. Enjoy.

Over-Promise and Under-Deliver

2009-10-20T23:52:00.000-07:00

A CrimeSpot tradition! Due to the fact that I am working 10-hour graveyard shifts all week, my BoucherCon diary will be delayed until this weekend. But then, dramatic revelations and salacious gossip galore!

Dallas Reed Farrell Coleman Fans, Take Note

2009-10-19T02:37:00.000-07:00

Reed Farrell Coleman will be signing at Legacy Books in Plano tomorrow night - that's Monday, October 19th, at 7pm. Unfortunately I won't be able to make it, as my son's pee-wee baseball team is in the fall-ball playoffs, but I urge everyone to go.

Coming tomorrow: BoucherCon, a diary in three parts.

Things to Do in Indy When You're Dead

2009-10-14T17:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I head off to glamorous Indianapolis, Indiana, for BoucherCon 2009. I have only been to one B'Con - 2002 in Austin - and only one other mystery convention, the late, lamented ConMisterio, in Austin in 2005. I am looking forwards to seeing some old friends, making some new ones, and putting faces to people I only know online.

There are those who won't be going, and I'm really sorry I'm not going to see you guys. So I'll spare a thought and lift a glass for Sarah Weinman, Gerald So, Dave White, Kevin Burton Smith, Tom Sweeney, Michael Bracken, and the many, many others I've forgotten.

If you see me around, be sure to say hello and maybe I'll buy you a beer, depending on how much of my hospitality budget I've spent on drinks. A full report will follow once my hangover clears up.

Crimedogs On Parade

2009-09-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

This week brings some news from the ranks of the Crimedogs (no, not him). First, Victor Gischler's new opus Vampire A Go-Go lands on the shelves at finer bookstores everywhere. This book is not a sequel to the fine Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse, but just another brazen attempt to cash in on the current go-go dancing craze, and I am deeply disappointed that Gischler would sink to the level of an obvious cash grab.

On the other hand, a book with "vampires, witches, werewolves, zombies, alchemists, wizards, everything and the kitchen sink" can't be all bad.

His fellow felonious canine Anthony Neil Smith, whose novel Hogdoggin' is racing up the charts everywhere, announced a while back that the new Plots With Guns is now online. The new issue has some really nice photography from Peter Kim, typography from PWG intern Thomas Flynn, and, oh yeah, some stories from the usual butt-kicking suspects, such as Tribe, Keith Rawson, and an excerpt from Scott Phillips' forthcoming novel Supply Sarge.

Speaking of Keith Rawson, he's got a new gig reviewing short fiction at the BCS Review. Looks like this should be a weekly thing, too. Good luck, Keith - you're up against some stiff opposition.

In other 'zines: The Back Alley webzine has a new issue up. After their recent worthwhile Canadian initiative (all Canadian writers), this issue features an all-female roster, including Edgar award winner G. Miki Hayden and the prolific Patriticia Abbott, living proof that writing talent is genetic.

And the lastest I Love A Mystery is now available, with spotlight reviews of authors Mary Jane Clark and David Liss, and a review of the (sadly) last ever John Dortmunder novel from the late, great Donald Westlake.

Possible CrimeSpot Outage 7/20

2009-07-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

There may be a CrimeSpot outage tomorrow (Monday, 7/20) as we're having our house painted this week, and I will need to turn off my computer so that they can paint the room. I am going to try to run the site remotely from my laptop, but in the event that this doesn't work, well, you've been warned.

It's Not Me, I Swear!

2009-07-10T21:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the extended down time the past couple of days. My hosting provider, NearlyFreeSpeech.net, is normally excellent, and I'd recommend them to anyone, but they uncovered a security problem that required replacing the rights on all the files on all the servers.

In order to fix this they disabled FTP uploads until all the files had the new properties, and this apparently took a very, very long time. But everything is A-OK now, so I now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Buy Indie; Winter Rules The Road

2009-04-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

A couple of quick notes on a cold April day (for Texas; it's 62 degrees). First up, don't forget that this Friday, May 1st, is International Buy Indie day. Be sure to head to the local independent bookstore. If you're in the mood, double-dip by picking up a small press book.

For some, that's easier said than done; there are very few independent booksellers in Dallas/Fort Worth. Some of these are independent in name only, such as the Half-Price Books chain (and they've taken plenty of my money already). So I'll be heading to Roanoke, Texas, to The Book Carriage. I hope to see y'all there!

(Buy Indie Day was suggested by novelist Joe Finder on Twitter - thanks, Joe!)

Road Rules. Jim Winter, author of the now-collectible Northcoast Shakedown (I have a copy - do you?) and numerous fine short stories, is serializing his novel Road Rules on the web. He's up to Chapter 3 so far, with a podcast version beginning on May 2nd. After reading a few entries, I have to say: Jim, thank God you took those web design classes.

(Seriously, it's free and worth your time. Check it out.)

Have a great week, and keep buying books!

Worthwhile Canadian Initiative

2008-12-31T12:50:00.000-08:00

Richard Helms over at the The Back Alley has just announced their latest issue, with a roster of all-Canadian authors, including the likes of Nick Andreychuk and Art Montague. Didn't those guys use to play for the Maple Leafs?

A couple of other new webzines that you may have missed: CROOKED has just launched with hot, fresh Issue #1, featuring Sandra Seamans and Sandra Ruttan (among others). What, they couldn't get Sandra Scoppetone, too?

Also, David Cranmer has launched Beat to a Pulp, with a new story every week. The mag launched with a story by the ubiquitous Patricia Abbott (sorry, Stephen, she's taken your title) called "The Instrument of Their Desire".

Free Scene. Kate Stine sends word of a limited time offer - get a free copy of Mystery Scene magazine. Just drop by their website and sign up. As she puts it, "This offer is good until I can walk through our office again."

Finally, I sincerely hope everyone reading this had a good 2008. In 2009 may the road rise to meet you and the wind be at your back.

James Crumley Dies

2008-09-18T16:26:00.000-07:00

The wheel of life turns again. Soon after the deaths of Gregory McDonald and David Foster Wallace, James Crumley has passed away at age 68.

I met him briefly at ConMisterio in Austin in 2006. He seemed to be in poor health at the time, moving around rather slowly. He also seemed to think the whole thing was faintly ridiculous. I spoke with him a few moments but was too starstruck to talk long. My loss.

I know that The Last Good Kiss is widely considered his masterpiece, but I always liked The Wrong Case, in which fuckup private eye Milo Milodragovich investigates the death of the man who was his surrogate father, and in the process ruminates on the death of his real father many years before.

Crumley's last published novel, The Right Madness, left me cold, but I always looked forward to his next book, one I guess won't be coming.

At director Ernst Lubitsch's funeral, Billy Wilder is said to have remarked, "No more Lubitsch," to which William Wyler replied, "Worse than that - no more Lubitsch pictures."

No more Crumley books. No more Crumley.

(Sarah Weinman has a big roundup here.)

I WANT

2008-07-12T17:54:00.001-07:00

Plus: The end of the Stories, The Lineup has landed, Crimedogs on parade.

I got an email earlier today from Hard Case Crime's mailing list, touting a new series of books set to debut next year - and I'm already salivating. The series is called The Adventures of Gabriel Hunt, and it's an attempt to do for pulp what Hard Case did for hardboiled crime fiction. Each book will be credited to "Gabriel Hunt" and will be written both by Hard Case veterans and other writers, both new and established. To check out a cover image, go to http://www.huntforadventure.com/.

A house-name pulp series? Featuring some of my favorite authors? Done up by the inimitable Hard Case crew? Count me in!

Hardluck Stories calls it a day. Speaking of pulp, publisher Dave Zeltserman has closed up shop at his excellent webzine, Hardluck Stories. And he's going out with a bang - the Pulp issue, featuring well-know pulpophiles such as Bill Crider ("Crossroads") and James Reasoner ("The Red Reef"), and many others, all illustrated by Jean-Pierre Jacquet.

Dave talks about the Hardluck experience here. Goodbye, Hardluck, it's been fun.

The Lineup debuts. Spearheaded by editor Gerald So, the busiest man in crime, a new book of crime-fiction poetry, The Lineup, is now available. Gerald's been blogging about the process of putting everything together for some time now, and he has more backstory over at The Rap Sheet.

The best news: The Lineup will be a series. Not TV, unfortunately, but if you're of a lyrical bent, check the submission guidelines. You can buy The Lineup here.

Crimedogs come to town. If you're in the Dallas/Fort Worth area tomorrow, be sure to catch Anthony Neil Smith and Victor Gischler tomorrow at the Barnes and Noble on Northwest Highway (across from Northpark Mall) tomorrow at 2pm. I'll be there, armed with a camera, and I promise many EXCLUSIVE photos, some hopefully embarrassing or even incriminating. Watch this space!

Free Psycho Billy!

2008-05-12T09:37:00.000-07:00

Plus: LaSalle Lives On!

Two bits of Crimedog-related news to pass on today. First, it's Psychobilly Monday, the day you all agreed to rush down to Barnes & Noble and buy a copy of Neil Smith's Yellow Medicine. You say you didn't agree to this? I've got your signature right here on this for. No? Sure looks like it to me.

So here's your chance to help Neil stick it to the Man. The proceeds should go a long way towards paying off all those golf balls he's lost in water hazards across America.

In Other News: The late, great Emerson LaSalle has returned to blogging - a neat trick since he died some time ago. But apparently he was never quite comfortable with the latest technology, preferring to write out his blog posts longhand so his assistants could transcribe them. They're now doing their best to get them up there on his blog.

Even better, YOU have the chance to help pick the LaSalle quote for a line of trading cards featuring sci-fi writers. Leave your favorite line from LaSalle in the comments. Fabulous no-prize prizes for all who enter!

Incidentally, I understand a longstanding rumor has finally been debunked. Despite their long-running feud, there is no truth to the rumor that LaSalle was in Ketchum, Idaho, on the night of Hemingway's "suicide".

Well, This Sucks - Updated

2008-04-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

So romance author Deborah MacGillivray got all wound up about a mediocre review on Amazon.com, to the point she's encouraging her fans to mark the review as "abusive", ensuring its removal.

Worse, she has apparently dug up some personal information about "Reba", the reviewer. What possible use could she make of this information? You're mystery readers, use your imaginations.

Worst of all, however, was the response when Tess Gerritsen posted a less-than-serious blog entry about the whole mess (there are several follow-up posts, visit her home page to read them all). The comments generally ran to the negative, to the extent that Tess decided to shutter her blog (temporarily, we hope).

Just great.

Tess won't miss the Internet - she has a career and a life. These other people? Getting in Internet pissing matches is what they do. I think I'll miss Tess's opinion more than theirs. Unfortunately, she's going away and they aren't.

Update: First, I forgot to mention where I heard about this.

Second, J.D. Rhoades has a nice post on this subject at Murderati.

Finally, I believe I have found the reason for this behavior (not-safe-for-work language).

Rita Mae Brown

2008-03-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting article on Rita Mae Brown from Time. While her fiction is not considered cutting edge - cat mysteries get a lot of grief in some quarters - she's apparently fearless in real life. She's never felt a need to hide her homosexuality, and in fact her first book, Ruby Fruit Jungle, was a comic coming-of-age story about a young lesbian. It sold a million copies.

She was also kicked out of NOW by Betty Freidan personally, and later has a high-profile relationship with Martina Navratilova. Now she's Master of the Hounds for a foxhunting club in Virginia. No word on what Sneaky Pie thinks of that.

Last Call to Do Some Good

2008-03-03T08:05:00.001-08:00

See that widget over there to the left, showing how much CrimeSpot readers have donated to the United Way? If you were planning on dropping some spare cash, you'd better get to it soon, as it's going away after this weekend. Some will be disappointed that they won't constantly be reminded how cool they are for contributing; others will be relieved that they won't be faced daily with evidence of their own skinflintedness.

Brown's Requiem. Dick Adler has an excellent article on Fredric Brown in the Chicago tribune. Brown's been one of my favorite writers for years, both for his mystery and science-fiction stories. In fact, I titled my Carnival of the Criminal Minds post Carnival of Crime, the title of Brown's "best of" anthology.

Dick asks why Brown never achieved the status of Dashiell Hammett or Jim Thompson, and I think he left out one of the reasons: Brown had a whimsical sense of humor that didn't fit into the hard-boiled world that much of his work would otherwise have been categorized as. I mean you can only set so many murder mysteries at circuses before people begin to wonder if you're serious.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

2008-02-22T18:53:00.000-08:00

Plots With Guns has returned from the dead! There's only two possible outcomes here: A) "The savior of noir has returned!", or B) "BRRRAAAAAAIIIIIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSS..."

Carnival of Crime

2008-02-10T10:15:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Carnival of the Criminal Minds for February, 2008. This month we've got the all-singin', all-dancin', all audio-visual carnival, focusing on mystery podcasts and promotional videos.

You can find January's carnival at Detectives Beyond Borders. March's carnival will be at In Reference To Murder. And a special no-prize prize to the first reader who can identify which writer's "best of" collection had the same title as this post. No Googling!

Podcasts

First up is the granddaddy of mystery podcasts, Behind the Black Mask, run by Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards. They've been on the air for almost two years now, and have interviewed authors such as Max Allan Collins, Jason Starr, Megan Abbott, and moste recently interviewed the "Czar of Noir", Eddie Muller.

Almost as venerable, In For Questioning has been on the air since late 2006. Another interview 'cast, recent victims include Christa Faust and Ken "Pope of Galway Bay" Bruen.

Forward-looking publisher Bleak House Books has developed its own podcast, entitled The Future Is Bleak. Sure, the focus is on Bleak House books and authors, but this is more than just an infomercial. Recent guests include Craig McDonald and Crimedog Neil Smith.

Another type of podcast is dedicated to characters, not authors, and if the name I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere doesn't tip off the character in question, I don't know what to tell you. The most recent episode features Otto Penzler talking about his love of Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous creation, and about his collection of Sherlockiana.

Last, we'd be remiss if we didn't include podcast fiction, and Wormwood is just that, a weekly serial featuring the adventures of Dr. Xander Crowe as he investigates the strange goings on in the small town of Wormwood. The story isn't just narrated, either, but like old-time radio, Wormwood features a full cast of characters.

Well, that's enough aural entertainment, let's move on to a treat for the eyes...

