Just received word that my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, published by Chizine Books, has been nominated for a Spinetingler award for best novella. I’m honored to be included with writers like Ray Banks, Nik Korpon, Fingers Murphy, Gerard Brennan, Nigel Bird, Chuck Wendig and other talented folks. Voting runs from now until the end of the month. Go have your say.
You can visit my Amazon page to pick up any of my Kindle releases. We've extended our sale on three of my titles. My collection FUTILE EFFORTS and my noirellas YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT and ALL YOU DESPISE are all just $.99 for the time being. For a couple of bucks more you can pick up NIGHTJACK, FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY, THE FEVER KILL, THRUST, THE NOBODY, THE LAST DEEP BREATH, LOSS, PENTACLE, A LOWER DEEP or any of my Bantam titles including THE COLD SPOT, SHADOW SEASON, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN.
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I also just received proofs of my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS, due out in hardcover from Bantam on June 5. You can check out the synopsis and blurbs on the Amazon page. You can also pre-order, "like" the book, and tag it, if you're so inclined. Thanks to everyone who's already shown such incredible support for the novel. I already have a feeling this is going to be the best selling book of my career. Grazie, all.
Library Journal ran a nice little preview of TLKW a week ago, along with other titles streeting this summer. Read the brief article here.
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Crime Factory #9 packs a hell of a lot of knockout content: pieces by Scott Phillips, Benjamin Whitmer, Daniel B. O'Shea, Ray Banks, Paul D Brazill, and a new short story by me. Features by Johnny Shaw, Cameron Ashley, Jimmy Callaway. Read, enjoy, quiver.
About Me
- Tom Piccirilli
- "We need to make books cool again. If you go home with someone & they don't have books, don't fuck 'em."--John Waters
I'm the author of more than twenty novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, THE COLDEST MILE, THE MIDNIGHT ROAD, THE DEAD LETTERS, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN. Look for my next one THE LAST KIND WORDS due out May '12 from Bantam Books. Contact: PicSelf1@aol.com
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
2 Recent Reads: Westlake & Lansdale
The Comedy is Finished by Donald Westlake
Hard Case Crime
This book breaks my heart for two reasons. One, it’s probably the last Donald Westlake novel we’ll ever see unless they find another last lost manuscript by the master, which I hope for daily. Westlake’s work is a joy whether it’s one of his standalone novels, a laugh-out-loud humorous Dortmunder scheme, or a Richard Stark/Parker tale hardboiled enough to peel the skin from your face.
To add to that overall sadness is the fact that Westlake never got to see the book published in his lifetime despite the fact that this first-rate novel was written some thirty years ago. Westlake thought that the subject matter too closely resembled Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, which hit the big screen shortly after Westlake completed The Comedy is Finished.
Set in the late 70s, the novel is an edgy suspense thriller about a kidnapping gone wildly wrong (do kidnappings ever go right?). When aging, acclaimed, right-winger comedian Koo Davis is snatched by members of a social revolution that’s grown passe, ideologies clash dangerously with Koo’s life on the line. Ironically imprisoned in a ritzy Hollywood home, Koo constantly cracks wise in order to keep his spirits up in the face of his often enraged, depressed, and possibly insane captors.
The novel is rife with unexpected scenes of great emotional power and poignancy. As the FBI’s chief investigator nicely sums up, the revolutionaries might’ve once been considered heroes, but the movement itself lost its way. The young captors try to hold onto their purity of vision even while they slowly come to realize how foolish their attempts at revolt have become. Foolish, deadly, and probably meaningless as their fight for a lost cause pushes them toward greater and greater extremes. As the story unfolds Koo learns that one member of the People’s Revolutionary Army may have a completely different grievance against him, one that might change Koo’s own outlook on life. You just don’t expect a razor-wire read like this to be so full of feeling.
