tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86420405075862457372024-03-17T02:05:32.496-06:00The Cold SpotThe Writing Underworld of Tom PiccirilliTom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.comBlogger127125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-43599569006435662102012-04-30T00:48:00.002-06:002012-04-30T08:08:03.254-06:002 New Reviews: The Twenty-Year Death & The Red Scarf<br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Year-Death-Hard-Core-Crime/dp/0857685813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335763622&sr=8-1">THE TWENTY-YEAR-DEATH</a> by Ariel S. Winters <br />
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A brazen, bold, innovative 3-novels-in-1 saga. Three shorter novels comprise the entire story of American writer Shem Rosencranz and his beautiful French bride Clothilde. Each of the three titles is written in the style of a noted crime writer from the decade in which that portion of the story takes place. <br />
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Spoiler Alert: Due to the nature of the large book, I’ve reviewed each novel separately, including important plot-points that carry on from one title to the next. If you don’t want to know key threads of the story before going in, you might want to skip the synopses and go straight to the last paragraph.<br />
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MALNIVEAU PRISON, taking place in 1931, is written in the style of Georges Simenon. When a convicted thief's body is found in the overflowing gutter of a town near Malniveau Prison, it seems that he may just be one of several escapees. Was he murdered in the prison and then dumped outside, was he killed by other convicts, the police, or someone from the town? It's up to Chief Inspector Pelleter to find out. Clearly he's unwanted at the prison. The warden has coincidentally taken a vacation and Assistant Warden Elogieaux is aggressively unhelpful. The dead thief's daughter Clothilde and her bitter husband, acclaimed writer Shem Rosencranz, may have also played some strange role in how the man died. Also on hand is the vicious Mahossier, an unconscienciable killer of children, who may have had something to do with the two young boys who've gone missing from town. Pelleter must follow clues small and big to derive the truth from this intense and involving mystery.<br />
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1941's THE FALLING STAR is written with all the hip swagger of Raymond Chandler. When private eye Dennis Foster is called in to a film studio to help babysit their new star Chloe Rose (Clothilde's Americanized name) Foster gets the feeling that he's being set-up by the powers that be. Chloe claims that she's being stalked around the studio, on set, and even at home. Her husband Shem is a burned out drunk who now knocks out pornographic literature for a low-level wiseguy and fools around on his wife. Foster decides to actually do some investigating though and asks a lot of pointed questions at people who don't like to give answers. He's pulled from the case, paid off, and told to let things slide. Instead, Foster is just urged to a greater resolve to find out what's going on. He stumbles onto the work of a serial killer, and helps Chloe to seek out professional psychiatric help as she begins to suffer a nervous breakdown from the various pressures inflicted upon her.<br />
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1951's POLICE AT THE FUNERAL is written with all the brutal noir flavor of Jim Thompson. Here, Shem narrates the tale as we learn Chloe is still in the expensive private sanitarium she landed in at the end of book two. Shem's descent has continued over the last ten years and he's now shacked with his part-time prostitute girlfriend. Shem's wealthy first wife has died, and he meets his now grown hateful son, Joe, at the reading of the will. Shem is in dire need of money but his wife leaves him nothing and their son everything. As an extra insult, there's a codicil that states if Joe had died first, Shem would have gotten it all. As you might guess, this doesn't prove to Joe's benefit. During a loud argument that turns physical, Joe is accidentally killed, and as Shem tries to cover up the fact, he winds up getting deeper and deeper involved with more murders and bigger problems. The police are suspicious of him, his girlfriend's other steady customer, a mob boss, has bought up all of Shem's outstanding debts, and he can't run until the terms of the will are settled and he gets his money.<br />
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Writing three books that manage to have their own separate narratives and yet still manage to follow one sub-plot from title to title is an accomplishment. But then to do each book with a different narrative, noted voice, skew the suspense towards that particular kind of writing, and make each one a page-turner is nothing short of astonishing. The three titles are each strong book in their own right, and when added together they form an even greater momentum. The change-up of narratives doesn't throw the reader off, but instead grips him even more tightly. You've never read a book quite like THE TWENTY-YEAR DEATH. You'll be amazed, intrigued, awestruck, and extremely impressed. Another major feather in Hard Case Crime's dirty fedora.<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Red-Scarf-Gil-Brewer/dp/0981557996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335764094&sr=1-1">THE RED SCARF</a> by Gil Brewer. <br />