Videos

The "vidlet", or promotional book video, started a couple of years ago, but got a real boost with the emergence of YouTube as widely used delivery system.

One of the more ambitious entries is the video for Christa Faust's new novel Money Shot. Directed by Faust herself, this short clip certainly has an impact.

The guys at Out of the Gutter Magazine were intent on getting the word out about their "War" themed issue, so the put together a pretty intense little ad (Warning: images may be disturbing).

These videos work best if you can find the right music, of course, and the anthology Chicago Blues was a natural. Some of the contributors put in appearances, including editor Libby Fischer Hellmann.

Going back a ways, here's a video for Victor Gischler's Suicide Squeeze, which gives a taste of how much fun the book is.

Former editor Jason Pinter put together a teaser for his first novel The Mark, as did Duane Swierczynski for his major-lable debut The Wheelman (featuring a certain Scot as getaway driver Lennon).

If anyone out there knows of any podcasts and/or vidlits that I've missed, send 'em in and I'll run a follow-up.

I hope you have enjoyed this edition of the Carnival of the Criminal Minds. Be sure to hit next month's installment over at In Reference To Murder. Have a great February, everyone!

Black Mystery Month

2008-02-06T18:41:00.001-08:00

Actually February is Black History Month, so here's a few links to tide you over until I have the Carnival of the Criminal Minds up this weekend.

* Room To Swing is generally considered to be the first novel to feature a realistic black detective, Toussaint Moore. Ed Lynskey profiles author "Ed Lacy" (actually Leonard Zinberg) at MysteryFile.com.

* Brian Lindemuth provides an interesting overview of black crime and mystery fiction over at FantasyBookSpot.

* Let's not forget Kevin Burton Smith's "Beyond Shaft: Black Private Eyes In Fiction" from 2001.

* Last but certainly not least: earlier this week, Slate.com published an appreciation of one of my favorite mystery movies, In The Heat Of The Night. Sidney Poitier was the star, but Rod Steiger had the better role, as bigoted police chief Bill Gillespie.

This movie reminds me of an interview I once heard with Donald Barksdale, the first black NBA All-Star back in the segregated 1950s. When asked about his teammates' reaction to playing with a black man, he responded, "They're athletes. If you can play, they respect you."

The same is true in every profession, and as Gillespie realizes that Poitier's Virgil Tibbs is a good policeman - better, in fact, than he is himself - he is able to overcome his prejudices and eventually offer his hand in friendship.

As the Slate piece notes, the film doesn't sacrifice story for social policy. Over forty (!) years later this remains a taunt thriller as well as a document of why the Good Old Days weren't all that rosy.

Bad News from Weatherford

2008-01-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

Prolific Texas writer James Reasoner today reports on his blog that his house has been destroyed by fire. He is the author of more than 200 books, including the classic Texas Wind, last year's well-reviewed Dust Devils, and the new anthology Graveyard Shift.

The good news: no one was injured. I can't be sure at this point but I the fire was probably caused by yesterday's windstorm here in north Texas. I know that there was a wildfire in the Benbrook area - about ten miles from my house - and that about 20 homes were destroyed in other fires.

Please keep James and his family in your thoughts and prayers.

Almost Famous

2008-01-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

Just got an email from Daniel Hatadi the other day. Seems that this humble site was mentioned in a Reuters article entitled "Web yields deadly tricks for crime writers", which has been widely syndicated. Woohoo! I expect a flood of tens of new visitors.

This news comes hard on the heels of a book called "The Bookaholics Guide to Book Blogs" (via Bill C.), which also mentions CrimeSpot. There has got to be a way to make some money from this.

RIP, Ed Hoch and Benjamin Schutz. Edward D. Hoch died at 77 last week. Hoch was best known as a prolific short story writer who had a short story in every issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine for 35 years, with popular series featuring thief Nick Velvet, New England doctor Sam Hawthorne, police detective Captain Leopold, and many, many others.

This week also brought news that Benjamin Schutz had died of a heart attack. Schutz wrote a number of well-received novels featuring Washington, D.C.-based private eye Leo Haggerty, but to my mind the best thing he ever wrote was the Shamus award winning story "Mary, Mary, Shut The Door", one of the best PI stories ever.

I understand that Schutz was also a forensic psychologist, and he left writing for many years to concentrate on that other career. More recently he had published a follow up to "Mary, Mary" entitled "Lost and Found", and had published a new novel, The Mongol Reply.

Spottier Than Usual (UPDATE: Fixed)

2008-01-05T06:41:00.001-08:00

Due to technical issues, updates to CrimeSpot.net will be intermittent over the next couple of days. Issues with my provider mean that the updates can only run when I'm sitting at my computer to run them manually. Sorry about this, and I'll have it resolved as soon as possible.

Update: The support staff at Applied Innovations got the problem fixed quickly, much to my relief. Thanks, guys!

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Procrastination

2007-12-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

If you have emailed me about adding your blog recently, I have to apologize. I've been working on getting out a minor revision that makes a few changes to the structure of the database, so I would have to make any changes on both the old copy and the new. I had hoped to have it ready last weekend, but a few bugs delayed it until today. Now, however, I have no excuse - if I don't add your blog, just chalk it up to laziness.

"Philo-, Philan-... Good-deed-doers." I just discovered that David Montgomery over at the Crime Fiction Dossier is also running a charity drive this holiday season, collecting money for First Book, an organization dedicated to "give disadvantaged children the opportunity to read and own their first new books." Drop on by, and tell 'em I sent you.

Speaking of charity drives, the CrimeSpot drive is now more than 10% of the way towards its goal of $1,000. We can do better! And thanks to Megan Powell, Steven Torres, and Bill Crider, all of whom have mentioned the drive on their blogs. Remember, I'll kick in an extra ten bucks for each person who mentions it on their site (and please let me know if you do). There's room for ten more of you, so hop on the bandwagon.

The Season Of Giving

2007-12-13T10:06:00.000-08:00

Some of you may have noticed a new widget at the top of the "Recent Posts" column on the front page. Since this is the holiday season and all, I thought I would try to get a CrimeSpot.net charity drive running, with donations going to the United Way.

My target is $1,000 dollars. Since the site statistics say I get about 500 unique visitors a month, that's only two dollars a person. (If you can't see the widget, the donation page is here.)

Now, CrimeSpot is and always will be free, and there's no obligation to donate anything. If you prefer just to read the posts, I promise not to try guilting you into donating. You heartless monster.

I've already kicked in a starter donation (and left an inspirational comment). I'll also contribute $5 for each of the first ten people who mention this on their website and provide a link to the donation page. The address is:

http://www.firstgiving.com/CrimeSpot

Thank you for your support.

Lock And Load

2007-11-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

Superb news out of Minnesota: In a post earlier today (Sunday), Anthony Neil Smith announced that Plots With Guns will be returning. The original PWG helped discover writers like Sean Doolittle, Scott Wolven, and of course editors Neil Smith and Victor Gischler, the Original Crimedogs themselves.

So send your best to Neil, and remember, there's only one rule: you gotta have a gun.

Two of the Year's Best: Congratulations are in order for the Michigan Mafia - both Patricia Abbott and Bryon Quertermous have announced that their stories have been selected to appear in The Year's Finest Crime And Mystery Stories. Their stories, "A Saving Grace" and "Cadaver Dog", appeared in The Thrilling Detective and Hardluck Stories, respectively - more evidence that online markets have matured. Big congrats to the tireless editorial staffs at those fine publications.

A Favorite Gets His Due: Back in 1990 I was burned out studying for my final exams and needed a break. I spent a few minutes poking around in the small reading area my college library kept just for such occasions and ran across a private eye novel titled Jackpot. I had never heard of the author, Bill Pronzini.

Once I finished the book I read everything I could by Pronzini, and he became not just one of my favorite authors, but the one I most wanted to emulate. His stories about real people doing things that real people really do struck a chord with me.

Apparently I'm not the only one, as this year Pronzini will receive a Grand Master Edgar award. As pointed out by J. Kingston Pierce, Pronzini's been nominated no less than six times for an Edgar, but never managed a win. Now his long career as a novelist, short story writer, anthologist, and historian will be recognized with the genre's highest honor.

Finally, some sad news: Noted pulp writer Emerson LaSalle finally passed to the Great Slush Pile In The Sky. In his "heyday", LaSalle wrote over 400 pulp novels, most sadly forgotten today, with titles like Busty Babes Break the Bank and (my favorite) Go-Go Girls From Planet Damnation. A frequent drinking buddy of Kilgore Trout, LaSalle's name has been kept in the news for the past few years primarily due to the efforts of Victor Gischler, who's a big fan. So hoist a beer for LaSalle and say a prayer in his name.

New York, New York

2007-10-25T15:19:00.007-07:00

I went to New York on business this past weekend, business that involved an early morning van ride from Mahwah, New Jersey, into the wilds of the Hudson Valley... Accompanied by several grim-faced associates, I spent all day in the woods there. The only sound was the occasional scream...

Unfortunately it was nothing as fun as displosing of dead bodies - instead it was my company's annual disaster recovery exercise at the IBM facility in Sterling Forest, New York. The screams? That was me, watching as procedures that I had spent weeks, even, literally, years working on, go down in flames.

But on Friday, before the weekend of pain, we feasted in Manhattan, at Angelo's in Little Italy. For those who have never been to Little Italy (in reality reduced to just a few blocks of Mulberry Street), that area is so perfect it looks more like a Manhattan set on the backlot of a Hollywood studio - narrow streets, old brick apartment buildings standing right on the sidewalk, and parking lots that charged $10 per half hour. Which we had to use, because one of our number (she shall remain nameless) insisted that it would be more convenient to drive, so we wouldn't have to worry about train schedules. So drive we did. At great lenght. Two hours to go forty miles, in fact.

One more thing about Little Italy - it's now surrounded by New York's Chinatown, and that brings me to the book I finished on the flight home, Paul Malmont's The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.

Peril features pulpsters Walter Gibson (creater of The Shadow) and Lester Dent (Doc Savage) teaming up to fight a globe-spanning conspiracy. Following a tip from a dying Howard Lovecraft, they seperately close in on a fiendish warlord whose discovery of a forgotten secret weapon threatens to plunge the world into chaos. A bit pulpy, you might say, but then that's the point!

The book is a hell of a lot of fun, with cameos of lots of well-known pulp writers, some of which are tricky to spot ("Chester", "Lew"), and told with obvious love for the magazines of the era.

Malmont is also involved in a project called Warrior Library, in which authors who have copies of their books just laying around send them to servicemen and -women overseas. If you are an author or publisher, please check it out at the very least. You're sure to make someone very happy, and maybe pick up a fan in the process.

Believe it or not, pulp is pretty easy to find these days. Adventure House is coming up on the 100th issue of their pulp reprint magazine, High Adventure, and has many other reprints and facsimiles available - though navigating their website can be something of a challenge. Vintage Library is another site that has a wide variety of pulp available - in fact, one of their double novels features The Golden Vulture, which plays an important role in The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril.

Speaking of Adventure House, here's a link I've been meaning to pass along for a while. Forty-five years ago, writer Charles Beaumont penned a loving eulogy called "The Bloody Pulps" (350k PDF). Beaumont does a good job capturing the appeal of what, by most definitions, is absolute dreck. Worth a look.

The Best Idea EVAR

2007-09-25T07:33:00.010-07:00

Over at Sarah Weinman's blog, they're having a bit of fun roasting Dave White on the day his new novel hits the shelves. Yes, you too can get your own copy of When One Dude Abides, appearing soon in bargain bins everywhere.

I first heard of Dave when his story "Closure" appeared over at Thrilling Detective. It's still the best 9/11 story I've read, and one of the best detective stories I've read in the past few years.

If you want to check out a few funny Dave tidbits, head over to Chatterific and check out this transcript. Dave couldn't make it because he had a date, which gave us the opportunity to make jokes at his expense, like "I guess that 'Hi, I'm a writer' line works better than it used to." Or, "I hear, 'Hi, I'm a middle-school English teacher' works better."

However you choose to celebrate, be sure to show Dave just how much you care.

Stanley Synchronicity

2007-08-06T17:26:00.000-07:00

I was at the used bookstore this weekend, and just by luck stumbled upon a Stanley Hastings mystery by Parnell Hall. If you've never read the series, Hastings is a failed actor and failed writer who makes ends meet by photographing cracks in the sidewalk for an ambulance chasing attorney. As Kevin Burton Smith puts it, "...a PI as tough as his name!"

Although he turned out fifteen Hastings books in as many years, Hall is perhaps better known for his more recent "Puzzle Lady" series (unread by me). With the success of that series and the fact that the last Hastings book saw print five years ago, I thought that Stanley had run his course.

I was wrong, and for once I'm happy about it. Hall's newest book, Hitman, arrives in stores next month, and finds Stanley working for- wait, I'll let Hall explain:

Stanley's back!
And he's working for a Hitman. Yes, you read it right. Only a private eye with Stanley's tortured logic could come up with a reason to justify working for a man who kills people. Of course, the pay is good.

An early Christmas present! If you'd like an introduction to Stanley, you can read the first chapter of Hitman at his web site, where you can also check out the Stanley Hasting short story "Clicker Training" (reviewed by me at Nasty, Brutish, Short).

Tragedy in Minnesota

2007-08-02T10:35:00.010-07:00

When I wrote yesterday's post, about a beam falling from a bridge under construction, I had no idea that before the end of the day that story would be overshadowed by the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis. My condolences to the families of those who have died, and best wishes for the recovery of the injured.

In happier news, the new issue of DEMOLITION is out. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it features a Viktor Petrenko story by Steven Torres, and those are always pretty good (my favorite is still the Junk in the Trunk story "Viktor Petrenko, Have You No Mercy"). Of the remaining authors, only William Boyle is familiar to me - I believe he has a story in the new issue of Out of the Gutter, but new writers are always welcome.

The new issue of ThugLit is out, with a rather fetching picture of a nymphet Eve taking an apple from the snake. She looks like she's none too sure about it, too. And I am not familiar with any of these writers... it's like the world has passed me by. And I'm not even 40 for another eighteen months.

As always, details are up (or forthcoming) at the Crime Zine Report.

One Word:

2007-08-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

Flitcraft.

Clicky Linky

2007-07-30T09:56:00.010-07:00

Random shots from a big bore...

So long, farewell... Damn, another fiction market gone.