To my mind, Westlake could have easily changed his protagonist from a comedian to any other entertainment personage and just given the guy an overdeveloped funny bone. The fact that he’s a comedian isn’t as important as that he’s a celebrity with some wit. But for someone like Westlake, who had hit series on his hands, screenwriting gigs, and an Oscar to win (for the screenplay of THE GRIFTERS), I suppose he just didn’t mind laying the manuscript on a closet shelf while keeping busy with so much else on his plate. In any event, THE COMEDY IS FINISHED is a perfect capper to a brilliant career.
Edge of Dark Water by Joe Lansdale
Mulholland Books
We all know Joe Lansdale can do it all. He’s written thrillers, westerns, young adult, and horror novels, as well as fusions containing elements of each. His latest, EDGE OF DARK WATER, is more or less one of these composites that gives a perfect arena to Lansdale’s strengths as a classic storyteller.
When teenaged May Lynn’s body is pulled from the Sabine River tied to an old sewing machine, her friends Sue Ellen, Jinx, and Terry take it upon themselves to give her a proper fond farewell. They decide to burn her remains and carry the ashes to Hollywood, a place where pretty May Lynn always believed she would someday become a movie star. The adventurous trio, along with Sue Ellen’s alcoholic mother, steal a raft and escape from town with some stolen loot, barely ahead of Sue Ellen’s abusive step-father and several other cretinous, criminal characters. As their trip unfolds they run across an odd array of broken and lamentable folks, including a preacher with a horrible guilty secret and an ancient crone with no reason to live except passing on her bitterness. They also learn that Skunk, a legendary beast of a man raised in the river bottoms who’ll commit any atrocity he’s hired to do, may be on their heels.
Despite the novel being set during the Depression, the story has a certain timeless nature. We get the feeling that this tale could almost have taken place at any period between the 1880s and the 1980s. East Texas remains as dark and romanticized as Hannibal, Missouri, full of wonder and possibility, thick with traps and villains.
This is a sharp, incisive, fun tale showing Lansdale’s fortitude at roping the reader into an impressive, alluring narrative. The flaws of our protagonists are what make them so sympathetic and relatable, their journey such an earnest and archetypal one. Even though this is only January, I’m certain EDGE OF DARK WATER will wind up on top ten of ‘12 lists come a year from now.
By the way, look for my interview with Joe in the first online issue of the new ezine The Big Click edited by Nick Mamatas, premiering in March.
Hard Case Crime
This book breaks my heart for two reasons. One, it’s probably the last Donald Westlake novel we’ll ever see unless they find another last lost manuscript by the master, which I hope for daily. Westlake’s work is a joy whether it’s one of his standalone novels, a laugh-out-loud humorous Dortmunder scheme, or a Richard Stark/Parker tale hardboiled enough to peel the skin from your face.
To add to that overall sadness is the fact that Westlake never got to see the book published in his lifetime despite the fact that this first-rate novel was written some thirty years ago. Westlake thought that the subject matter too closely resembled Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, which hit the big screen shortly after Westlake completed The Comedy is Finished.
Set in the late 70s, the novel is an edgy suspense thriller about a kidnapping gone wildly wrong (do kidnappings ever go right?). When aging, acclaimed, right-winger comedian Koo Davis is snatched by members of a social revolution that’s grown passe, ideologies clash dangerously with Koo’s life on the line. Ironically imprisoned in a ritzy Hollywood home, Koo constantly cracks wise in order to keep his spirits up in the face of his often enraged, depressed, and possibly insane captors.
The novel is rife with unexpected scenes of great emotional power and poignancy. As the FBI’s chief investigator nicely sums up, the revolutionaries might’ve once been considered heroes, but the movement itself lost its way. The young captors try to hold onto their purity of vision even while they slowly come to realize how foolish their attempts at revolt have become. Foolish, deadly, and probably meaningless as their fight for a lost cause pushes them toward greater and greater extremes. As the story unfolds Koo learns that one member of the People’s Revolutionary Army may have a completely different grievance against him, one that might change Koo’s own outlook on life. You just don’t expect a razor-wire read like this to be so full of feeling.