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It's nice to see that classic hardboiled/noir writer Brewer has had something of a resurgence. In recent years he's been reprinted by Hard Case Crime, Stark House, and now New Pulp Press. <br />
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Roy Nichols is hitching back to St. Pete Florida after failing to get his rich brother to give him a loan so Roy and his wife, Bess, can keep their declining motel running. During a bad thunderstorm he's picked up by a shady pair, Noel and Viv, a tense and argumentative couple. While passing a bottle of whiskey around things go black and Roy awakens to the aftereffects of a car crash. Noel is seemingly dead and Viv is lugging a briefcase full of cash with a red scarf tied around it.. Turns out Noel was a courier for the mob, and now Viv has a chance to run with the money. Roy will get a badly needed cut if he'll hide Viv for a few days. Eventually he agrees and soon finds himself in deep trouble. Noel turns up alive, a mob hitman is hot on the money's trail, Bess knows Roy is lying to her, and suddenly murder and the cops are on hand.<br />
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Gil Brewer was a master of tension. You can feel Roy's desperation even as he walks step by step down the road that will probably lead to his own destruction. But like any great noir hero, there's no way he can stop himself. He's got a date with an evil fate and there's nothing he can do to avoid it. Driven towards his own doom, Roy stumbles and fights and struggles against the forces surrounding him, even as he refuses to let go of the money and meets his destiny head-on.<br />
<br />Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-16684477614645671442012-04-24T17:36:00.003-06:002012-04-24T17:36:53.953-06:00More Kind Words for THE LAST KIND WORDSAbout 6 weeks to go before the official release date of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Kind-Words-Novel/dp/0553592483%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAJBDF5XQBATGDX4VQ%26tag%3Dspea06-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0553592483">THE LAST KIND WORDS</a> (June 12). Now's the time when reviews start hitting, all in the hopes of building buzz and getting early pre-orders from fans and interested parties. <br />
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"At the start of this sharp slice of contemporary noir from Thriller Award–winner Piccirilli (You'd Better Watch Out), retired second-story-man Terrier Rand, who's been trying to put his family's work as professional thieves behind him while ranching out west, has returned east to see his older brother, Collie. Collie is about to be executed for the cold-blooded murder of eight people five years before, though he claims one of those kills wasn't his. When Terrier starts digging through the evidence, he finds inconsistencies that suggest a serial killer may have been using Collie's killing spree to cover up his own. Piccirilli's mastery of the hard-boiled idiom is pitch perfect, particularly in the repartee between his characters, while the picture he paints of the criminal corruption conjoining the innocent and guilty in a small Long Island community is as persuasive as it is seamy. Readers who like a bleak streak in their crime fiction will enjoy this well-wrought novel."–Publishers Weekly<br />
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"...a searing examination of the ties that bind brother to brother. Consigning most of the violence to the past allows Piccirilli...to dial down the gore while imparting a soulful, shivery edge to this tale of an unhappy family that's assuredly unhappy in its own special way."–Kirkus<br />
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"Piccirilli has created a world so real you can smell the mildew. After writing crime and horror for presses well known and obscure, he deserves a breakout novel, and this just might be it."—Booklist (starred review)<br />
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"This is a dark noir that hooks the audience due to the interplay between the extended hard boiled crime family members especially the chats between the two brothers. Action-packed yet with a powerful cast, fans will relish this strong whodunit as Terry fears the truth will not free him, his family or the woman he left behind when he fled Long island; instead he considers leaving it buried."–Mystery Gazette<br />
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"The Last Kind Words is a novel that grabs the reader's attention from the very start and never lets go. All of the characters in this story are fully fleshed out, including characters that do not take center stage until the end of the book. These characters are so well written that it is easy to feel the pain and anguish that they are experiencing. The mystery itself is very intriguing and difficult to figure out, but once it is concluded it makes complete sense. Piccirilli is a master of description and character development. The next book in the Rand series will be highly anticipated."–4&1/2 stars (Top Pick) Romantic TimesTom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-58385138683963804692012-04-12T10:33:00.001-06:002012-04-12T10:35:46.207-06:00Pimp UpdateThe Daves at Crossroad Press have been busily working on updating the CP web page. Looks very hip now and easy to deal with.