Things I learned from IMDB.com. Last week I wrote a review of Donald Westlake's classic story "The Feel of the Trigger". The story unfolds according to the conventions of the police procedural, and it reads very much like a story by Ed McBain, master of that form.

A few days later I was poking around IMDB.com and found that it had in fact been adapted as an episode of the TV series made from McBain's books, "82nd Precinct". Not only that, but Norman Fell - Mr. Roper from "Three's Company" - played detective Meyer Meyer! The mind boggles.

Another IMDB note: I was looking for a quote from Kill Bill Vol. 2 and discovered that the part of Esteban Vihaio, the pimp who became Bill's mentor, was played by Michael Parks. In Kill Bill Vol. 1 (and From Dusk 'Til Dawn), Parks played Texas Ranger Earl McGraw. He later reprised the same role in Grindhouse. Maybe he has nude pictures of Tarantino or something.

Bound for the Gutter. I'm late to the party, thanks to the fact that I thought I had purchased a year's subscription (five minutes a PayPal convinced me otherwise), but the second issue of Out of the Gutter is now available. This is the "Gangland" issue, and features some nice graphics apparently inspired by Gangs of New York. Here's a peek at the cover:

Here's the best part, in case you missed it:

Yes, I am now Arbiter of Style and Taste for stylish, tasteless crime mags. I vow to use my powers only for evil, not for good.

She's #1. An interesting piece on Amazon's #1 reviewer, Harriet Klausner. Had I thought about it, one of the fake blurbs on John Rickards' Hardboiled Jesus cover would have read: "Worst book I ever read! Three stars!!! -- Harriet Klausner."

The last entry in this tedious list. I read an excellent article on mystery fiction on the web recently. Author Matthew Baldwin talked to Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson, Anthony Neil Smith, Sandra Ruttan, and Dave Zeltserman (among others) and put together an interesting and well-balanced article. Stop what you're doing now (i.e. reading this tripe) and go do that instead.

Killer Diller

2007-07-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

You may have seen the photos around at various places of the Killer Year crew, promoting their new Killer Year anthology. CrimeSpot.net has obtained an EXCLUSIVE photo of the group last year, promoting a slightly different book:

And is it just me, or does KY editor Lee Child look all, "I'm not with them."

Love in the Great White North. Numerous and sundry congratulations to Mississippian Neil "Crimedog" Smith, now a resident of Minnesota, who recently got married. I think Karen Olson said it best, in a comment at best man Victor Gischler's blog: "All the best to the happy couple..."

"...oh, and to Brandy as well."

Her parents must be so proud. All jokes aside, best wishes to the new couple.

And their must be something in the water up north, because Bryon Quertermous of nearby Wisconson (they're right next to each other on the map) has recently gotten engaged. I give him a lot of grief about his "Canadian" girlfriend (as in, "Yes I have a girlfriend - she's from Canada!"), but again, best wishes. Here's a picture of the lucky lady:

And here's some proof of the fact she's vision-impaired:

New Noir-Type Stuff. I recently came across the newish web zine Pulp Pusher via the Crime Zine Report, and it looks like really good stuff. The latest updates include stories by "Big" Jim Winter, Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson, and Sandra "Rootin' Tootin'" Ruttan.

Another new zine is The Back Alley. The debut issue features stories by (among others)Edgar winner G. Miki Hayden, Stephen D. Rogers, and CrimeSpot fave Jack Bludis, plus a classic story from Carroll John Daly. Check it out.

Double Trouble

2007-07-05T11:13:00.009-07:00

John Rickards has had a few... issues in the past. I'm speaking now of his issues with the covers that his publisher has seen fit to slap on his books. Not once, but twice, his publisher has selected the exact same stock photograph as another recent crime novel.

And now it's happened again:

Personally I preferred John's second choice for the tagline: "So, you were just going to leave me up there, then?" Hopefully this new brouhaha will prompt John to get off his ass and post the "Compleat Hardboiled Jesus" to his new site. There's a new HJ story in the latest Out of the Gutter, so John's actually getting paid for writing this stuff.

In other news: The new issues of Spinetingler Magazine and ThugLit are now on-line. You would already know this, of course, if you'd been reading the indispensible Crime Zine Report. This time out Spinetingler features stories by the likes of James R. Winter and Stephen D. Rogers (natch), plus fine stories by a bunch of writers I'm not familiar with. ThugLit has stories by Nathan Cain, Hugh Lessig (who's been on a roll lately), and four others.

The New Black. There's been a lot of discussion and even argument about neo-Noir lately. Like most arguments, it was started by Kevin Burton Smith (yeah, that's a cheap shot. Sorry). While most of the responses seem to take issue with Kevin's feelings that much modern noir is rife with gratuitous violence, the part of his essay that resonated with me was his argument that the little guy isn't represented in new Noir fiction.

I personally happen to enjoy stories that feature real people doing things that people can really do. For this reason I'm a fan of Bill Pronzini, for example. Too much modern crime fiction focuses on crime lords, evil geniuses, FBI hotshots, etc. What ever happened to the dockworker whose brother was a small-time thief? I think that this change in perspective moves noir into the realm of escapism, away from its roots in social realism (George Pelecanos is the most prominent current practitioner of that).

Although Kevin only touched on it, I believe that noir is now more of a style that can be applied to just about any plot and any collection of characters, which wasn't true when it first evolved. I'll leave it to others to decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. While I myself prefer the originals I would never run down current fiction just because it doesn't hew to the classical line. As we say here in the South, that's why they make chocolate and vanilla.

Mug Shots #6; A Respone to William Ahearn

2007-06-21T10:11:00.020-07:00

Last Thursday was June 21st, the longest day of the year, and to help pass the long, long hours until midnight, here's CrimeSpot's latest mugshot. So - is that Jason Pinter, who's first novel featuring investigative reporter Henry Parker is due out this week, or is that... actor Clancy Brown!

Too obscure? Brown is best known today as the voice actor behind Spongebob Squarepants' tightwad boss, Eugene Krabs, but he's been around a long time and has appeared in movies such as Shoot To Kill, The Shawshank Redempton... and Bucaroo Banzai: Across The Eigth Dimension. I will always remember him as the immortal Kurgan from the classic Highlander. Someone see if you can get Jason to growl, "I took his woman before his blood was even cold."

Game, Set, Match. Since Wimbledon is starting this week, it's somehow appropriate that B.J. "Bjorn" Borg has posted his latest Mouth Full of Bullets, featuring stories by, well, a LOT of people (hit the link for full contents), including Gerald So, Barry Ergang, Stephen D. Rogers (as required by law), Carl Brookins, Patricia Harrington, and my Fort Worth homey Earl Staggs.

New Thrills. The latest edition of the Thrilling Detective is now online, with stories by Fleur Bradley, Patricia Abbott, Barry Ergang, Michael Bracken, and - it's the law! - the ubiquitous Stephen D. Rogers. Good stuff for private eye lovers. Or even lovers of private eye fiction.

And speaking of private eyes... Dave White had an interesting post responding to an essay by William Ahearn (and check the comments for Ahearn's reply). I decided to post my own response, so here it is.

What Ahearn is pining for is the iconic detective as created by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. In an essay reprinted in Murder Ink, Robert B. Parker described this character as "primarily a jobholder" - he doesn't exist outside of his work. He has few acquaintances and no friends. As Ahearn puts it, they "weren't the kind of people that you knew, only the kind of people that you paid."

In these types of stories, the detective is a cipher who's there only to discover the sordid details of his latest case. As Ahearn notes, this mythic character can fit in to a lot of worlds - Hammett's Red Harvest was made into the films Yojimbo and A Fistful of Dollars, succesfully transplanting the Continental Op to medieval Japan and the American West.

Ahearn dates the decline of private eye fiction to Ross Macdonald's The Moving Target. Lew Archer was a recognizable human being in that novel, not a noble knight but just a man, and to Ahearn, that's a bad thing.

I have a few problems with this argument: first, by the time of Ross Macdonald, the classic private eye had become a laughable stereotype. The power of the original stories by Hammett and Chandler (and others) had not dimished, but their characters had been copied so many times that their impact had been greatly diluted. Mike Hammer was a breath of fresh air, though his roots are firmly in the classical tradition.

Second, Ahearn ignores the differences between the original writers. For example, Hammett's private eye usually operated from a position of strenght - they could, and did, kick ass on a regular basis. Chandler's private eyes - really all versions of Philip Marlowe, even the ones who came before him - operated from a position of weakness. If Marlowe and his brothers Mallory and Dahlmas got their man, they had to get others to do the dirty work, and many times the real villains were never punished.

But my biggest objection is that Ahearn is mistaking his favorite type of private eye fiction for the best. Now, we all feel that things that we like are inherently the best (except for those we call "guilty pleasures"), but to me, running down the modern private eye because he doesn't measure up to the legends of the field is wrongheaded.

Writing off all private eyes that don't conform to the template laid down in the 1920s and 30s would mean discarding not just Macdonald but his immediate heirs like Michael Collins (the Dan Fortune books) and Joseph Hansen (Dave Brandstetter). It would mean writing off books like the remarkable The Wrong Case by James Crumley, in which not only is the private eye a character, he is by farm the main character. The implicit subject of the book is an examination of Milo Milodragovich's life.

It's true that the sales of private eye fiction have been in decline, but I think this is due more to a generational change than a decline in quality. The Western used to be one of the most popular genres, now it's fading into obscurity; once-popular fields like aviation fiction are now gone. I can imagine a day when only aficionados read private eye stories, and only obscure small presses publish them, but we're not at that point yet. And you could have raised many of these points in the 1970s.

Having stated my general differences with Ahearn's essay, I'd like to try to refute a couple of his specific points, first and most important of which was the nomination of Ross Macdonald as the many who poisoned the private eye novel. Ahearn has said that he was not criticizing Macdonald in his essay, and it's true that he was probably chosen as a convenient placeholder, but he was the one chosen and that's hard to deny.

Which is ironic because in Macdonald's mature period (from The Galton Case onward), Lew Archer became little more than a window into the lives of others. Where Marlowe or Spade disappeared into their roles as errant knights, Archer nearly disappeared, period, as he became an onlooker.

Ahearn also states that he threw one of Dennis Lehane's books across the room because "the character (Patrick Kenzie) is defined by descriptions of his car, his gun, and some sorry-ass infatuation with his partner..." I'm guessing here, but that book must have been Lehane's first, A Drink Before The War, in which Kenzie did business in an old church (cool office - check!), used a .44 AutoMag (cool gun - check!), and was called "Skid", but only by Angie (cool nickname - check!), and even had Bubba, his psycho sidekick.

But by the second book, all that had disappeared. In its place was a complex relationship with his former best friend, Phil, who ended up marrying Patrick's first love - and frequently beating the shit out of her. The props laid out in Drink were not just lazy shortcuts around characterization. They were irrelevant.

I love classic private eye stories as much as anyone. Reading The Big Sleep opened my eyes to the possbilities of the detective novel, and I ran out and bought every Chandler and Hammett book I could (in handsome Vintage Crime editions, too). But I like reading other things, too, and I'm not going to mourn dead ancestors when their descendants are so much fun.

Send Thoughts and Prayers

2007-06-11T12:51:00.010-07:00

In my last post I send along congratulations to Bill and Judy Crider; this time the news is not so good. As Bill just posted on his blog, his wife Judy has been diagnosed with Lymphoma, a blood cancer. At this point they don't know if it's Hodgkin's or non-Hodgkins.

I have learned a bit about this disease lately, as two of my co-workers have close relatives recently diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. If you follow politics, presidential hopeful (and Law and Order actor) Fred Thompson recently revealed that he has the disease. It's serious, but treatable, so everyone keep Bill and Judy in your prayers.

If you'd like to contribute, you could do worse than the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Congrats all round; Mug Shots #5

2007-06-06T06:36:00.026-07:00

Congratulations! Lots of worthy news around the mystery world lately. Here's a sampling off the top of my head:

John Rickards has spawned. He claims he had help from his "wife", but since I have seen no evidence of this I suspect he merely divided, reproducing asexually.

Bryon Quertermous has convinced some unlucky lass that he's worthy of a lifetime of love. Again, I have seen no evidence that this "fiance`" exists. Maybe she's from Canada, hmmm? Presumably there will be wedding pictures and my doubts will be satisfied.

No doubt about this: Bill Crider and his wife Judy just celebrated their 42nd anniversary. I met both of them down at ConMisterio in Austin; marriage couldn't have happened to a nicer couple.

Finally, CrimeSpree Magazine has just celebrated its third birthday. I've described CrimeSpree as "People for the murder-and-mayhem set" and it just keeps getting better. The most recent issue has interviews with Laura Lippman (by Sujita Massey!) and Stephen King, among other.

Mug Shots #5. And now the moment you've all been waiting for - the most recent installment of Mug Shots. Or in this case, "Cheap Shots", because I'm sure that anyone who has ever met Marcus Sakey can't help but notice the resemblance. So, is that the author of the highly-praised The Blade Itself, or is that... Detective David Starsky!

Like I said, it's just too easy.

Who killed the radio star? A while back Jonathon Santlofer sent me a link to a video advert for his latest, Anatomy of Fear. Check it out on YouTube. And I know this isn't the only book video going around - authors, send me a link and I'll do a roundup.

Still got the blues. The new Noir Blues issue of Hardluck Stories is out, and contains a treat for those of us who've been on the web a while - a new Doug McCool story by Miles Archer. It's really nice to see guys like Archer and Hugh Lessig still putting out good stuff. Like several recent issues, Noir Blues features artwork by Jean-Pierre Jacquet.

Thug life. And of course there's a new issue of ThugLit is out, with some big news - to quote Todd Robinson (Big Daddy Thug), "Starting next year, the geniuses over at Kensington Books will be publishing the first of THREE (count 'em... well, don't actually count em since we don't have the first one out yet. You get the point. Shut it!) ANNUAL THUGLIT ANTHOLOGIES!" (additional exclamation points redacted)

See you next time!

New! Improved?

2007-04-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

So I finally finished the new version of the CrimeSpot programs, and secretly rolled them out early last week. A couple of days later, with everything running smoothly, I was all set to announce them to the world - then I received a letter from a sharp-eyed reader (the ubiquitous Stephen D. Rogers) who told me that the site was jacked up in Internet Explorer 7. So for the approximately one-in-six of you who use IE7, sorry.