To my mind, Westlake could have easily changed his protagonist from a comedian to any other entertainment personage and just given the guy an overdeveloped funny bone. The fact that he’s a comedian isn’t as important as that he’s a celebrity with some wit. But for someone like Westlake, who had hit series on his hands, screenwriting gigs, and an Oscar to win (for the screenplay of THE GRIFTERS), I suppose he just didn’t mind laying the manuscript on a closet shelf while keeping busy with so much else on his plate. In any event, THE COMEDY IS FINISHED is a perfect capper to a brilliant career.
Edge of Dark Water by Joe Lansdale
Mulholland Books
We all know Joe Lansdale can do it all. He’s written thrillers, westerns, young adult, and horror novels, as well as fusions containing elements of each. His latest, EDGE OF DARK WATER, is more or less one of these composites that gives a perfect arena to Lansdale’s strengths as a classic storyteller.
When teenaged May Lynn’s body is pulled from the Sabine River tied to an old sewing machine, her friends Sue Ellen, Jinx, and Terry take it upon themselves to give her a proper fond farewell. They decide to burn her remains and carry the ashes to Hollywood, a place where pretty May Lynn always believed she would someday become a movie star. The adventurous trio, along with Sue Ellen’s alcoholic mother, steal a raft and escape from town with some stolen loot, barely ahead of Sue Ellen’s abusive step-father and several other cretinous, criminal characters. As their trip unfolds they run across an odd array of broken and lamentable folks, including a preacher with a horrible guilty secret and an ancient crone with no reason to live except passing on her bitterness. They also learn that Skunk, a legendary beast of a man raised in the river bottoms who’ll commit any atrocity he’s hired to do, may be on their heels.
Despite the novel being set during the Depression, the story has a certain timeless nature. We get the feeling that this tale could almost have taken place at any period between the 1880s and the 1980s. East Texas remains as dark and romanticized as Hannibal, Missouri, full of wonder and possibility, thick with traps and villains.
This is a sharp, incisive, fun tale showing Lansdale’s fortitude at roping the reader into an impressive, alluring narrative. The flaws of our protagonists are what make them so sympathetic and relatable, their journey such an earnest and archetypal one. Even though this is only January, I’m certain EDGE OF DARK WATER will wind up on top ten of ‘12 lists come a year from now.
By the way, look for my interview with Joe in the first online issue of the new ezine The Big Click edited by Nick Mamatas, premiering in March.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Check it out: Thomas Perry's POISON FLOWER
POISON FLOWER is the seventh novel in Thomas Perry’s highly acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, about a Native American "guide" who helps "runners" to escape from their enemies. In the past Jane has helped women disappear from abusive husbands and helpless witnesses elude drug cartels. In POISON FLOWER Jane plans and executes a daring courtroom breakout for James Shelby, an innocent dupe unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder. Things go perfectly for Shelby, but not so great for Jane herself, who is immediately abducted by a group of men posing as cops, shot in the leg, and tortured for answers on the whereabouts of Shelby.Drugged and in agony Jane summons all of her willpower to keep quiet in the face of her torment even while she dreams of ancient Seneca warriors and the ghost of Harry Kemple, her one past mistake, a poker player she originally spirited away into a new life and then accidentally betrayed to a clever killer.
Refusing to give up Shelby’s only infuriates her captors, who work for the wealthy man who actually killed Shelby’s wife. Eventually she’s given up to auction–where all of evil adversaries of her previous runners gather together to bid on the chance to personally enslave or kill her.
But as any fan of the series knows, Jane is no weak lily. Instead, she’s quite a poison flower herself, prepared to do battle to the very end.
With a Perry novel you get full-on, relentless suspense and pretty much non-stop action. But smart, intense action. It’s not just a wild flurry of blood and killing, but instead wisely parceled out doses that build naturally upon character and narrative. Even when things get very nasty, the bloodletting only progresses the plot. One of the most fascinating elements of the series is how Jane draws on the lessons and traditions of the Seneca tribe in order to survive her adventurous life and dispatch her foes. POISON FLOWER is classic Perry, a novel that hurtles down desert highways at triple digits and will leave you with blisters on your hands from flipping pages so fast.