<br /><br />In case anyone wants to order any of my digital stuff direct from them, here's my new page:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.macabreink.com/cpmain/2012/04/12/tom-piccirilli-in-digital-from-crossroad-press/">http://www.macabreink.com/cpmain/2012/04/12/tom-piccirilli-in-digital-from-crossroad-press/</a><br /><br />Also: T-minus 2 months until the release of my new novel THE LAST KIND WORDS, my first hardcover from Bantam. Kirkus says: "a searing examination of the ties that bind brother to brother...imparting a soulful, shivery edge to this tale of an unhappy family that's assuredly unhappy in its own special way." If you're thinking of getting the book I'd appreciate your ordering it now—today. Pre-orders and early buzz are one of the keys to building up print runs and achieving solid distribution and sales. Pre-order from Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, Powells, your local indie shop, specialty crime stores like Murder By the Book, Poisoned Pen, Mysterious Bookshop, Partners in Crime. Thank you all, folks.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Kind-Words-Novel/dp/0553592483/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0">http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Kind-Words-Novel/dp/0553592483/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0</a>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-17889439821813085122012-03-26T13:50:00.001-06:002012-03-26T13:54:34.813-06:00Now I'm Going to Explain to You that I Love My Plum Tree, Fish, Dogs, and Work as Much or Even More Than You Love Your Kids, and Why You're Going toNow I’m Going to Explain to You that I Love My Plum Tree, Fish, Dogs, and Work as Much or Even More Than You Love Your Kids, and Why You’re Going to Take it the Wrong Way<br /><br />I don’t have kids. I have step-kids, I have dogs, I have fish. I have a plum tree that I planted when we first moved into this house. Our pug Criswell is buried next to it, and we call that small corner of the yard Criswell’s Garden. The step-kids are taking care of themselves. That leaves me to take care of my dogs, my fish, and my tree. They’re my responsibility. They need me. I need them. Yes, I do. I need Criswell’s tree.<br /><br />These are the things that I have to nurture. Maybe they’re not as fulfilling as your newborn, your five-year-old, your college kid, or maybe they are. My dogs are pretty cool. My fish have personality. They hang around the shallow end of the pond soaking up the sun. Criswell used to get in on hot days and just sit there with water up to his shoulders, sleeping, with the fish swimming around him. It was funny as hell.<br /><br />I nurture my words too. I tell my life lessons to my fiction and through my fiction and I raise my fiction the way I’d raise a son or daughter. The way I raise my plum tree. From a seed, in the sun, through rough weather. I put my time and effort there the same way I work my ass off to keep the fish alive. It’s a struggle, sometimes, especially in the dead of winter. I’ve got to climb down into the freezing water, haul up the filter, clean out the muddy netting, reconnect the hoses to the waterfall, clamber back in over slick algae-covered rocks and lining, and try not to break my fucking neck or ass. And we’re talking about a seriously fat ass here too.<br /><br />My fish think about my struggles about as much as my dogs do, about as much as the plum tree does, about as much as my step-kids did when they were fourteen. About as much as I thought of my mother working when I was that age, and even older, much older. I never thanked her for knocking out the mortgage, providing the food, keeping the heat going. I had a lot of rage. I could barely see her sometimes through the red.<br /><br />I’ve been discussing some of that rage with my wife lately. It’s still there, in its way. My mother passed away ten years ago this past March 12th. I was there at her hospital bed and I watched a million dollars of machinery gauging her death moment by moment, inch by inch. It’s a hell of a thing. I watched the blood pressure monitors and heart monitors slowing, slowing, slowing slowly, mind you, so subtly and slowly that it felt like my own pulse was fading throughout the night. Even after she was dead the machinery kept pumping air into her lungs, forcing her corpse to jerk as if she had suddenly taken a deep breath. She used to do that sometimes when she had nightmares. Her whole body would flail. She’d whine in a voice that sounded nothing like her: childish, frightened, hysterical, crazed. She had recurring nightmares where all her dead family and friends would drive up in a bus and park outside the house, beckoning her to get on board.<br /><br />Eventually she did.<br /><br />My recurring nightmare isn’t nearly as interesting. It’s more thematic. Maybe because I’m a writer. Maybe because I’m a fucking nut. I don’t know. Maybe one of your dream interpreters can explain this shit to me. It’s been going on since I was kid.<br /><br />I dream of corridors. I dream of lengthy hallways with many doors. I dream of hotels, apartment buildings, and schools. I don’t know if I’m lost there or not. I’m just aware of all these passages, all these rooms.