Not to go into too much detail, I ended up recoding the "X minutes ago" tags in PHP instead of JavaScript. And now it works in IE7. The only change is that many of the pages now have a ".php" extension instead of ".html". Since I have redirected the old pages to the new ones, you probably won't notice.

The site should work and look pretty much the same, with a few key changes:

Greater reliability. One of the blogs here on CrimeSpot upgraded to the new version of Blogger this weeked. As I was sitting at my computer, I noticed immediately. The big flaming red error message was hard to miss. No new updates could be processed until I changed the blog type in the database.

This won't happen in the new version. Better error checking ensures that any problems are logged and the program continues to execute.
No more Calendar. The Calendar page never worked the way I wanted, so I junked it. Use the Events page at Crimespace instead.
Category pages that work. I don't know when I dorked up the Category index pages. They now work properly, so you can see all blogs in any particular category by clicking on the appropriate link.
No post-dated entries. The old version of the Collector program used the date and timestamp of the blog entry to determine when it was really posted, but occasionally blog entries are post-dated - to make sure they stay above subsequent entries, for example. Not a problem on your blog, but annoying on CrimeSpot. So now post-dated entries are timestamped with the date and time they are collected.
No more double posts. Similarly, the old version displayed the most recent post from each blog. If an author happened to publish two posts with the exact same date and time, his blog would be listed twice (Stephen Blackmoore does this all the time). Now only to top entry will be displayed.

Best of all, it will be much easier for me to update the program and add new features. For example, I'm working on a "suggest a new blog" form that will allow you to type in the URL of a blog you think would be appropriate for the site. Also in the works: automatic feed detection, daily "new post" digests by email, and other fun and interesting features.

If you can think of anything new you'd like to see, drop me a line and let me know.

Donald Hamilton, 1916-2006

2007-04-02T11:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, Steve Lewis of Mystery*File reported that author Donald Hamilton died late last year, November 20th to be exact. Hamilton was best known as the creator of secret agent Matt Helm, who dispatched the enemies of America in a series that stretched over thirty years. Charles Ardai, whose Hard Case Crime recently reprinted Hamilton's Night Walker, has now confirmed the news.

I've read at least a couple of Hamilton's books just in the months since his death. His thrillers were told in a straightforward style that kept you turning the pages right until the end. Too bad that the Matt Helm movies were reworked as vehicles for sodden playboy Dean Martin. Any resemblance to the rugged outdoorsmen of the novels is strictly accidental.

These days the Helm books seem dated and rather chauvanistic (females smitten by the rough-hewn Helm invariably call him "Darling"), but they still have style, humor, and the power to entertain, though not the sophistication of, say, Len Deighton. I also suspect that the Helm series, along with John D. Macdonald's Travis McGee, was a large part of the inspiration for the "men's adventure" series that sold so well during the 70s and 80s.

As I noted upon Richard S. Prather's death, it seems like so many giants of the mystery genre have passed on lately. Let's hope that Donald Hamilton is noted among their ranks.

In Which I Talk About Sex

2007-03-19T10:25:00.000-07:00

Back from vacation and ready to rumble. Now for the news...

Over at Bill Crider's I found a link to a nice NY Times obituary for Richard Prather. Prather, like recently deceased Boston Celtics star Dennis Johnson, is probably destined to see his own significant accomplishments overshadowed by those of his more famous contemporaries. But 40 million books sold is nothing to sneeze at, and the Times obit correctly identifies one of the reasons: sex.

Or rather, skin, as Prather rarely has Shell Scott and the gang actually getting it on. As important as the sex itself is Prather's attitude about it: sex is not perverted or obscene, but instead is as natural as breathing. Shell happily ogled acres of sensual female skin without guilt, and the young ladies he consorted with mostly held the same attitudes.

This lighthearted feel carried over to the rest of the books as well, with Scott never taking things too seriously. Maybe I'm just ignorant, but it seems there are few writers today who can pen such happy-go-lucky crime tales.

On the other hand, it's not hard to find a Prather book. As the Times points out, most of Prather's books are out of print, but walk into any used bookstore and you'll find half a dozen different titles on the shelf.

I've got dozens of friends, and the fun never ends... And I don't even have to spring for a beer, because Daniel Hatadi has started a new virtual watering hole for mystery folk, ~~ripping off~~ drawing inspiration from MySpace to create CrimeSpace. This place has absolutely exploded after launching only a couple of weeks ago. It's the best waste of time on the net since... well, modesty forbids.

In keeping with the 'sex' theme, I've noticed a disturbing lack of nude photos on CrimeSpace. Though I hear Victor Gischler is working on that right now.

Ken Bruen is alive and well and living in East Orange, New Jersey. Too bad my vacation interfered with Ken Bruen appreciation day. Sorry, Ken. Ken's fame around the mystery world seems to flow from two sources - and neither of them a bottle of Jameson: 1) His unique writing style, and 2) his generous, gentlemanly personality.

I have never met Mr. Bruen myself, but after a couple of false reports of his death a few years ago I wrote a little story about it. Only after it had attacted some attention did I realize that it didn't show Ken in maybe the best light.

But he took the joke in the spirit in which is was intended, offering some exceedingly kind words. Ken, if we ever do meet, I'll buy you a beer. And I promise not to shoot you through the liver.

Did I mention ThugLit is a monthly? By the time I get around to announcing their latest issue, there's another one just around the corner. I saw cut out the middleman and subscribe to their email notification. You can thank me later. For the old-school folks, the current issue features writers such as Anthony Neil Smith and that Hatadi guy. Click here for full contents.

Curse the luck. Dave Zeltserman's Hardluck Stories has a new issue out. The theme this time is Femme Fatales and the guest editor is O'Neil De Noux. Once again Jean-Pierre Jacquet provides illustrations for each story. Authors include Michael Bracken, Stephen D. Rogers, and Pearce Hanson. Click here for full contents.

Until next time...

Thug Lit Contents

"Cramp", by Anthony Neil Smith
"The Princess And The King", by David C. Daniel
"Buddha Behind Bars", by Daniel Hatadi
"My Undoing", by Alejandro Pena
"Killing Billy Blaine", by D.T. Kelly

Hardluck Stories Contents

"The Big Burn", by Trey Barker
"Breaking Routine", by Michael Bracken
"Paralyzed", by Stephen D. Rogers
"The Kick It Gives", by John J. Wilson
"Useful Instincts", by Matt Spencer
"Two", by Rafe MacGregor
"My Gypsy Girl From Bluefield", by Terry White
"Girl Crazy", by Pearce Hanson
"Lucille's Long Night", by Garnett Elliot
"Last Tear For Laura", by George Wilhite
"Quality Operations", by Patricia Abbott
"Holding A Pair", by T.P. Keating
"Water", by Mary Elizabeth Merrem Shaw

In Which I Have Issues

2007-02-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

Paging Mr. Harper, Glenn Harper please pick up the white courtesy phone. I make it a policy at CrimeSpot to ask permission before I add anyone's blog. I'd really like to add Glenn Harper's International Noir - but I can't find any contact information anywhere! If anyone can help, please send him a note and ask him to contact me at mail@crimespot.net.

I drink the Kool-Aid. I finally broke down and got an iPod after bravely resisting for years. One huge bonus: I can now listen to podcasts during my one-hour-each-way commute (drawback: it's hard to concentrate while shouting, "Watch where you're going, you stupid $%&*!"). This led me to discover Noircast.net, home of the podcasts "Out Of The Past: Investigating Film Noir" and "Behind The Black Mask: Mystery Writers Revealed".

So far I've only checked out the interviews with Megan Abbott and Duane Swierczynski, but they're really interesting. For example, one of these facts is true, from Duane's own mouth:

Duane has the body of a man half his age. He keeps it in the freezer.
"Swierczynski" is not his real last name. He shortened it from "Swierczynsckicallafragilisticexpialidocious".
Duane and his brother Greg were named after the Allman brothers.

I report, you decide! These podcasts are more than an excuse for cheap jokes at Duane's expense, they're also very interesting, so be sure to check them out. If you don't have an iPod you can listed from your computer. If you want to look like a complete dork.

Cheap Thrills. Sarah Weinman is conducting a critical roundtable at her site with Jerome Weeks, Hallie Ephron, and Dick Adler. They're discussing the new book The Triumph of the Thriller. So far Part I and Part II have been posted.

I have issues, part I. The new print mag Out Of The Gutter arrived the other day. If Murdaland is the spiritual descendant of Plots With Guns, Gutter is the bastard child of Blue Murder. I've plowed halfway through it, and so far it's profane, lewd, violent, and frequently funny. Despite its low-rent origins, it's also a nice looking package, with a few mock ads similar to those you'd find in old pulp mags (my favorite is "Money In Gerbils!"). Scroll to the end for complete contents.

I have issues, part II. Bryon Quertermous sends word that the winter issue of DEMOLITION is now live. Obviously Bryon is trying to buy off various literary critics (David J. Montgomery, Anthony Rainone) by publishing their fiction. Full contents at the end.

And I thank you. I believe I neglected to mention that someone finally took me up on my offer, and killed me in a story. Sort of. In "Call Me Cupid" he bumps a guy named Ted Powell, which I guess is close enough to my first name, Edward. Other than that, he's NOTHING like me. I swear!

Out Of The Gutter contents:

"Final Tally", by Victor Gischler
"Goodbye Love", by Hana K. Lee
"Punishment", by J.A. Konrath
"Beer, Cheese, and the City Lights", by Dale Bridges
"Footwork", by Paul Grimsley
"Only the Strong Survive", by Seth Ferranti
"I SAW RED", by M.L.B.
"Violent Delights", by Harry Shannon
"Clover", by Billy Elizondo
"Dirty Laundry", by Todd Robinson
"Spring Break in Mexico", by D.Z. Allen
"The Millstone", by Joe McKinney
"Last Shot", by Sandra Ruttan
"The Errand", by Dale Bridges
"The Bet", by Charlie Stella
"Chinese Finger Trap", by M.L.B.

DEMOLITION contents:

"Cheer For Me", by Ed Lynskey
"Mi Vida de Lucha", by David J. Montgomery
"Diner This", by James McGowen
"Crossing Borders", by James Stickney
"Power of the Gods", by Anthony Rainone
"Riptide", by Keith Gilman
"White Tile", by Rob Kramer
"Stone Cool", by Peggy Ehrhart

Richard S. Prather Dies

2007-02-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

Richard S. Prather, creator of L.A. private eye Shell Scott, has died at his home in Arizona. Although he's not a household name today (outside of certain circles of fans), Prather sold over 40 million books, and Shell remains one of the genre's most unique individuals.

Sheldon Scott was an ex-Marine who stood 6'2" with crew-cut hair so blond it was white. Perpetually in his early 30s, Scott made his debut in 1950's Case of the Vanishing Beauty and went on to appear in 39 more novels or collections. My first introduction was "Dead Giveaway" (collected in the superb Mammoth Book of Private Eye Stories), and it's still one of my favorites.

There was plenty of sex in those books, but in contrast to today's angst-ridden couplings, Shell and the numerous (VERY numerous) ladies who succombed to his charms generally had a great time. Prather made it seem like good clean fun, not sick or twisted.

But Prather could also write hard core when he wanted to. I recently read his novel The Peddlar, reprinted by Hard Case Crime, and I was very surprised by the frank language he used in describing a prostitution ring.

Christa Faust wrote a fan letter to Prather a while back, and I thought, "Damn, I should do that too". But I never did and now it's too late.

Jeff Pierce has a nice roundup that links to many other tributes to Prather. Be sure to check it out.

A Worthy Cause; Mug Shots #4

2007-02-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

First, an apology. In my last post I gave Bryon Quertermous the business over his new site template. After thinking about it I decided I was a little too hard on him. Bryon hasn't said anything, and probably took it with good humor, but still. Not everybody feels the need to show off how macho they are, and while busting your friend's chops is a time honored tradition, next time I'll do it in private. Sorry, dude.

Books for the troops. David Terrenoire has a family member leaving for Iraq and is asking for book donations:

As anyone who has ever been in the service knows, boredom is an unavoidable part of military life. Books help, especially the kind of books we read. Nothing takes your mind of the brutalities and war like a good multiple homicide.

...

Today I'm asking you to step up. You can send your books to me and I'll forward them, or you can send them direct. And please, if you want to do something more than slap one of those three-dollar magnets on your car, pass this address along to fans, friends and family.I know you guys won't let me down.

Here is Brett's address:

Cpt. Brett Sachse, MD
240 Med Det 28 CSH
APO AE 09348

Here is my address:

David Terrenoire
5 Chipley Ct.
Durham, NC 27703

I'll let you know how it's going in future posts.

I'm sending along a box of paperbacks myself, and I encourage all of you to do the same. Especially any authors who have copies of their books just gathering dust. Thanks.

Mug Shots #4. Since I just posted J. Kingston Pierce's mug last week I should probably make y'all wait a little longer for your next dose, but I was inspired and can't help myself. Allow me to present Anthony Neil Smith, former editor of the legendary Plots With Guns, author of the novels Psychosomatic and The Drummer, and all-around good guy. Or is that... WEDGE ANTILLES!

Hey, it could happen. After all, Smith is from the Gulf Coast, and the Antilles have been an important family down there for centuries. I mean, they've even got two island chains named after them! (Too obscure?)

Now that he's moved up to the Great White North, maybe another comparison would be more appropriate:

An old friend returns. Back in the day, you didn't have too many options for getting hot fresh mysteries off the Internet. You had Blue Murder. You had The Thrilling Detective. You had Judas Ezine. And you had Nefarious. All of those except TTD eventually went dark, but now Nefarious is back and open for business.

The new issue has short stories, a review of the film Children of Men, and a primer on writing flash fiction. Worth checking out, for sure.

Mug Shots #3; Two Quick Notes

2007-02-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

In this edition of Mug Shots we visit venerable J. Kingston Pierce of January Magazine and The Rap Sheet. I have to admit that I thought this up months ago, but laziness compelled me to wait until the moment was right. So, is that Jeff Pierce or... CAPTAIN LOU ALBANO!!

(First alternate: Jeff "The Dude" Dowd, with a bonus for being named Jeff.)

It's about time. Murdaland Magazine's online store ("coming in November") is now open, so if you're like me and are too lazy to get your ass up from the computer and walk to the mailbox, you too can now order a subscription. Unforseen complication: you will have to get up to fetch it when it arrives.