Mysterious Press
March 2012
$24
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Harlequins from Hell
For those of you paying attention, and even for those of you who haven't been, my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS hits in hardcover from Bantam in May. Just turned in the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK to my editor a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've been continuing on with a new short novel WHAT MAKES YOU DIE, due out from Apex next year. I'll also have a zombie novella--yes, you heard that right, chillun--entitled PALE PREACHERS out from Creeping Hemlock in a few months.
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The great writer/editor/reviewer/critic Thomas Roche recently did a hell of a thoughtful review of my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT. "If you're a washed-up fourth-rate writer with no hope for redemption -- or sometimes worry that you might be -- Tom Piccirilli's Every Shallow Cut is like ripping the scab off the place where Dr. Benway amputated your soul."
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Fresh on Kindle are three of my previously out-of-print books. My Stoker Award-winning suspense/horror/whatever novel THE NIGHT CLASS, the story of college student Cal Prentiss who returns to his university after the winter break only to learn a girl has been murdered in his room. Along the way he begins to suffer stigmata whenever someone on campus is killed, and his hands are bleeding a lot.
Also available now are PENTACLE, my short story collection following a modern-day warlock known only as the Necromancer and his demonic companion "Self" as they get into various occult adventures and battle a host of folks including the reincarnation of Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, a flooded town full of mutant demon fish-critters, and evil Navajo spirits.
A LOWER DEEP is my "Self" novel, originally published by Leisure Books, that continues the travails of the Necromancer and Self as they face down their former corrupted coven and try to stop them from bringing about Armageddon by resurrecting Christ before God Chooses to do so. The last half of the book takes place in Jerusalem, a city that lends itself to the themes of Biblical history, prophecy, witches, the mystical, and ancient pagan cultures.
Also, for the month of October, my collection FUTILE EFFORTS is selling for just $.99. Serious, for under a buck, you get 16 stories and novellas and something like 50 poems, plus introductions to each piece by likes of Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Simon Clark, Thomas F. Monteleone, Ray Garton, and bunches of other great generous folks.
And even though I'm pushing my e-books here, for the love of god, people, go to a real live bookstore today and buy a real live book. This is the one time when it's fine to be materialistic. I'm really hoping we learn to find a balance between e-technology and physical books. I just don't want to think about a world where there are no bookstores. Do you?
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Some Recent Reads
Been meaning to post about a bunch of recent reads, but I was fighting to beat out a few deadlines. Now that I've finished up a couple of projects, let me tell you all about some first-rate books that have recently hit:
BAD MOON RISING by Ed Gorman. This is Ed's latest Sam McCain novel. Chronologically, about ten years has passed between the first McCain novel THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED and this one, which brings us up to the late 60s and the collision between Black River Falls, Iowa's middle class mores and the influx of the hippie movement. While a local hippie commune outside of town keeps some of the more staunch white bread citizens in an uproar, the larger number of townsfolk don't seem to mind the bohemians much. Not until the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in town is found murdered on commune property and an unstable Vietnam vet becomes the prime suspect. The always sympathetic attorney and PI Sam McCain takes the case that nobody else wants, and soon finds himself butting heads on all sides of the political and social issues exemplified by the curious circumstances.
As is his forte, Gorman knows how to vividly portray his characters as they become swept up into a hurricane of historical importance. Small town America is portrayed honestly, filled with just as much darkness, bitterness, and long-standing secrets as there is apple pie, quaintness, and civic charm. Gorman writes with an emphasis on poignancy and pathos. You feel for these people as they try to navigate their way through turbulent times, trying to protect loved ones, understand complex politics, and stay friendly with nearly unrecognizable neighbors.