<br /><br />There’s no rage in the nightmares, and no real fear. Just a vaguely unsettling sense of vividness. I’m startled when I wake up and realize I’m here and not there. That’s when I get scared. You know those movies where the dream world is the real world and the real world doesn’t exist? That’s what happens. I wake up micro-traumatized. It takes a moment for me to drift back into myself and for my memories to return. I’m not in the hall of doors, I’m in bed. I’m not in the school, I’m in the house. The house with the wife and the dogs and the fish and the plum tree planted in Criswell’s Garden.<br /><br />The rage comes, at least partly, from the thing that has become my marrow. It’s the thing I write about constantly in my work, in my essays, in my head from second to second. It’s the thing that is always there, it’s the thing around which all other things revolve. If you’ve read me you know what it is. If you’ve read interviews with me you know what it is. It probably bores you as much as it does me after all this time. You have the birth of your kids as the focus of your life. If anyone asks you what day stands out and you say when little Horatio was born. When little Wilemena was wrapped up and stuck in your arms. That’s what you say. And it’s just as boring as what I say, again and again.<br /><br />When my mother died I forgot how to speak. At her funeral I could barely nod to others when they approached. The words wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t come to my throat or my hand. I couldn’t write. For six weeks I didn’t write, the longest period of time I didn’t write since I was sixteen. The words returned when I wrote a piece about her death.<br /><br />My first spoken word as a baby was probably "mama." No one has ever confirmed this, but it’s a fair bet, no? And my first word after her death was mama, or at least about my ma anyway. It feels like that’s the way it had to be.<br /><br />I talk more to her now than I ever did when she was alive. At her funeral there was an old-fashioned picture of her taken when she was a baby. She died at seventy-one so the oversized photo was that old, with tears and punctures, printed on cardboard like some of those big old pictures were. There was an array of photos placed around her coffin, but that’s the one I wanted.<br /><br />It’s on my wall downstairs, in a corner of the living room beside another old photo, this one of my wife’s grandparents. Rarely does a day goes by that I don’t walk past it and say, "Thanks, ma."<br />It’s too little too late, but if she can hear me I hope she understands that now, at least, I’m grateful, and I want her to know it. I want to remember it myself. I’m not fourteen anymore, I’m not a dog or a fish or a plum tree. I owe a debt and I realize it now.<br /><br />The rage comes from her love. From her need to protect me. I was a moody little fucker. I was hyper-sensitive back then too, same as now. I was seven. The old man had been dying for a while, bit by bit as the lung cancer spread throughout his body. My uncle leant my father a big leather recliner that he sat in wearing his dirty red robe. My old man was in and out of the hospital, not that I realized it, not that anyone told me. I remember him being gone for a few days and then returning. In my excitement I leaped up onto his lap as he sat in the recliner. It hurt him and he grunted in pain, a sound I’ll never forget. I spotted the biopsy scar on his throat for the first time. It was long and scabbed and raw, a sight I’ll never forget. It terrified me. I backed away and my father’s arms came around me telling me it was okay.<br /><br />I had hurt my father because no one had told me anything.<br /><br />They didn’t tell me when he died either. I thought I was off to my aunt’s just to visit with my cousins. They all went to the wake and funeral while I sat watching television with my grandmother. They were all in the know. They were aware. They understood. They dealt with their grief together. They shared. They bonded. They held each other. They helped each other.<br />The rage comes from my aloneness. My singularity. My childish ignorance which never ends. For forty years I’ve been grieving alone.<br /><br />They thought it would be smart, the foolish amateur psychologists, to build me up in a bubble of happiness first. They gave me gifts for no reason. They taught me Monopoly in the basement of my uncle’s house. They let me win. I remember practically shivering with delight. My brother and my cousins circling the board, watching me, waiting. And at my happiest my brother told me my dad was dead.<br /><br />You know what happens to stone or steel after it’s heated and then has ice water thrown on it. It becomes brittle. It shatters.<br /><br />I cried in my mother’s arms for an hour, but it wasn’t just a venting of pain, it was the birth of the seed of rage that goes on and on. That is in all my pages and all my days. It is the event that makes me me. The one I share with you. I try to make you aware, I want you to understand, it’s how we bond, you and I. If you read my work. If you read this. If we sit for coffee, if we have a beer. If I talk to you on the phone, if you visit my FB page. If I tweet in your ear. If you pet my dogs, if you stare at my fish, if the leaves of the plum tree happen to ride the wind to your yard, where your kids are playing. Where they’re riding their trikes, where they’re borrowing your car.<br /><br />You have your children and I have mine. Mine mean as much to me or even more than yours mean to you. This is why. Yours have voices. Mine don’t speak. Like me, for a time, they’ve lost their words. I provide those for them too. My books, my children, don’t slide out of me fully-formed. I have to build them with my hands, piece by piece, word by word, voice by voice. You need your kids to fulfill you because you’re parents. I need mine because I’m not.