Last and, well, least. The next Big Blog Short Story Project (B2S2P) is now searching desperately for contributors. Details here. And check out Bryon's site redesign. My reaction: OMFG. You can't put a price on those doodled hearts.

(I say it with love, man. No, not that kind.)

So Cool

2007-02-03T11:46:00.000-08:00

I upgraded to the new version of Blogger this past week, and Gerald So (one of my co-bloggers at Nasty, Brutish, Short) spiffied up the place with new features such as labels. Until I viewed the changes I didn't realize how much he'd been doing on the site. So bravo, Gerald!

Patrick Shawn Bagley over at Hillbillies and Hitmen has posted the entries in his "Heavy Metal Noir" contest - flash fiction with a hint of crime and a dollop of spandex. Head over to his site to check out the entries, then send in your vote.

Gosh, it seems like just the other day I was talking about ThugLit - wait, it was just the other day. Their February issue is now out, and features a story by one of my favorite new writers, Pat Lambe. I'll post the full contents later on in the week, but why wait? Go ahead and read it for yourself.

So Far, So Good

2007-02-01T10:20:00.000-08:00

Before I get to the news of the day, allow me to say - I go out of town for the weekend, and you ALL upgrade to the new Blogger? That's how it seemed, at least, and that's the reason the site was down for a couple of days.

A little over a week ago, CrimeSpot.net celebrated its one year anniversary. The first year was a lot of fun, with new, interesting blogs popping up all over. I had the chance to meet a number of contributors down in Austin and hope to meet more of you over the next couple of years. You guys are what makes this site great; you write the stories, I just provide the Word templates.

In Other News: Bill Crider has been nominated for an Edgar award, as everyone who matters knows (note: if you didn't know this, you don't matter). The nominated story, "Cranked", was a direct sequel to a story he wrote for "Going Twice", the second big blog story project, and appeared in Damn Near Dead, one of the best anthologies of 2006. Congrats to Bill, to editor Duane ~~Swear~~ ~~Sweirz~~ Duane S., and to publisher David Thompson.

To celebrate, Duane held a contest for the best absolutely true fact about Bill. I was a little late to that party, but I happen to know that Bill has a secretary named Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln had a secretary named Crider.

Dave Zeltserman at Hardluck Stories is now accepting submissions for the "truthiness" issue. Inspired by Stephen Colbert, Dave's zine was even plugged on Comedy Central's web site. In related news, I'm starting the "Dave Z. Sells Out" countdown.

Have I mentioned that ThugLit is now a monthly? After vaulting into the top rank of crime 'zines last year, now only do they pay but you can't seem to get rid of them.

Last, critic Dick Adler is running his new novel, Men's Adventure, in installments over at the Rap Sheet. I implore you to go check this out immediately.

Incidentally, I just noticed that I have mentioned, just in this post, a virtual anthology posted to blogs, and webzine that has become one of the top markets in just a few issues, and novel serialized in blog posts. Anyone doubt the web has changed publishing?

Feeling The Love - UPDATED

2006-12-22T18:23:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: Well, right after I posted this earlier today, a little birdy blabbed in my ear that, although Jen Jordan may have fired the first salvo, a certain Murderati blogger was the mastermind behind this campaign. Thanks, JT, and all who participated.

Wow. When Jen started all this yesterday, I had no idea... Graham Powell appreciation day? I'm practically speechless! Good thing I was on vacation, with plenty of time to respond to all the nice posts (and if I missed yours, sorry).

CrimeSpot came about when I was wishing there was a way to see if my favorite sites had been updated without checking them ten times a day. I experimented with newsreaders and such but nothing really grabbed me. Then I got to thinking: feeds are just XML files... I have some XML tools just sitting around... Hey! Maybe I could make a site to do that! And the rest is history.

The best part has been making new friends all over the country, people I never would have met otherwise. I hope to meet all of you in person eventually. We'll swap beers and jokes and generally have a good time.

And now, for Jen, here's a picture of the Swedish Chef:

Mug Shots #2; Psycho Noir

2006-11-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

First, let me add a bit to my last post. After thinking about it, I realized that I might discourage people from upgrading to the new Blogger Beta. That was not what I had in mind at all. Go ahead and upgrade, although I would sure appreciate it if you could drop me a line first. If you don't, though, I'm sure I'll notice when the site stops updating.

Onwards and upwards...

Mug Shots #2. Way back in the distant past I thought I had discovered Duane Swierczynski's secret identity:

Later, I realized that this might present some practical problems, since Raymond Burr has been dead since 1993. But as so frequently happens, I opened my mind to a solution, and it appeared via Monday Night Football. There! On the sidelines! It's Jacksonville Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio!

...or is it? The really odd thing is that all three (?) of these guys are beefy linebacker types, and of course Del Rio was a linebacker. If you see Duane wearing a Reebok suit and tie, well, there's your proof.

Pyscho Noir. The new Psycho Noir issue of Hardluck Stories is now online. Before I get to the stories, I have to mention the artwork by Jean-Pierre Jacquet. In addition to the very creepy picture on the title page, he's also done an illustration for each story, and they add a lot to the atmosphere.

Complete contents:

"Church Social", by Pearce Hansen
"Boa Constrict Her", by Craig Corey
"The Prettiest Face In Hell", by Jon Bassoff
"Yellowhead", by Raymond Embrack
"51-50", by Paul Marks
"West Texas Waitin'", by Kay George
"Amigo", by William Tanner
"Hole In The Wall", by Patricia Abbott
"Mason's End", by Richard C. Rogers
"Poor Box", by William Boyle

Out of pocket. I'm going out of town for Thanksgiving, so if the site gets hosed up, too bad! Although I will offer a full refund to anyone who complains.

I hope everyone has a nice holiday weekend. See you back here next week.

Beta Noir

2006-11-16T18:10:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed, CrimeSpot has been updating only intermittently over the past couple of days. The main culprit: Blogger Beta. When a Blogger site indexed by CrimeSpot upgrades to Blogger Beta, it changes the format of the site feed (from Atom 0.3 to 1.0). This causes the collector program to gag, then barf, then roll over and play dead. To use a technical term, that's the root cause. The proximate cause is Davide Terrenoire, who upgraged night before last.

From this you could draw one of two conclusions:

A) David Terrenoire is an evil genius bent on Web domination.

B) CrimeSpot is so fragile that a pygmy hamster can crash it with one tiny paw.

They're not mutually exclusive! Unfortunately error handling in "classic" ASP / VB Script sucks, so it's difficult to trap and respond to every possible event.

Fortunately I have finally begun the process of rewriting it in that fancy new .Net language that my good friend Bill Gates keeps going on about. Soon, only the evildoers will pay for their sins.

(BTW, writing a program is different than writing a story - the beginning and end take all the time, and the middle just rolls right along. The beginning is rough because you have to dig into the problems until you understand them. The end takes forever because there's always another error (or three) to run down.)

Please Kill Me

2006-11-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

I was about to go to bed at around ten last night when I saw Michael Connelly's face staring up at me from the bedside table. What with Echo Park unread and due back at the library today, I decided to give it a look and see if it would be worth the fine to keep it a few extra days.

At half past midnight, with 150 pages to go, I thought, "Screw it, I'm finishing this book."

But I'm not here to talk about Connelly's sustained excellence. I found something profoundly disturbing there in the pages of Echo Park - specifically, on page 211. Detective Harry Bosch was trying to convince a reporter friend to swap some information. If she didn't want the tip, he said, maybe "...Sarah Weinman or Duane Swierczynski would be interested."

So I thought to myself, well, something highly unprintable. Then I realized I had a new mission in life. If those losers can do it, so can I.

Here's where you come in. Please kill me in your next book, story, whatever. Make me the sidekick, the fall guy, the villain, whoever you want. Shoot me, stab me, tickle me to death, I don't care. Just make sure you spell my name right. Speaking of which, my full name is Edward Graham Powell, Jr. Be sure to use at least two of those elements. And let me know about it so I can gloat in this space.

Bob's Back. When I wrote about Nasty, Brutish, Short, I mentioned that Bob Tinsley's blog "The Short Of It" was a big inspiration. Turns out Bob's been keeping busy since then. He was an early proponent of what's now known as podcasting, and he's been writing audio scripts for an outfit called Darker Projects Productions. His first project in their Five Minute Fears series is available for download - just scroll down to "Five Minute Fears #5: Black Angels".

Ed's back, too. Itinerent blogger Ed Gorman has returned with his latest site, New Improved Gorman. I think I speak for everyone when I say Ed, we're glad to have you back.

Faust makes a deal. I'm a bit late to this party, but hardboiled crimewriter Christa Faust recently sold a book to Hard Case Crime, making her the first woman they've published. Now I've never read anything by Ms. Faust, but I have a stack of Hard Case paperbacks on the shelf, and I can say with conviction that she must be good.

Demolition. The new issue of Demolition is out, with stories by the likes of Dave "Dave White" White, Russell MacLean, and David Terrenoire, but to me the highlight is a new "Crip and Henrietta" story by Tim Wohlforth. I wish I knew why I like these stories so much. Wohlforth has written a lot of good stories but Crip and Henrietta just jump off the page.

Complete contents:

"Duck Hunt", by Dave White
"Plan C", by Jordan Harper
"The Crypt", by Tim Wohlforth
"The Old Ice Down The Back Stunt", by Patricia Abbott
"Things Could Be Worse", by David Terrenoire
"Good Time Charlie", by Chris Everheart
"The Thug And The Three-Handed Lady", by John Weagly
"Wee Eck", by Russell D. MacLean
"Ticket Out", by Colin C. Conway

(Doesn't "Ms. Faust" sound like a crime novel? I'm so using that title.)

The Firm of Nasty, Brutish, and Short

2006-10-20T10:23:00.001-07:00

Steven Torres and I have started a new blog called Nasty, Brutish, Short: Short reviews of short stories for those with short attention spans. We were able to con Gerald So and Bill Crider into giving us a hand. A lot of the inspiration came from Bob Tinsley's old blog "The Short Of It"; we can only hope to do as good a job as Bob did. Have a look and let us know what you think.

In Other News: Woody Haut (author of Pulp Culture and Neon Noir, among others) recently posted a lengthy profile of Ross Thomas that I thought was worth linking to. I disagree with about 50% of what Haut says on any subject, but he's a perceptive writer, and it shows. I have become a big fan of Thomas in the past year and a half, and I agree with Sarah Weinman and many others: it's a crime that Thomas isn't more widely known. Be sure to check it out: Part 1, Part 2.

And Finally: The new issue of Crime Scene Scotland is now available. It's the usual mix of reviews and stories from the Caledonian crime crew. Fiction contents:

"Dancing to the Tune of the Longtail", by John Carson
"Dr. Ralph", y James R. Winter
"Rules of Fog", by Robert W, Walker

Have a good week, everyone!

Mug Shots #1

2006-10-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a continuing series, MUG SHOTS, in which we reveal the secret identities of mystery writers.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you author Dave White:

Or is that actor Jonathan Silverman? In either case, if he invites you to a party at his friend Bernie's, just say no.

In other new, the latest Crime Scene Scotland is out. As usual there are stories, reviews, and an abject apology for being so late. The fiction lineup:

"Dancing to the Tune of the Longtail", by John Carson
"Dr Ralph", by James R. Winter
"Rules of Fog", by Robert W. Walker

That is all.

Pulp for a Postmodern World

2006-10-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Geriatric lowbrow pulpster Emerson LaSalle notes that the Mississippi Review has posted their latest issue: Postmodern Pulp, Edited by Anthony Neil Smith, formerly of Plots With Guns. I haven't had a chance to read much of it, and with the exceptions of Ray Banks and Craig McDonaly there are few familiar names among the authors, but what I've seen so far looks... interesting.

A news report from the Associated Press contains good news for fans of genre bookstores - they're doing well. (hat tip: Bill Crider). Better, in fact, than other independent bookstores. According to the article, the keys to success are A) tapping in to highly committed niche markets, and B) expert, individual customer service.

ATTENTION AMAZON AUTHORS. You may not realize, but your Amazon.com blog can be added to CrimeSpot. If you'd like to be included, drop me a line at mail@crimespot.net.

The Bitter Bouchercon Post

2006-10-03T11:01:00.000-07:00

No, I didn't go to Bouchercon this year. Hope all you happy bastards had fun, while I sat around the house yelling at the kids, kicking the dog, and generally acting like O. Grumpy McBigbear. You can find plenty of Bouchercon pictures here, and Bill Crider has a number of video interviews up on his blog. If you're into that sort of thing.

Time out for Hard Case. Hard Case Crime was recently featured in Time Magazine, in an article on innovators, which I find rather amusing, since Hard Case is explicitly a throwback to the days of Gold Medal and other paperback publishers. Which reminds me of an interesting discussion on Jason Pinter's blog.

My own view: most imprints don't really market themselves. They market their authors. Most of the time, you have to look carefully to see what the imprint is, and few imprints have any real common characteristics to their books.

Hard Case is different. You can instantly tell a Hard Case book, and all Hard Case books have a lot in common. People who like their books by Ed McBain or Lawrence Block will probably stick around and read stuff by Richard Powell or David Dodge. Everything about the line emphasizes its homogenous character. Of course, they have an advantage in that they aren't trying to sell eight or ten books by the same author, unlike traditional publishers.

We're proud to announce... Legendary hack Emerson LaSalle is now on CrimeSpot, and we're delighted to have him. In a career spanning more than 50 years he's written dozens of books (maybe hundreds), with titles like Busty Beach Babes from Planet Z and Beneath a Princess of Mars. LaSalle's blog has even gotten some attention from some well known science fiction sites, confirming his iconic status.

LaSalle was a close friend and rival of another legendary pulpster, Kilgore Trout, most famous for his encouragement of a young science fiction writer named Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut of course later immortalized Trout in several of his novels.

Trout is still living, actually, in the small North Carolina town of Tralfamadore.

Zine Watch. Too many to list the contents, so just a couple of notes on each:

Hardluck Stories. The Western Noir issue, jammed with excellent writers such as Ed Gorman, Bill Crider, and James Reasoner.

The Thrilling Detective. The Long Awaited issue. A personal remembrance of Mickey Spillane by Max Allan Collins, plus stories by the likes of Sarah Weinman and Russell MacLean.