THE SIEGE OF TRENCHER'S FARM (STRAW DOGS) by Gordon Williams. Rereleased by Titan Books (www.titanbooks.com) to coincide with the recent movie remake, Gordon Williams's original novel that inspired both versions of STRAW DOGS proves exactly why it's the perfect source material for powerhouse filmmaking. American professor George Magruder rents Trencher's Farm in his wife, Louise's, isolated hometown of rural Dando parish, Cornwall. Cornwall is one of those small villages where you're considered an outsider no matter how many decades you might live among the people. If you're not born in Dando, you're not one of them. George doesn't seem to mind much as tries to finish his definitive study on an unknown eighteenth-century diarist. The fact that he and Louise have been drifting farther apart hardly seems to break his focus. Nor does the general rudeness of the local men even as he clumsily tries to befriend them. As Louise grows more and more discontent, George withdraws further into his work and his mannered, bumbling persona.
But when George accidentally runs over a mentally handicapped convicted child killer, Henry Niles, and the vicious locals set out to lynch Niles, George finds it within himself to defend the man and his own home from trespassers. Here, on Trencher's Farm, all the Dando men are outsiders, and George is soon fighting not only for the life of a guilty man, and the safety of himself and his own family, but for some innate sense of blood debt.
Williams has not only written a gripping novel that manages to show all sides to an oddly complicated set-up in the black, white, and gray area of morality, but he does so by stressing realism. The confused reasoning of George, the perplexing nature of his and Louise's relationship, the curious nature of the brutal Dando men, all lends itself to thoughtful and profoundly affecting themes. We're really not sure who to root for, who might be considered sympathetic, who are the innocents, and who is the guilty or mad. It's provocative storytelling at its finest.
NOIR AT THE BAR edited by Jedidiah Ayres & Scott Phillips. A first-rate crime fiction charity anthology designed to help out the beloved St. Louis indie bookstore SUBTERRANEAN BOOKS (http://store.subbooks.com/). Very few anthologies manage to hit on all cylinders, but this is one of those rare ones where there's not a dud to be found. Tales by Sean Doolittle, Laura Benedict, Jonathan Woods, Derek Nikitis, Frank Bill, and Anthony Neil Smith all win over the reader. These are dark, brutal, inventive, sharply-wrought, grabbing stories that will hopefully invite audiences to seek out more work by everyone listed in the table of contents. I'm honestly ashamed that I wasn't already familiar with more of the authors within and that I hadn't read more short fiction by those I was. If I had to choose a couple of faves, I think I'd go with Dennis Tafoya's "Doe Run Road," a cleaved to the bone narrative about a gut-shot loser trying to make it home just so he can face his hated mother once again; and Pinckney Benedict's "Pig Helmet and the Wall of Life," about a powerhouse burnt-out cop who should've been born in the savage dark ages, who manages to discover an odd form of grace while watching a carny motorcycle act where the riders whip around the inside of a wooden cylinder. Both tales offer even-handed subtleties even while they offer up hard left hooks to your heart. Go, order now.
CHICAGO LIGHTNING by Max Allan Collins. The short stories featuring Collins's classic private eye Nathan Heller have finally been collected by Thomas & Mercer. This is an excellent companion piece to the recent Heller novel BYE BYE BABY, featuring Heller's involvement with solving the Marilyn Monroe case. The Heller tales offer up terrific historical PI fiction. Heller's career spans practically the entire history of American crime. In the short stories we meet up with the likes of Frank Nitti, Mickey Cohen, Eliot Ness, Thelma Todd, all involved with real cases of the 30s and 40s that Heller always winds up in the middle of.
Collins's does his homework. These pieces read like actual historical documentation, the eras and famous personages taking on a real and authentic sense. The pieces are vivid, have depth, and traverse the arena of mystery fiction from noir to hardboiled to police procedural. Heller also grows as a protagonist, his past shaping him as he goes along from one piece to the next.
I missed a lot of these tales on their first publication so I was thankful to finally get a chance to check out those I hadn't seen before, as well as the revamped "The Perfect Crime," a tale that was originally written for a Philip Marlowe compendium that was rewritten to become an even more entertaining Heller piece. My fave might be "The Blonde Tigress," a smart, fun, playful, twister of a mystery that's put together in such a way that you'll reread it immediately just to see how smoothly it was done.