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-17697158748630950472012-03-13T13:47:00.002-06:002012-03-13T13:50:57.107-06:00Some More Kind Words for THE LAST KIND WORDSThanks to all these generous folks who recently took the time out to read advance copies of TLKW and provide some sweet sound bites.<br /><br />"Tom Piccirilli’s THE LAST KIND WORDS is a story borne of dark legacies—the legacy of family violence and loss. With vivid prose and a palpable urgency, it succeeds utterly as a crime tale. At the same time, it reminds us that the crimes can emanate from both the darkest and lightest of places, the heart of a damaged family rendered with clear-eyed yet fervent beauty."--Megan Abbott, author of THE END OF EVERYTHING and DARE ME<br /><br />"MYSTIC RIVER set the bar on classic literary mystery and THE LAST KIND WORDS is a novel on the same superb playing field. Compassionate, fascinating, and with an adrenaline narrative that is as gripping as it is moving. Pure alchemy."--Ken Bruen, author of THE GUARDS and HEADSTONE<br /><br />"Piccirilli's family of heartbroken thieves bound by love, secrets, and family codes, kept me turning the pages until the very end. It pained me to put this book down at night. Tom Piccirilli is the leader of a new pack of writers combining the best elements of crime, mystery, and literary fiction in a way that would make Chandler proud. I loved this book and can't wait for the sequel."--Sara Gran, author of DOPE and CLAIRE DEWITT AND THE CITY OF THE DEAD.<br /><br />"THE LAST KIND WORDS will bring Tom Piccirilli the attention he's long deserved. It resonates with the same passion, hearbreak, style, and power as the work of Dennis Lehane and Walter Mosley. An amazing novel that is both a page-turner and a stunning look at a criminal family."--Ed Gorman, author of BLINDSIDE and BAD MOON RISINGTom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-27258029010672156462012-03-12T11:01:00.003-06:002012-03-12T11:12:53.276-06:00Book ReviewsYou’ve got to give it up to <a href="http://www.titanbooks.com/">Titan Books</a>, people. Not only did this UK publisher save the Hard Case Crime line, but they’re also bringing out a trio of Mickey Spillane & Max Allan Collins novels as we as reprinting some great pulp, including Sax Rohmer’s Fu-Manchu books. I’m loving these folks.<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fu-Manchu-The-Mystery-Dr/dp/0857686038/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331571954&sr=1-1">THE MYSTERY OF DR. FU-MANCHU </a>and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fu-Manchu-The-Return-Dr/dp/0857686046/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331571954&sr=1-2">THE RETURN OF DR. FU-MANCHU </a>are the first two collections of Sax Rohmer tales featuring Burmese police commissioner Nayland Smith, his good friend Dr. Petrie (the narrator), and the insidious megalomania Dr. Fu-Manchu. Using a variety of exotic, and often poisonous insects, animals, and plants, agents of the so-called "devil doctor" murder anyone who might get in the way of his plans to take over the world. The most famous "yellow peril" creation featuring the inscrutable occidental, the stereotype has at least some its origins in the opium wars of the 1840s and Sino-Japanese war of the late nineteenth century. The pulp action/mystery tales of Rohmer are great melodramatic fun, especially when the beautiful slave girl Karamaneh foregoes her master and falls in love with Petrie. If you dig the melodramatic flare of classic pulp fiction (Rohmer never met an exclamation point he didn’t like) and you yearn for larger-than-life villains bent on world domination, then Fu-Manchu is your devil doctor. Novels such as DAUGHTER OF FU-MANCHU, THE WIFE OF FU-MANCHU, and EMPEROR FU-MANCHU to follow soon.<br /> <br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Hammer-Lady-Go-Die/dp/0857684655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331572131&sr=1-1">LADY, GO DIE!</a> is the latest unfinished manuscript begun by Mickey Spillane decades ago and recently finished by his friend and protege Max Allan Collins. This one holds special interest for any Mike Hammer fan as LADY, GO DIE! was originally intended to be the second full-length Hammer novel following the mind-blowingly successful I, THE JURY. The time is shortly after WW II and the events of ITJ. Mike and his ever-trusty, beautiful sidekick Velda are vacationing on Long Island in the beach town of Sidon. There Mike immediately finds himself in the middle of a fracas as a bunch of dirty cops work over a mentally handicapped homeless artist named Poochie. The cops think Poochie knows something about the missing lady who runs the local gambling house.<br /><br />As Mike is wont to do, he quickly dispatches the bad guys and helps Poochie to recover. Soon though he’s on the trail of a murderer who poses his naked female victims in highly staged, dramatic, public venues. Since the murders are spread out across several jurisdictions, the cops haven’t put the killings together, but Mike is on the case. As he deals with mobsters, gamblers, corrupt cops, and an insane murderer, he also finds time to tame a cunning dame from his past who uses sex to bring weak men low.