Spinetingler Magazine. An assload of new stories, by authors including JT Ellison, Ed Lynskey, and the ubiquitous Stephen D. Rogers.

Thug Lit. Todd "Big Daddy Thug" Robinson and crew celebrate their first anniversary by running a story by Bryon Quertermous - I'm assuming it was a joke. Other authors include Tim McLean (not to be confused with Mike McLean or Russell MacLean), Patricia Abbott, and Craig McDonald.

And a new one, called Mouthful of Bullets. It has a bunch of stories, including several by members of the venerable Short Mystery Fiction Society, including Stephen D. Rogers (did I mention he was ubiquitous?), Carol Kilgore, and my fellow Fort Worth resident Earl Staggs.

Not Dead Yet!

2006-09-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the recent outage, but the CrimeSpot Collector/Composer computer has been down due to a disk crash. As in, I'm sitting here with it plugged into my other computer and I can hear the heads banging against the inside of the casing. If you're not familiar with computers, that's not a good thing.

I have a somewhat out-of-date backup of the CrimeSpot database, and fortunately all the information the dead drive contained is on the site itself, but it will take some time for me to re-enter it. In the meantime updates may be spotty, as I have to convince the wife and kids not to turn off my computer.

Thanks for your patience.

There will be a memorial service for the dead drive Thursday at 6pm.

Late Breaking News

2006-08-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

This just in: right after I put up yesterday's post with links to a bunch of online crime mags, I find out that the new issue of SHOTS is up.

As usual there's a ton of interviews and features, plus a few short stories:

"Dollars And Sense", by Daniel "Hot Toddy" Hatadi
"Catch Me Waiting", by Regina "Is she related to John?" Harvey
"Early Closing", by David "Joke Goes Here" Harrison
"The Tent Of Babel", by Steven "D. Rogers" Torres
"Holistic Healing", by Robert "Tower Of" Pesa

Just go read the stories, they're a lot better than my jokes.

Good News, Bad News

2006-08-07T09:57:00.000-07:00

Instead of ending with a downer, I'll lead with it. The recent ConMisterio convention down in Austin, where I had some much fun, is no more. Apparently it was a big hit with the attendees, not so much at the box office. After two money-losing years the organizers decided to pack it in.

Now for the good news - hot fresh fiction! First off, Bryon Quertermous' DEMOLITION is back with a very nice summer issue. Included is a new Viktor Petrenko story by Steven Torres, "Viktor Petrenko: Bring Them To Their Knees". Can't explain why, but for some reason I dig ol' Viktor.

Paul Guyot wins the Richard Stark Memorial Best First Line award for "The Law and The Order" (although Jim Winter may want a few words with him), the ubiquitous Stephen D. Rogers has a new story "Omniscience", and thrilling editor (is there such a thing?) Gerald So puts in an appearance with "The Observer". Full contents:

"Twisted Sister", by Jeff Shelby
"The Law and The Order", by Paul Guyot
"Pay The Cost", by Justin Porter
"The Saint Of Gunners", by Todd Robinson (aka Big Daddy Thug)
"Viktor Petrenko: Bring Them To Their Knees", by Steven Torres
"The Observer", by Gerald So
"Breaking In The New Guy", by Stephen Blackmoore
"Omniscience", by Stephen D. Rogers

Next up is Thuglit Issue 8, in which the aforementioned Big Daddy Thug passes the reins to guest editor Lady Detroit. Like the cover promises, it's "Fucked-up Crime Fiction", by a crop of writers mostly unknown to me. With one exception: Hugh Lessig, who did such excellent work a few years ago in the pages of Plots With Guns, HandHeldCrime, and The Thrilling Detective. Complete contents:

"One Tenth Of One Tenth Of A Second", by Bryan W. Alaspa
"Light-Skinned Niggas Can't Fight", by Marcus J. Guillory
"Pat's Pit", by Alejandro Pena
"Eight Guns Over A Dead Girl", by Patty Templeton
"The All-Night Dentist", by Vincent Kovar
"Reading The Footnotes", by John Stickney
"The Neighbors", by Bill Fitzhugh
"Slug Fest", by Richard B. Lynch
"Portrait Of A Man", by A.B. Gorrell
"The Practice Of Business Takes Practice", by A.T. Mango
"Eyes Of The Prophets", by Hugh Lessig
"There's No Business Like Drug Business", by Rodolphe Cuzon

Between those two zines, that's a full book's worth of stories, and not for $19.95 either. Get it for free before they come to their senses!

Speaking of not-free things, any bandwagon-jumpers who are running late might want to head over to Murdaland, they new hardboiled print 'zine. They've posted the contents of their first issue, due out in a month or so, and it includes the likes of Daniel Woodrell, Gary Phillips, Ken Bruen, and "The Professor", Anthony Neil Smith.

Lastly, like many artists, Mickey Spillane may finally be getting his due only after he's dead. The latest evindece: international news magazine The Economist featured The Mick's obituary in last week's issue. Godspeed, Mickey.

Compleat ConMisterio Coverage

2006-07-26T13:03:00.000-07:00

You can read all about ConMisterio here:

Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday

Some other notes that don't fit anywhere else:

Here's a photo of newlyweds Megan and Jeff Abbott.

Note: not actually married... yet.

Bill Crider on Michael Avallone: "He could sure tell a story. He couldn't write, but he could sure tell a story."

Duane Swierczynski's favorite noir movie? Robocop.

James Crumley: "'Phoenix' does not spell 'phonics'."

And one quick story about Steven Torres. After the "What you should go back and read" panel, he managed to outrun me to the last copy of Howard Browne's The Taste Of Ashes in the dealer room. But he was nice enough to let me read it, then mail it back to him.

I had to decline. I was afraid my 2-year-old would autograph it in red marker. But Steven's a great guy nonetheless.

ConMisterio: Sunday

2006-07-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

The convention was starting to wind down by Sunday, as many of the Yankees had early flights, and I myself had to hit the road back to Fort Worth after lunch. But that didn't get in the way of a good time, starting with the first panel, "Music to die for."

Which turned into an impromptu jam, with former punk-rocker Jesse Sublett, Ramble House proprietor Fender Tucker, and Dennis Macmillan. Now I knew that Jesse was a musician, but I was shocked to discover that Fender is a GREAT blues player, and Dennis is a GREAT flamenco guitarist.

Fender and Jesse.

Dennis.

For once, Bill Crider had some competition for best line. He pointed out that Fender's amp was personalized (it read FENDER across the front), but Jesse later remarked that he "wished his lawn was Emo, so it would cut itself."

They played for most of the hour, loud enough so the organizers had to come in and tell them to keep it down. When they weren't playing, they talked about great crime songs like "Stagger Lee" and "Hey Joe".

(Bill Crider has footage of this here, here, here, and here.)

The last panel was Bill, Neil Smith, and Susan Smily talking about writing and working in education. Bill said he always felt like he was getting away with something - his workday was over by noon, and he travelled to the Bouchercon "conference" on the school's travel budget. Neil turned this around by pointing out that when he got his current job, he applied for 70 positions and received one offer. Not sure what this says about their relative levels of skill and intelligence (not to mention charm and good looks).

Neil wore an appropriate shirt, considering that his latest book is The Drummer.

He's hardcore.

And that was it. I shook hands, said my goodbyes, and left for home. It was a great convention, and I hope to make it back next year.

ConMisterio: Saturday

2006-07-25T10:06:00.000-07:00

Before I forget: I owe Carl Brookins a big debt of thanks. At dinner Friday night they passed the hat to pay the check, and all I had was a credit card. He covered for me, and though I payed him back later - thanks, Carl.

Saturday morning dawned bright and early - it was almost a shame I missed it. I slept in and lazed around, and didn't make it out for breakfast until 9:30 (VERY late by my standards). So as I was sitting there in the lobby eating a Danish, I thought to myself, Where are all the people? The place was deserted. So I got out my handy-dandy schedule and discovered that the panels started at nine.

So I blundered into the "Writing about home away from home" panel half an hour late, and promptly made an ass of myself by asking a question that had been answered in my absence. After that I thought it best to keep quiet until I slunk away to the ten o'clock panel.

In which Sean Doolittle, Megan Abbott, and Jonathan Santlofer talked about women writing crime.

Megan pretty much whipped their asses.

After that, it was off to the ballroom to watch three Texans brag. Harry Hunsicker, Bill Crider, and Jesse Sublett talked about Texas Noir.

Among other things, I learned that Jim Thompson grew up in Fort Worth, where he went to high school while working at a local hotel as a night bellhop. His duties there included procuring booze, drugs, and women for the guests, with occasional side gigs as a gigolo.

After lunch in the hotel cafe with The Usual Suspects, I headed to the obligatory Poetry panel. Of particular note was James Crumley's better half, Martha.

Someone mentioned that if you want to be poor, be a writer, but if you want to be destitute, be a poet, which prompted Reed Coleman to recall that when he took poetry in college, Alan Ginsberg and John Ashbery were on the faculty. Two of the greatest Twentieth-century American poets were supporting themselves by teaching.

Reed's shirt pimps his book.

Next up was Libby Fischer Hellman, who talked about her Ellie Foreman novels, here next book (a private eye novel spun off from the Foreman series), and then read from a short story with a somewhat different protagonist - a female hitman.

Then a little deja vu: The "Damn Near Dead Again" panel. Bill Crider got off the best line when he remarked that the western Rio Bravo had something for everyone: "When I was younger, I identified with Ricky Nelson. When I got a little older I identified with Dean Martin. Then I identified with John Wayne. Now I identify with Walter Brennan!"

Last panel of the day was a reading by the Unofficial New York Crime Writer's League - Wallace Stroby, Jonathan Santlofer, Reed Coleman, and Megan Abbott.

The ubiquitous Judy was also there. I kept forgetting her name, until I settled on the mnemonic "Judy BabaLouie".

Judy Bobalik

I was a little disappointed with the banquet. For starters, I was the only one who dressed up (my new red tie was particularly sharp), then some of the younger crowd decided to ditch:

So long, suckers!

Bill Crider turned out to be an excellent choice as toastmaster, though, giving a very funny speech. Did you know he was James Crumley's cousin? He sat at the table next to me with Jan Grape and Richard Moore.

Afterwards Lee Billings and I wandered around for a while looking for something to do - even the hotel bar was dead - until we ended up in the hospitality suite.

And that was a bit of luck, because Bryan Barrett, Bill Crider, and Richard Moore were up there talking books. I am a book geek, but if I live to be a hundred I'll never be half the book geek that those guys are. At one point I mentioned Richard Sale, the only pulp author who went to Washington & Lee University (my alma mater), and Richard said, no, that Elliot Chaze (author of Black Wings Has My Angel) also went to W&L. Not only that, but they attended at the same time, and must have known each other.

I also learned why most Gold Medal paperbacks are not particularly valuable: they literally printed a million copies of each title.

So I sat there until midnight listening to those guys, then we all staggered off to our rooms.

ConMisterio: Friday

2006-07-18T17:59:00.000-07:00

The program on Friday didn't start until ten, so I had the luxury of sleeping in for a change. There was another convention at the Doubletree - public school teachers or something like that - so while munching on a Danish I had the chance to see the future governer of Texas, Kinky Friedman, holding forth to a small knot of journalists. Someone invited him to stay for the convention, but his handlers shook their heads gravely and whisked him away.

The first person I saw in the lobby was Steven Torres, author of the Precinct Puerto Rico novels and a series of short stories about Russian mercenary Viktor Petrenko.

We shot the bull for a few minutes and Bill Crider showed up with a new toy: a video camera about the size and shape of an iPod. He did a quick interview with us and he and Steven posed for a photo:

After that I headed over to the dealer room for a quick look before the first panel. One dealer I didn't expect to see: Ramble House, from my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. For about five years I lived just a few blocks from the Ramble House house.

Proprietor Fender Tucker was there and we had a nice chat. I looked over some of his beautiful handmake books, as well as his massive catalog of Harry Stephen Keeler books.

Unfortunate lens glare - or angel on his shoulder?

I was checking out Murder By The Book's table when someone said, "Graham?" Surprise, surprise, it was Duane Swierczynski, and he recognized me.

Take my picture, and I gut you with this pen.

Duane is a BIG guy, not big and lumpy like me, but more of a squared-away linebacker's physique. In fact, he reminded me of another familiar mystery figure:

After that was the first panel, "Is Hardboiled Hip?", with Duane, Reed Farrel Coleman, Bruce Cook, and Anthony Neil Smith.

Neil and Bruce.

Duane talks so fast, he can do an hour-long panel in only 15 minutes. So fast, in fact, that I thought he said the title of his current book was The Mailman.

After a bit of haggling among the panelists, it was decided that "hip" meant something new, on the way up, that hadn't hit the mainstream yet. Stories not meant for the mass market, but for the niche market (or as Reed called it, the "neesh" market).

I asked they panel if they'd rather be hip, or sell out, and the response was immediate and unanimous: "SELL OUT!"

After that I went next door to "What You Should Go Back And Read", with Scott Cupp, L.A. Starks, Bill Crider, Richard Moore, and Bryan Barret.

The usual suspects.

The panel turned into a discussion of old paperbacks pretty quickly, with suggestions such as Jim Thompson and Donald Hamilton, then touched on some more obscure authors such as Ralph Dennis and E. Richard Johnson. Scott Cupp was the most popular man in the room, as he brought a stack of books to give away:

I myself made off with Mongo's Back In Town.

After that it was lunchtime, which I spent shopping in the dealer room. I consider it a sign of good character that I spent over $100 on books, but when I saw the prices in the cafe I said, "Ten bucks for a hamburger? Screw that!" and bought a honeybun from the gift shop.

I did get a chance to talk with Megan Abbott for a few minutes. Abbott is the author of Die A Little a rather dark tale set in the 1950s and using some of the storytelling styles of that era - bent to her own designs, of course.

Speaking of which, Megan is a from New York, has written a mystery set in the Fifties that uses Fifties storytelling conventions... has anyone ever seen her and Sara Gran in the same room?

Add to this the fact that Megan says that someone who had actually met them both got them confused, and yeah, they're the same person.

The one o'clock panel was a discussion of the new anthology Damn Near Dead, brainchild of Duane Sweirczynski and David Thompson of Busted Flush Press. Like most good ideas, they came up with this one over a couple of beers. I understand they plied many of the contributors with alcohol, as well.