BAD MOON RISING by Ed Gorman. This is Ed's latest Sam McCain novel. Chronologically, about ten years has passed between the first McCain novel THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED and this one, which brings us up to the late 60s and the collision between Black River Falls, Iowa's middle class mores and the influx of the hippie movement. While a local hippie commune outside of town keeps some of the more staunch white bread citizens in an uproar, the larger number of townsfolk don't seem to mind the bohemians much. Not until the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in town is found murdered on commune property and an unstable Vietnam vet becomes the prime suspect. The always sympathetic attorney and PI Sam McCain takes the case that nobody else wants, and soon finds himself butting heads on all sides of the political and social issues exemplified by the curious circumstances.
As is his forte, Gorman knows how to vividly portray his characters as they become swept up into a hurricane of historical importance. Small town America is portrayed honestly, filled with just as much darkness, bitterness, and long-standing secrets as there is apple pie, quaintness, and civic charm. Gorman writes with an emphasis on poignancy and pathos. You feel for these people as they try to navigate their way through turbulent times, trying to protect loved ones, understand complex politics, and stay friendly with nearly unrecognizable neighbors.
THE SIEGE OF TRENCHER'S FARM (STRAW DOGS) by Gordon Williams. Rereleased by Titan Books (www.titanbooks.com) to coincide with the recent movie remake, Gordon Williams's original novel that inspired both versions of STRAW DOGS proves exactly why it's the perfect source material for powerhouse filmmaking. American professor George Magruder rents Trencher's Farm in his wife, Louise's, isolated hometown of rural Dando parish, Cornwall. Cornwall is one of those small villages where you're considered an outsider no matter how many decades you might live among the people. If you're not born in Dando, you're not one of them. George doesn't seem to mind much as tries to finish his definitive study on an unknown eighteenth-century diarist. The fact that he and Louise have been drifting farther apart hardly seems to break his focus. Nor does the general rudeness of the local men even as he clumsily tries to befriend them. As Louise grows more and more discontent, George withdraws further into his work and his mannered, bumbling persona.
But when George accidentally runs over a mentally handicapped convicted child killer, Henry Niles, and the vicious locals set out to lynch Niles, George finds it within himself to defend the man and his own home from trespassers. Here, on Trencher's Farm, all the Dando men are outsiders, and George is soon fighting not only for the life of a guilty man, and the safety of himself and his own family, but for some innate sense of blood debt.
Williams has not only written a gripping novel that manages to show all sides to an oddly complicated set-up in the black, white, and gray area of morality, but he does so by stressing realism. The confused reasoning of George, the perplexing nature of his and Louise's relationship, the curious nature of the brutal Dando men, all lends itself to thoughtful and profoundly affecting themes. We're really not sure who to root for, who might be considered sympathetic, who are the innocents, and who is the guilty or mad. It's provocative storytelling at its finest.
NOIR AT THE BAR edited by Jedidiah Ayres & Scott Phillips. A first-rate crime fiction charity anthology designed to help out the beloved St. Louis indie bookstore SUBTERRANEAN BOOKS (http://store.subbooks.com/). Very few anthologies manage to hit on all cylinders, but this is one of those rare ones where there's not a dud to be found. Tales by Sean Doolittle, Laura Benedict, Jonathan Woods, Derek Nikitis, Frank Bill, and Anthony Neil Smith all win over the reader. These are dark, brutal, inventive, sharply-wrought, grabbing stories that will hopefully invite audiences to seek out more work by everyone listed in the table of contents. I'm honestly ashamed that I wasn't already familiar with more of the authors within and that I hadn't read more short fiction by those I was. If I had to choose a couple of faves, I think I'd go with Dennis Tafoya's "Doe Run Road," a cleaved to the bone narrative about a gut-shot loser trying to make it home just so he can face his hated mother once again; and Pinckney Benedict's "Pig Helmet and the Wall of Life," about a powerhouse burnt-out cop who should've been born in the savage dark ages, who manages to discover an odd form of grace while watching a carny motorcycle act where the riders whip around the inside of a wooden cylinder. Both tales offer even-handed subtleties even while they offer up hard left hooks to your heart. Go, order now.