<br /><br />It’s a testament to how well Max Allan Collins knows his mentor’s writing that you won’t be able to see where Spillane’s original manuscript ends and Collins’s begins (or, more likely, which portion was written by which author). This is true of all their collaborations, but Collins now slips into Mike Hammer’s persona Spillane’s style so perfectly, and uses the motifs of the time so adeptly, that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mike-Hammer-Lady-Go-Die/dp/0857684655/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331572131&sr=1-1">LADY, GO DIE!</a> reads like the hardest of the hardboiled, firmly set in the origins of the Hammer universe.<br /><br /><br />In Ed Gorman’s latest Dev Conrad (STRANGLEHOLD, SLEEPING DOGS) mystery <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blindside-Dev-Conrad-Ed-Gorman/dp/072788025X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331572249&sr=1-1">BLINDSIDE</a>, freelance political consultant Dev Conrad decides to help out his old friend Tom Ward. Tom’s son, Jeff, is an arrogant, womanizing, liberal incumbent whose weakening campaign is running into troubled waters. Strategy information is being leaked to Ward’s wealthy right-wing challenger, Rusty Burkhart, and Dev is trying to find out who the traitor among Ward’s staff is. When speech writer Jim Waters is murdered and David Nolan, Ward’s chief of staff disappears, Dev digs even deeper to find that Ward is being blackmailed over a video involving a prostitute.<br /><br />When liberal incumbent Jeff Ward’s father Tom persuades Dev to spend some time with his son’s flailing campaign, Jeff’s speech writer Jim Waters hasn’t yet been shot to death. And Tom can’t even identify the other problems. But it’s clear that trouble is afoot. Someone close to Ward is evidently leaking sensitive information to Rusty Burkhart, his millionaire right-wing challenger. David Nolan, the candidate’s lifelong friend and chief of staff, disappears almost the moment Dev first pokes his nose into the campaign tent. And Dev soon learns that Ward is being blackmailed over a steamy videotape starring him and a prostitute.<br /><br />Also on hand is Sylvia Fordham, Burkhart’s conservative consultant who gloats as Ward’s poll numbers sink and Burkhart’s rise. Dev has plenty of suspects for all the troubles and wrongdoings, but only one bit of positive light to part the clouds; Jennifer Conners, a Goth teenager, is the only person surrounding Ward who actually seems to care about the nature of politics, the fall of her hero, and the outcome of the election as a new hope for America.<br /><br />Ed Gorman has given us another inside look at the failing two-party political system. It’s sharply written, acerbic, gripping, and eye-opening look at the ruination of American politics. Gorman’s keen eye for detail adds some nice nuances and extra facets to the novel that puts an emphasis not only on who done it and why, but also on how such shenanigans cost the nation more than they’ll ever completely understand.<br /><br /> <br />The most recent addition to Bill Pronzini’s long-running Nameless Detective series <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hellbox-Nameless-Detective-Bill-Pronzini/dp/0765325659/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331571493&sr=1-1">HELLBOX</a> recalls to mind one of the most memorable earlier titles SHACKLES. In SHACKLES, Nameless spent three months locked away in an isolated cabin. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hellbox-Nameless-Detective-Bill-Pronzini/dp/0765325659/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331571493&sr=1-1">HELLBOX</a>, Nameless, aka "Bill," and his wife Kerry are considering buying a vacation home in the rural community of Six Pines. While dining they happen to see the arrogant, ignorant Pete Balfour, being mocked by those townsfolk tired of his racist, sexist, dull-witted slurs. Balfour’s publicly referred to as the Mayor of Asshole Valley, a derisive nickname laid on him by neighbor Ned Verriker. Ned thinks that Balfour can shrug off a little joking, but he’s wrong. Balfour is more unstable than anyone can guess.<br /><br />When Balfour sets in motion his vengeance against Verriker, Kerry just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Balfour scoops her up and holds her prisoner as at first Nameless searches for his beloved alone, and then calls in his cool, steely associate Jake Runyon to help with the hunt.<br /><br />The narrative alternates between all the primary characters including Balfour’s belligerent perspective and Kerry’s terrified internal monologue. We watch as a driven Nameless is shaken by the irrepressible fear for his lost wife to Jake’s sharp, calm council and relentless drive towards the truth. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hellbox-Nameless-Detective-Bill-Pronzini/dp/0765325659/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331571493&sr=1-1">HELLBOX</a> is another fine entry in a long line of first-rate private eye novels featuring the iconic Nameless Detective from MWA Grandmaster Bill Pronzini. Pick it up asap, and if you haven’t already read all the previous books then buy any and all you can get your hands on.