David and Duane.

David revealed that the first spark for this was a trip to a nursing home, where he saw many people basically cast loose from society the way the Eskimos send their elderly off on an ice flow. As these seniors had nothing to lose, he came up with the idea of a rampaging gang of oldsters - "Cocoon meets the Wild Bunch", as he put it.

James Crumley had a senior moment of his own when preparing the introduction. While reading the stories he wondered what was up with all the cranky old folks - until his wife pointed out the title of the anthology. So, that explained that.

Between the panels I ran into a couple of people from here and there. Mark Troy was on hand, and reports that he his second Val Lyon novel is completed and out making the rounds.

Pari Noskin Taichert from Murderati was there, too. She doesn't look anything like her author photo:

They were both on the next panel with Libby Fischer Hellman (from The Outfit). The subject was thrillers, and how they differ from mysteries. The upshot: It's all a matter of degree! Thanks for the insight, fellas.

The last panel of the day (for me) was "What caliber do you recommend?", with Jonathan Santlofer, Wallace Stroby, and Reed Coleman. If these guys had been from Texas, the conversation would have been, "Well, I prefer a .270 myself. How about you, Bart?" "I like something a little heavier, like a .30-06. And in a handgun I use a .44 Magnum, of course."

Wallace and Reed.

But instead we got three guys from greater New York City, so they talked about violence in mysteries. And since they didn't need the microphone to be heard, Reed used it for his famous Subway Conductor impression.

At each of the conventions I've been to, there was one guy whose name I'd never even heard before who turned out to be as interesting as anyone preset. At the Austin Bouchercon it was Eddie Muller; this time it was Jonathan Santlofer. Originally an artist, he got into writing through a rather unfortunate circumstance: the museum hosting a retrospective of his art burned to the ground, destroying his life's work. After that he found he couldn't paint, so he turned to writing instead.

Wallace Stroby was pretty interesting as well. I had a chance to talk to him later when he sat next to me in the bar, and I'll be damned if I could think of a single thing to say, so we just sat there. I got up to play a couple of songs on the jukebox, and when I got back he was gone, leaving me feeling like a total jerk.

After a brief reception, where I was shocked to discover food with no meat in it! This is Texas, people! we headed off to dinner, at a place called County Line Barbecue in west Austin. What do you think the leading lights of the mystery world spent the whole time talking about? Television. Specifically, HBO's Deadwood, which I have never seen, so I had no clue. As usual.

After dinner I was pretty tuckered, so I headed off to get some sleep.

ConMisterio: Thursday

2006-07-18T17:47:00.000-07:00

I rolled into Austin at about 4pm on Thursday and immediately headed down to the bar. ConMisterio didn't officially start until the following morning, but I figured I could catch up with a few of the attendees there.

I was deeply, deeply disappointed. I sat there nursing a series of beers by myself for nearly an hour and a half. How can you be so slack you can't make it to the bar?

Finally a woman came and sat down at a nearby table. I thought she sort of looked like a convention goer, and struck up a conversation. Turned out her name was Lee Billings and she was indeed there for the con. A few minutes later we were joined by Laura Elvebak, past president of the Southwest Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. After a while Lee headed off to the dealer room and Laura and I started out for Mama Ninfa's Mexican restaurant and the Offically Unofficial kickoff dinner.

As we were getting up to leave, I noticed a familiar group ahead of us. Sean, Neil, and Victor had finally decided to put in an appearance. Since Laura knew where the restaurant was, they climbed into their badass PT Cruiser and followed us.

If took us fifteen minutes to ditch the Three Losers, so we were late and didn't get a place at the main table. I did get a change to meet Bill Crider face to face, and the legendary James Crumley passed by so close I could see the food stuck to his shirt.

After a plate of tamales we made our way back to the hotel. I was pretty tired and the place was dead, so after a few minutes I decided to call it a night.

Death In Small Doses

2006-07-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

The song says that short people ain't got nobody to love, but I love short people, and I especially love their stories. So let's get to it:

* I managed to miss the most recent issue of ThugLit, but I have signed up for their mailing list so it will Never Happen Again. Here's the contents of the May/June issue:

"The History Channel", by Charlie Stella

"A Moment's Regret", by Ron Klosterman

"Courtesy Call", by Justin Gustainis

"Family Connections", by H. Kim Lee

"All The Beautiful Things", by Barbara Stanley

"Sweet Benny And The Sanchez Penitentiary Band", by B.H. Shepherd

"Laetrile", by Ed Lynskey

"Trim", by Vinnie Penn

"For Sarah", by Mike MacLean

"A Hog's Dinner", by Johnny Bassoff

As usual, a few writers I've heard of (Charlie Stella, Ed Lynskey, Mike MacLean) plus a few who are new to me. Check it out.

* I haven't heard anyone pushing this but Lee Goldberg, but the Amazon.com short story program has stories by some terrific writers, each for only forty-nine cents. That's a whole anthology for only ten bucks. I still have a few problems with it - for example, there's no way to create or share "playlists" - but it's a great idea. Their index of mystery stories is here. Authors include Goldberg, Jeffrey Deaver, James Lee Burke - you get the idea.

* From James Reasoner and Bill Crider comes news of the new anthology Retro Pulp Tales, edited by Joe R. Lansdale. I haven't seen a copy yet, but by all accounts this is like flipping through a few old pulp titles from the 1930s - a little Amazing, a few Weird Tales, etc. Available only from the Subterranean Press.

Barry Does Dallas: A Photo Essay

2006-06-13T20:03:00.000-07:00

Barry Eisler was in Dallas last night, pushing his latest book about assassin John Rain, The Last Assassin. I managed to make it across town to the Preston Royal Borders, and brought along my camera to record the occassion.

Barry made a dramatic entrace, smashing a hole through the ceiling and swinging down ninja-style. Well, no, though that would have been cool. Instead he wore this clever disguise:

Wait, that's Harry, not Barry. Dallas' own Harry Hunsicker (author of Still River) was there, looking awfully cool in the heat. He reports that his next Lee Henry Oswald book, The Next Time You Die, will be out on July 11th - just in time for Con Misterio - and he's got a story in Michael Bracken's Fedora 4 anthology, out early next year.

And here's the man of the hour:

As you can clearly see from this photo, my camera sucks. Sheesh. In my defense, I had the flash off so I wouldn't distract.

There was a decent crowd on hand, fifteen or twenty people, and all fans of Barry's. Barry himself turned out to be as engaging as I'd heard and spoke for nearly an hour. Here he is seeking answers from above:

He still has some stubble left over from his role as Sonny Crockett in the upcoming film version of Miami Vice.

After talking about Assassin he spent a few minutes discussing the future of the John Rain series. He still enjoys writing the Rain books but would like to branch out in the future, maybe writing a standalone featuring Rain sidekicks Dox or Delilah. The outline for the sixth Rain book is complete, and Eisler says he feels that this book will in some ways bring the series full circle.

Barry also spoke at some length about the packaging of the series, and how he's gained a better understanding of what's successful and what's not. In particular he felt the "Rain" themed titles of the first four books (Rain Fall, Hard Rain, Rain Storm, and A Killing Rain) didn't really communicate what the books were about, whereas The Last Assassin puts the point across more directly. He also felt the early covers, though eye-catching, were too generic:

Plus his name wasn't big enough.

Oh, and he's heard every possible "Rain" title, including "Rain Coat", "Rain Check", and my favorite, "Acid Rain". We also got to learn Barry's original title for his first book: A Thing Out Of Season.

Then it was time for the signing. I ended up in the line next to Harry, and was just about to get the full sordid story of the Murder in the Magic City when it was my turn:

And here's a picture of me with Barry. I'm the tall, good-looking one. Notice how I managed to crop out most of my gut:

And here's a picture of Barry and Harry, putting to rest all the rumors that they're really the same person:

All in all a pretty good time and Barry was gracious and entertaining.

* Speaking of Harry's new book and Con Misterio, I made a list of all the books I'll have to haul back from there. When I got to "1.5 metric assloads" I gave up. At least getting them signed will increase the value on eBay.

Spinetingler Mag, A Thrilling Pause, Etc.

2006-06-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

News for a summer Sunday morning (technically still spring, but come on, I live in Texas):

* The latest issue of Sandra Ruttan's Spinetingler Magazine is now online, and it's a good one. Shockingly, there seem to be more men than women in this issue, though there are stories by Sarah Weinman (as required by law - true story), Megan "No Relation" Powell, and many others. Seriously, this magazine hasn't received the attention it deserves, so be sure to check it out. Complete contents:

"And The Devil Will Drag You Under", by Stephen Blackmoore
"Demon in the Storehouse", by Megan Powell
"Cursive Three", by Joe Swope
"A Dream", by Erato Sahapoglu
"The Kiss", by George Burden
"DJ's Girl", by Sarah Weinman
"Downdraft From Tokyo", by Michael Obilade
"Tigergirl", by Daniel Arenson
"Domino", by M.G. Tarquini

And there are a number of reviews and interviews as well.

* The venerable Kevin Burton Smith of The Thrilling Detective has announced that it's going on hiatus for a while - bad news for those who love us some private eye action. TTD is the longest running mystery fiction site on the web and has published some truly stellar stories, including one that took home the Edgar (until they realized they'd made a mistake!), so let's all cross our fingers and hope Kev returns soon.

* And I'm behind the times in pointing this out, but when you hit the bar at Bouchercon, Ray Banks is buying. When I read about his "six-figure" deal, my first reaction was, six figures of what? Italian Lira? Japanese Yen?

But I'll rein in my raging jealousy long enough to say: It's no more than you deserve, Ray, and best of luck.

Bavarian Mystery Werks

2006-05-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

* A few years ago, BMW commissioned a number of film directors to create short films featuring BMW cars, with Clive Owen as the mysterious driver - some of which were actually pretty good. Now they've done the same thing with fiction, posting audio stories by the likes of Don Winslow, Karin Slaughter, Simon Kernick, and James Flint. I'm thinking that Duane needs to create a sequel to The Wheelman.

* Ali Karim sends along word that he managed to corner the elusive Robert Littell, and the resulting interview is now up at January Magazine.

Absolute Wrong

2006-05-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

* The web site Absolute Write was taken offline by their ISP earlier this week - with only an hour's notice - after agent Barbara Bauer called the owner. Full details here. Fortunately the site is back online at a new host.

Bauer, of course, is on Writer Beware's list of the 20 worst agents.

* It's pulp fiction week at Slate. Just about all the articles look to be pretty interesting, including a survey of various authors' vacation reading lists.

Ed Gorman, Crime Scene Scotland, and Neil's Kids

2006-05-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

* Ed Gorman is no longer posting to his blog, but he's still putting up the occasionaly article over at Mystery*File. In the current installment, he talks about used books, Stark House reprints, and the only hit piece he ever published.

* Crime Scene Scotland has posted a quick-'n-dirty mini issue, with the short story "Mr. Saturday Night Special" by Bryon Quertermous and an interview with Ray Banks. With those two involved, it had to be both dirty, and quick.

* The first issue of the Bare Root Review is now online. It's a lit journal, not specifically crime-oriented, but it's by the students of the inimitable Anthony Neil Smith, so there's got to be a gun in there somewhere.

Good(is) News And Other Stories

2006-05-16T10:15:00.000-07:00

So Duane Swierczynski and a few of his mates were sitting around shooting the bull and bitching about the lack of Philly-area mystery conventions. Someone mentioned that the 40th anniversary of Philadelphia native David Goodis' death is coming up in January, and voila! GoodisCon was born.

Goodis is probably best known to the general public as the author of Dark Passage, made into a pretty good Bogart-Bacall flick, but in the mystery community he's remembered as the man who wrote nihilistic paperback classics such as Down There, Cassidy's Girl, and The Moon In The Gutter. Apparently he was also a genuinely odd bird, who after an initial foray into Hollywood spent much of his life living with his parents. As Ed Gorman wrote, Goodis "didn't write novels; he wrote suicide notes."

It seems there's a Goodis revival looming, hopefully as large as the Jim Thompson revival of a few years ago, which saw all of Thompson's novels come back into print. So if you're interested in noir in the City of Brotherly Love, be sure to give GoodisCon a gander.

Other news: There's an article in Slate called "What Are Independent Bookstores Really Good For?" - their answer: not much. The author doesn't really shed much light on the issue, but does highlight the continuing threat to the indie's existence, as well as the snobbery that keeps them going.

Last, when I added Murderati to the Big Blog Index, I exchanged a couple of emails with road* scholar JT Ellison, which included my asking, "So, when's your book out?" Her reply: "Um, I haven't sold it yet."

But there's a fine line between idiocy and prophecy, and the fate I fortold has come to pass: JT has signed a "very nice" three book deal with Mira. No clue whether she buys the next round according to the Scalzi scale.

* See, JT went to college at Randolph Macon in western Virginia, not far from where I went at Washington & Lee. Randy Mac and other women's colleges in the area were referred to as "road schools" by some of my classmates (though never by me), and going there to meet girls was called "going down the road." Which makes her.. oh, never mind.

"You like me... you really like me!"

2006-05-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

big news below... just keep reading...

* Publisher Dave Zeltserman and guest editor Craig McDonald have released the "Borderland Noir" issue of Hardluck Stories. Because after all, Noir is all about borders. The border between light and dark. The border between good and evil. Between men and women. Between people... people helping people. Wait, where was I?

Anyway, it's a terrific issue. Short stories include:

"To Have and To Hold", by Ken Bruen
"Coyotes's Ballad", by Mike MacLean
"Broken Promised Land", by Craig McDonald
"Trailer de Fuego", by Garnett Elliot
"No Hablo Ingles", by Manuel Ramos
"Undocumented", by Teresa Kennedy
"Work of Wolves", by Bradley Mason Hamilton
"Corrida de Toros", by 'Rick Deckard'

Nonfiction articles include an interview with the legendary James Crumley, "Lessons in Noir" by Dave Z., and a review of Touch Of Evil. And if that last one isn't Borderland Noir, I don't know what the hell is.

* Ed Gorman plugged this site on his blog (now on hiatus) a while back, and now he's done it again, in his column for Mystery Scene magazine. Many thanks, Ed, and here's hoping that you're health is holding up. Send me an update when you get the chance and I'll post it.