CHICAGO LIGHTNING by Max Allan Collins. The short stories featuring Collins's classic private eye Nathan Heller have finally been collected by Thomas & Mercer. This is an excellent companion piece to the recent Heller novel BYE BYE BABY, featuring Heller's involvement with solving the Marilyn Monroe case. The Heller tales offer up terrific historical PI fiction. Heller's career spans practically the entire history of American crime. In the short stories we meet up with the likes of Frank Nitti, Mickey Cohen, Eliot Ness, Thelma Todd, all involved with real cases of the 30s and 40s that Heller always winds up in the middle of.
Collins's does his homework. These pieces read like actual historical documentation, the eras and famous personages taking on a real and authentic sense. The pieces are vivid, have depth, and traverse the arena of mystery fiction from noir to hardboiled to police procedural. Heller also grows as a protagonist, his past shaping him as he goes along from one piece to the next.
I missed a lot of these tales on their first publication so I was thankful to finally get a chance to check out those I hadn't seen before, as well as the revamped "The Perfect Crime," a tale that was originally written for a Philip Marlowe compendium that was rewritten to become an even more entertaining Heller piece. My fave might be "The Blonde Tigress," a smart, fun, playful, twister of a mystery that's put together in such a way that you'll reread it immediately just to see how smoothly it was done.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
The Last Kind Words
That’s our new puppy Dash(iell Hammett). We found him at the pound where the poor little guy had already been through eight miles of hell. He was an abandoned stray, survived Parvo, and just got over a bad bout of pneumonia. Now he’s active, healthy, putting on weight, and a total joy.Although the publication date of THE LAST KIND WORDS is still eight months away, you can pre-order it now from Amazon. Standard discount is already in place, so you can save yourself over 30% on the cover price. As soon as ordering info is up at B&N and elsewhere, I’ll relate that info here too. No cover art yet, but you can bet a dog will be on it.
Even if you’re not inclined to purchase the book at this time, I’m hoping fans will stop by and "like" the page, add a few Amazon tags, or start a discussion.
THE LAST KIND WORDS is the story of a young thief named Terrier Rand who returns to his criminal family (each member of whom is named after a different breed of dog) on the eve of his brother Collie’s execution. Collie went mad dog for apparently no reason and went on a killing spree murdering eight people. Now, five years later, Collie swears he only killed seven people, and the eighth was the work of someone else. Terry not only has to deal with an ex-best friend, a former flame, some mob guys, and other assorted badasses, but he’s also forced to investigate that night his brother went crazy and find out if Collie is telling the truth. But more than anything, he really wants to know the reason for why his brother went on a spree, in the hopes that Terry himself is never pushed to that kind of edge.
But at its heart this story is a family drama, about Terry’s search for his own identity amidst all the usual conflicted emotions we have for our loved ones and our own personal histories. Is he anyone special if he’s not doing what he does best? Can he really turn his back on the people who accept him for who he is despite his flaws and his past? Can he ever live with the guilt of abandoning his girlfriend? And can he survive his own covetous nature in wanting his best friend’s life, wife, and child, the life he could’ve had himself?
Currently I’m working on the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK.