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com41tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-22695850792622226722012-03-01T11:07:00.002-07:002012-03-01T11:28:30.646-07:00Update<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZKEjizLWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-34,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZKEjizLWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-34,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Clown-in-the-Moonlight-ebook/dp/B0078B6VK2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330438669&sr=8-1">CLOWN IN THE MOONLIGHT </a>is free on Kindle today but tomorrow it goes back to its original price of $2.99. In the last 48 hours we’ve had over 6,000 downloads and the book peaked at around #50 on the Kindle Free Bestseller list. I appreciate everyone who showed enough interest to read the piece and I hope you all like it enough to check out more of my work.<br /><br />CLOWN is based in part on the true story of Ricky Kasso, the so-called Acid King, who murdered a friend in the Northport woods back in '84 claiming Satan told him to do it, then proceeded to bring high school classmates to view the mutilated body for days afterward. Occult, hardboiled, and noir matters enter the mix as a nameless drifter teaches Ricky and friends what the true nature of hell is really all about. Extras include the first chapter of my forthcoming Bantam hardcover <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553592483/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk">THE LAST KIND WORDS </a>(due out June 5), the first chapter of my digital-only dark fantasy novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00486U7PA/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk">NIGHTJACK</a>, and the short horror story "Shadder" from my collection <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005DFAQTC/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk">FUTILE EFFORTS</a>.<br /><br />Available today is issue #1 of the new crime e-zine <a href="http://www.thebigclickmag.com/">THE BIG CLICK</a>, featuring fiction by Ken Bruen, an interview I conducted with the fantastic Joe Lansdale, and my non-fic column "Fat Burglar Blues." Free content will be rolling out over the next month, or you can buy an e-copy for just $2.99.<br /><br />And it’s T-minus three months until the release of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553592483/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk">THE LAST KIND WORDS</a>. Currently Random House is putting together the audio edition, and just recently this generous blurb came in.<br /><br />"MYSTIC RIVER set the bar on classic literary mystery and THE LAST KIND WORDS is a novel on the same superb playing field. Compassionate, fascinating, and with an adrenaline narrative that is as gripping as it is moving. Pure alchemy."--Ken Bruen, author of THE GUARDS and HEADSTONE <br /> <br />Also, I’m nearly done with the follow-up novel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK, which you can look for summer of ‘13.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-86389135308997628452012-01-17T09:40:00.003-07:002012-01-17T10:06:48.959-07:00Every Shallow Cut nominated for a Spinetingler AwardJust received word that my noirella <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Shallow-Cut-Tom-Piccirilli/dp/1926851102/ref=sr_1_8?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326818575&sr=1-8">EVERY SHALLOW CUT</a>, published by Chizine Books, has been nominated for a <a href="http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2012/01/16/2012-spinetigler-award-best-novella/">Spinetingler award for best novella</a>. 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.<br /><br />You can visit <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=br_ss_hs/102-3129040-9868944?platform=gurupa&url=index%3Dstripbooks%3Arelevance-above&field-keywords=tom+piccirilli">my Amazon page </a>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.<br />==<br />I also just received proofs of my next novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Kind-Words-Novel/dp/0553592483/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326819061&sr=1-1">THE LAST KIND WORDS</a>, 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.<br /><br />Library Journal ran a nice little preview of TLKW a week ago, along with other titles streeting this summer. Read the brief article <a href="http://ht.ly/8omk4">here</a>.<br />==<br /><a href="http://www.thecrimefactory.com/">Crime Factory </a>#9 packs a hell of a lot of knockout content: pieces by <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1038066742" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1038066742">Scott Phillips</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/kickhimhoney" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1554303627">Benjamin Whitmer</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/daniel.b.oshea" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1447758164">Daniel B. O'Shea</a>, Ray Banks, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pauldbrazill" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=547377830">Paul D Brazill</a>, and a new short story by me. Features by <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000374621864" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100000374621864">Johnny Shaw</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/cjamesashley" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=679074637">Cameron Ashley</a>, <a href="http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=688820056" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=688820056">Jimmy Callaway</a>. Read, enjoy, quiver.