* The Short Mystery Fiction Society has announced the winners of its Derringer awards:

Flash story: "Secondhand Shoe", by Patricia Harrington (A Flasher's Dozen)
Short-short story: "Zipped" by Stephen D. Rogers (Windchill, Level Best Books
Mid-length story: "One Step Closer", Iain Rowan (Hardluck Stories)
Longer story: "The Safest Place on Earth" by Mark Best (The Thrilling Detective)

Congrats to all the winners, especially CrimeSpottees Stephen and editors Dave Zeltserman (Hardluck Stories) and Kevin Burton Smith and Gerald So (The Thrilling Detective).

(via Gerald.)

* I was going to put up a post titled "Why CrimeSpot Sucks", detailing all the myriad technical issues we've been having, but then I heard that Mystery Ink had announced their Gumshoe awards - and they've honored humble CrimeSpot as "Best Website".

Needless to say, I'm shocked and awed. I've been very pleased with the response to the site so far, and this is just the cherry on top. On the down side, I will be pretty hard to take for a while. I'll be saying things like, "Did you hear? Laura Lippman won the Gumshoe. Yeah... I won one too, you know." Complete winners:

Best Mystery: To The Power Of Three, by Laura Lippman
Best Thriller: Company Man, by Joseph Finder
Best European Crime Novel: The Vanished Hands, Robert Wilson
Best First Novel: The Baby Game, Randall Hicks
Lifetime Achievement: Ed McBain
Best Crime Fiction Web Site: CrimeSpot.net

Thanks again, guys.

Demolish This!

2006-04-25T10:08:00.000-07:00

The Spring issue of DEMOLITION has now been posted by editor Bryon Quertermous and his flunky, Dave White, and features GLOW: the Glamourous Ladies Of Writing. Many of the contributors are also members of the CrimeSpot community. Full contents:

"Wish You Weren't Here", by Sarah Weinman
"In Other News", by Jennifer Jordan
"Low Drama", by Kim Harrington
"The Squatter", by Patricia Abbot
"Fucked Again", by Sandra Ruttan
"Penzance", by Aliya Whiteley
"X", by J.T. Ellison

Mars Needs Links! OK, not really Mars, but the Calendar page has not been working out as well as I had hoped, due to sundry technical issues (read: lazyness), so I'm going to create a page of links to non-blog sites of interest - and I want your help! Send me mystery fiction links that might be of interest to others. The only restrictions: no author pages, and no bookstores. I'm mostly looking for 'zines, forums, bibliographical resources, etc. Email to mail@crimespot.net.

The Original Crimedogs

2006-04-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

Two of The Original Crimedogs (which would make a good name for a band) are profiled online today: Victor Gischler over at the Secret Dead Blog, and Neil Smith at Tribe's blog. Both of them have new books on the way (Shotgun Opera and The Drummer, respectively) and both give good interview.

In other news: I told Bryon I would post this last week but forgot - he's put up a new blog for people searching for Bouchercon roommates. Appropriately enough, it's called the Bouchercon Roommate Search. Check it out if you are looking for a roommate, a place to stay, or an opportunity to give Bryon a hard time.

A tech tip: DON'T POST FROM WORD INTO BLOGGER!!!! Word inserts a whole bunch of HTML tags that are declared using a namespace. They look like <ns:tag>. Unfortunately, Word never gets around to defining the namespace, so that when Blogger packages the post for syndication, it causes the whole file to be invalid. The end result is your updates don't show on the site. Once I get the file it's too late to fix it, but I am writing to Blogger and suggesting they strip this out. 'Til then: Just Say No.

Something Blue

2006-04-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Nothing but sad news this week, I'm afraid. The recent arrival of CrimeSpree Issue 11 has been overshadowed by the loss of editors Jon and Jen Jordan's father, Armand.

Just this morning I heard that a close member of Tribe's family passed away from cancer.

And Ed Gorman's blog is on hiatus while he finishes his novel and prepares for a trip to the Mayo clinic.

Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Tuesday Afternoon

2006-04-04T12:36:00.000-07:00

News and notes for a Tuesday:

* The new issue of Crime Scene Scotland is up and running, with new fiction by Mark Joseph Kiewlak, Christoper Morrow, and Joseph Farria, and reviews of Charlie Williams' King Of The Road, Ray Banks' Saturday's Child, and Bust by Ken Bruen and Jason Starr (among others). The Eds promise more to come soon, including the mysterious "unconfirmed content."

Fiction contents:

"Confession", by Mark Joseph Kiewlak
"Chickens", by Christoper Morrow
"Love, The Dead Man" by Joseph Farria

* Must be a busy week in Britain, as SHOTS has a new look and a bunch of new articles. Sarah Paretsky is profiled, along with Martyn Waites and Stephen Leather, there are interviews, and pretty pictures, and a 5-spot of new crime stories:

"The Fabulous Super Guy", by Aliya Whiteley
"An Even Existence", by James Harris
"Catnap", by Patricia Abbott
"Kiss The Cook", by Edward Musto
"A Fire In Her Eyes", by Stephen Blackmoore

* Finally, nominations for the second annual Ross Thomas award are now open. This award is given annually for the best first line in a mystery thriller by CrimeSpree Magazine and The Drood Review. The particulars:

The Drood Review and Crimespree Magazine announce that nominations are now open for this year's Ross Thomas Prize, given annually to the best first line in a thriller or mystery novel. This year's contest will include a significantly expanded panel of judges, and is expected to attract over a thousand entries.

Nominations must be made at http://www.themysterycompany.com/firstline/firstline.htm by July 1, 2006. The first lines of all novels published in the English language in the calendar year 2005 are eligible, including hard covers, paperbacks, and electronic novels released by commercial presses or self-published. Nominations can be made by readers, publishers, publicists, agents, and authors. Authors are encouraged to nominate their own work.

A short list of finalists will be announced August 1, and the winner will be announced September 28, 2006, at Bouchercon in Madison, Wisconsin. Judges this year include librarians, critics, booksellers, authors and industry experts. Among those serving are Lee Child, Laura Lippman, Bleak House Books' Ben Leroy, Raymond Kearney, Cara Black, Sarah Weinman, Maggie Griffin, and David Montgomery, plus many others.

Last year's winner was Jennifer Apodaca of Los Angeles for the first line of Ninja Soccer Moms: "The thing about revenge is it takes a woman who is well and truly pissed to get it right."

The Ross Thomas Prize is given with permission of Ross Thomas's widow, Rosalie.

Zinewatch Episode 3

2006-03-29T11:52:00.000-08:00

What's new on the 'zine front? Glad you asked.

First up, those fine fellows at ThugLit bring you Issue 6, full of - wait, let's let them tell it:

A Super needs to find a way to save the kids in his building from the Meth lab they call home.

A man is given the choice: rob the bank or lose your wife.

When you're ex-girlfriend shoots you in the face and steals the drugs, what's a man to do?

A tricky car alarm forces some fast answers... From the man who's boosting it.

They say it takes a thief to catch a thief. What if you're trying to catch a killer?

A P.I. goes south of the border to find a Senator's daughter and scope out the burrow she's in... Or the burro that's in her.

A man of the cloth tries to be his own avenging angel.

If you're going to mess with another man's wife, make sure that man doesn't have a gun.

The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. This also applies to convenience store robbers.

What do you do when the man inside might snitch? Then, how do you get him outside?

A crippled detective needs to help his punk rock princess's boyfriend broker some valuable gardening implements.

When the price is flesh, you don't care who pays. As long as it ain't you.

Issue Contents:

"The Super Hero", by Tony Burton
"Voodoo Dolls", by D.Z. Allen
"Ain't My Bitch", by Max Callahan
"False Alarm", by J.D. Smith
"Capacity To Kill", by Donovan Arch Montierth
"Donkey Show", by Bryon Quertermous
"Click. Boom.", by Justin Porter
"Bale Hearing", by Christopher Friesen
"On The Program", by Eric M. Witchey
"Rescuing Isaac", by Frank Zafiro
"Alvin Comes Home", by Tim Wohlforth
"With Intentions Of Torture", by Michael Colangelo

That story by Tim Wohlforth features Crip and Henrietta, faves of mine from Plots With Guns. And now maybe Bryon will shut up about "Donkey Show".

NOT TO MENTION:

I was poking around on Sandra Blabber, er, Ruttan's site, and noticed that she had a 'zine as well. It's called Spinetingler Magazine, and you can read the full contents of every issue in your own living room via the magic of teh Intarweb. Fiction in the current issue:

"Intuition", by Tracy Sharp
"Outpost", by Kaitlyn Northam
"The Matchmaker's Brew", by Dana Y.T. Lin
"She Is Not Dead", by Erato Sahapoglu
"Keeping Fayth", by E. Ann Bardawill
"The Cannibal Buffet", by Ryan Block
"Absolution", by M.G. Tarquini
"The Mentor", by Darlene Hanson
"Chaos", by Tracy Sharp

Plus reviews, interviews, etc.

Tanned. Rested. Ready.

2006-03-20T09:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm back from vacation and ready to rock. A lot went on in the mystery world while I was off feeding the dolphins, so let's get to it:

* The latest edition of Al Guthrie's Noir Originals is up, so be sure to check out the new Noir Zine and New Writers. The 'Zine has interviews with such luminaries as Charles "Richard Aleas" Ardai, Duane (cut, paste) Swierczynski, Charlie "No, not that Charles Williams" Williams, and Jason Starr, plus a number of reviews and other articles. Over in New Writers you can read excerpts from the likes of Dave White, Harry Shannon, and Raymond Embrack.

* Love Rains O'er Eisler: In their last issue, the prominent international news magazine The Economist had a very enthusiastic review (requires subscription) of Barry Eisler's latest John Rain thriller, Killing Rain. This should bring Eisler's killer-with-a-conscience to a much wider audience. Strangely, in Britain Eisler uses a pseudonym - anyone know why?

* Ed Gorman's excellent ProFiles series continues apace, including a recent interview with my friend Michael Bracken, the Hardest Working Man In Show Business (Literary Division), and a real old-school pro. Most writers working today write more or less what they want, and succeed or fail with that material. Not many are able to adapt to different markets and produce high-level work.

* Tribe's story site Flashing In The Gutters has a new address: http://tribe.textdriven.com/flash/. Please make a note of it.

* The StorySouth Millions Writers Award Notable Stories of 2005 have been announced. Here's a quick and dirty list of some 'zines you may have heard of:

CRIME SCENE SCOTLAND
"Down and Out in Brentwood" by Neal Marks

HARDLUCK STORIES
"Freezing Moon" by Roy Felps
"Knight Erring" by Darragh Metzger

MISSISSIPP REVIEW
(High Pulp issue)
"Gloria My Gloria" by Vishal Khanna

SHOTS MAGAZINE
"The Fifty-Three Cent Mistake" by Herschel Cozine

SHRED OF EVIDENCE
"A Sack of Potatoes" by Sarah Weinman

THE THRILLING DETECTIVE
"Consider It Lit" by Stephen D. Rogers
"The Face in the Concrete" by Tapani Bagge (translated from the Finnish by Minna Haapio)

THUGLIT
"Johnny Cash Is Dead" by Jordan Harper

Congrats to all the writers, editors, and assorted hangers-on involved.

* And in honor of the release of Dublin Noir, and as a reward for reading this far, I thought I'd point you to a little story I wrote last year, called "Ken Bruen Is Dead, Alas".

Help Yourselves To The Scotch

2006-03-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

The fine folks at Crime Scene Scotland have split off their book reviews into a new blog, so allow me to introduce Crime Scene Scotland Reviews.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Sean Doolittle has posted his latest "monthly" load, with much interesting stuff about his latest manuscript. Unfortunately Sean won't start a real blog (he'd have to post more than 9 times a year) so I can't add him to the index. But he has plenty to say, so check it out.

Saved By Megan

2006-03-03T08:51:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I'd never have another topic for a post, Megan "The Other" Powell goes and updates Shred Of Evidence. The February issue, Volume 4 Number 1 (has it been that long?), is now available for your view pleasure here.

Contents:

"You've Just Killed a Man" by Terry Black
"My Best Friend's Girl" by A.J. Fehr
"The Search for Wilton Wist" by Patricia Abbott
"The Last Cowboy" by E.C. Morgan
"Worth the Chance" by A.C. Ellis
"Blackbird" by J.E. Seymour

Message On A Bottle

2006-02-20T18:53:00.001-08:00

Something original in publishing, for a change. Marketing student Joanna Wojtalik had an idea - distribute small magazines which "fits onto a fast moving consumer product and distribute via grocery rather than traditional magazine channels." Now it's a reality, as the tiny magazine iLove goes on sale soon, attached to a bottle of water.

This has obvious applications to the mystery field. An Anthony Neil Smith story with your Abita beer? Sure! Ken Bruen on your can of Guiness? Why not! Gabriel Cohen's Red Hook on a real Red Hook? Of course!

Though we suspect that some of today's bigger blockbusters would require the 40 oz. Bull...

Hardluck Stories Horror/Crime Issue

2006-02-16T12:29:00.000-08:00

The Horror/Crime issue of Hardluck Stories is now online, with stories by Ken Bruen, Ed Gorman and J.A. Konrath, among others. Dave Z. and guest editor Harry Shannon have put together one of the best lineups I've seen in a while. Be sure to check it out.

The complete lineup:

"Punk", by Ken Bruen
"The Confession", by J.A. Konrath
"The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday", by Adrian McKinty
"A Handful Of Dust", by Harry Shannon
"Beauty", by Ed Gorman
"Shy One Pearl", by Robert W. Walker
"Second Choice", by Pat Lambe
"Flies", by Dave Zeltserman

Plus nonfiction articles by Harry Shannon and Charles Ardai.

Ed Gorman's Pro-File: Marijane Meaker

2006-02-11T07:48:00.000-08:00

Ed Gorman has started an interview series on his blog called "Pro-Files", in which he presents professional writers with seven questions and records their responses. Past installments include Bill Crider, P.J. Parrish, and Max Allan Collins.

This time out he talks to Marijane Meaker, who as Vin Packer was a prominent writer of paperback originals back during the 50s and 60s, in addition to writing lots of other stuff, notably a series of young adult novels as M.E. Kerr. Her novels had a psychological depth and complexity not usually found among the paperback classes; among hardback writers, she could easily be compared to, well, Patricia Highsmith.

If you've never read her, the kind folks at Stark House Press are reprinting many of her books, and they're well worth a look.