A few blurbs from some of the biz’s most talented and generous people. My undying thanks to them all:
"Perfect crime fiction...a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story."--LEE CHILD
"Tom Piccirilli is clearly a writer to embrace now before he becomes huge. In THE LAST KIND WORDS he takes us inside a mutated family of crooks and unleashes a stunning story that ranges far afield at times but never truly leaves home, a place where shadows grow in every corner. It’s superbly told, with prose that doesn’t mess about or flinch from evil and characters who are best known from a distance."–DANIEL WOODRELL
"For the first time since The Godfather, a family of criminals has stolen my heart. A brilliant mix of love and violence, charm and corruption. I loved it."–NANCY PICKARD, author of The Virgin of Small Plains
"You're in for a treat. Tom Piccirilli is one of the most exciting authors around. He writes vivid action that is gripping and smart, with characters you believe and care about. I always pay attention when I see his name."–David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of FIRST BLOOD and THE NAKED EDGE
"You don't choose your family. And the Rand clan, a family of thieves and killers, is bad to the bone. But it's a testimony to Tom Piccirilli's stellar writing that you still care about each and every one of them. THE LAST KIND WORDS is at once a dark and brooding page-turner and a heartfelt tale about the ties that bind. Fans of Lee Child will love this hard-boiled, tough-as-nails novel."–LISA UNGER, New York Times bestselling author of FRAGILE
"A modern noir master, Tom Piccirilli's usual propulsive prose and relentless storytelling are on display in THE LAST KIND WORDS, but it's his sense of relationships and the haunting power of family that lifts his writing beyond others in the genre. A swift-moving and hard-hitting novel, THE LAST KIND WORDS reads as if it's being whispered to you in a dimly lit bar where violent men, tough women, and powerful ghosts flicker in the mirrors."–Michael Koryta, Edgar-nominated author of SO COLD THE RIVER
"There's more life in Piccirilli's THE LAST KIND WORDS (and more heartache, action, and deliverance) than any other novel I've read in the past couple of years. Nobody in crime fiction is doing a better job than Tom Piccirilli right now. Simple as that."–Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award-Winning Author of THE LOCK ARTIST
"Tom Piccirilli 's narrative voice is one of the most stylized and fearless of the current batch of neo-noir novelists."–Crime Factory
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Also coming up: more ebook releases of my out-of-print stuff. My first ever zombie novella entitled PALE PREACHERS will see print from Creeping Hemlock Press. And another short novel along similar lines to Every Shallow Cut called WHAT MAKES YOU DIE, published by Apex.
People: Remember that writers and other artists live and die by word of mouth. Readers, fans, critics, keep reviewing books, films, and other creative product as much as you can. On Amazon, B&N, your blog, on Goodreads, message boards, wherever. We could always use more feedback. Send notes and emails to your heroes. Make sure you review a book, indie film, or some other piece of art today. Talk them up. Promote, publicize, keep the creative impulse alive. We need you, folks.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
FANTE: A Memoir
Dan Fante grew up in the shadow of his father, John, a damaged, raging writer of great literary talent who always believed he’d sold out his genius for the easy Hollywood screenwriting check. Much like his father, Dan grew up a victim of his own chaotic emotions, driven to succeed and doomed to sabotage his accomplishments with drugs, alcohol, violence, and his own intense, unstoppable self-loathing.
In his new memoir FANTE, Dan explores his relationship with his father and examines how familial resentment and envy drove him from his hometown of Los Angeles to the mean streets of New York. He takes the reader on a harrowing, sorrowful, and detailed tour of hell, exposing the seedy and seductive side of quick cash, perverse sex, and numbing booze. His battle with drugs and alcohol brought him to the edge of suicide and madness many times over, but he always managed to make it through the storm of frenzy. Among dozens of dead-end jobs Dan also became a carny, a runner for the mob, a private eye, the owner of a booming limo company, manager of a musician, and eventually, with the help of his father’s own typewriter, a novelist.
In a fascinating and poignant fashion FANTE offers up touching lessons in passion, pain, forgiveness, acceptance, survival, and redemption. It makes for captivating and gut-wrenching reading, the kind of savagely explicit and candid prose we just don’t see enough of anymore.
Just as importantly it should reinvigorate the name of Fante so that readers will immediately seek out John Fante’s wonderful books ASK THE DUST, BROTHERHOOD OF THE GRAPE, and DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL as well as Dan’s powerful novels CHUMP CHANGE, MOOCH, 86'D, and SPITTING OFF TALL BUILDINGS. Go now and read FANTE: A MEMOIR, and then grab everything else you can by these two wild giants of the dark heart and back alleys.
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