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-46347777103088853372012-01-12T05:19:00.002-07:002012-01-12T05:28:06.906-07:002 Recent Reads: Westlake & LansdaleThe Comedy is Finished by Donald Westlake<br /><a href="http://www.hardcasecrime.com/">Hard Case Crime </a><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Edge of Dark Water by Joe Lansdale<br /><a href="http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/">Mulholland Books</a><br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />By the way, look for my interview with Joe in the first online issue of the new ezine <a href="http://www.thebigclick.com/">The Big Click </a>edited by Nick Mamatas, premiering in March.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-53472429064571798902011-11-21T14:25:00.002-07:002011-11-21T14:33:28.664-07:00Check it out: Thomas Perry's POISON FLOWER<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yY1iBu1KL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yY1iBu1KL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Mysterious Press<br />March 2012<br />$24Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-70045581770877674352011-10-16T11:30:00.004-06:002011-10-16T12:23:43.990-06:00Harlequins from Hell<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515gcVE6brL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-34,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515gcVE6brL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-34,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />For those of you paying attention, and even for those of you who haven't been, my next novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Kind-Words-Novel/dp/0553592483/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318788322&sr=1-1">THE LAST KIND WORDS </a>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. <br />===<br />The great writer/editor/reviewer/critic Thomas Roche recently <a href="http://boiledhard.com/2011/10/every-shallow-cut-by-tom-piccirilli/">did a hell of a thoughtful review of my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT</a>. "If you're a washed-up fourth-rate writer with no hope for redemption -- or sometimes worry that you might be -- <a href="http://www.facebook.com/tompiccirilli" hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=642821053">Tom Piccirilli</a>'s Every Shallow Cut is like ripping the scab off the place where Dr. Benway amputated your soul."<br />===<br />Fresh on Kindle are three of my previously out-of-print books. My Stoker Award-winning suspense/horror/whatever novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=tom+piccirilli&x=15&y=21">THE NIGHT CLASS</a>, 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.<br /><br />Also available now are <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pentacle-A-Self-Collection-ebook/dp/B005QBGO3U/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318787938&sr=1-2">PENTACLE</a>, 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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lower-Deep-Self-Novel-ebook/dp/B005Q2MZ4G/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1318787967&sr=1-3">A LOWER DEEP </a>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. <br /><br />Also, for the month of October, my collection <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=tom+piccirilli&x=15&y=21">FUTILE EFFORTS </a>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.<br /><br />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?Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-26072627395275272262011-10-13T22:10:00.001-06:002011-10-13T22:15:29.437-06:00Some Recent ReadsBeen 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:<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br />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.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-63068117485426547702011-09-14T10:30:00.002-06:002011-09-14T10:43:46.799-06:00The Last Kind Words<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6JLwrkv34Q9IVLH2zYldpGZJ7jOB_Bzkf7AX-AKPYDL5WOzoOSLpKa_g8b2mw9k-7rzKbR3L2oSeLN5gDRaSmeElLdgTJFyBqnJ6dUhrp7W7M_Lta7EVWfUo1rdjBPRgWXGFoS3zRwwN0/s1600/Dash+%26+Dad.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652254311679633298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6JLwrkv34Q9IVLH2zYldpGZJ7jOB_Bzkf7AX-AKPYDL5WOzoOSLpKa_g8b2mw9k-7rzKbR3L2oSeLN5gDRaSmeElLdgTJFyBqnJ6dUhrp7W7M_Lta7EVWfUo1rdjBPRgWXGFoS3zRwwN0/s320/Dash+%2526+Dad.JPG" border="0" /></a>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.<br /><br />Although the publication date of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553592483">THE LAST KIND WORDS </a>is still eight months away, you can pre-order it now from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553592483">Amazon</a>. 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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0553592483">THE LAST KIND WORDS </a>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.<br /><br />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?<br /><br />Currently I’m working on the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK.<br /><br />A few blurbs from some of the biz’s most talented and generous people. My undying thanks to them all:<br /><br />"Perfect crime fiction...a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story."--LEE CHILD<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"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<br /><br />"Tom Piccirilli 's narrative voice is one of the most stylized and fearless of the current batch of neo-noir novelists."–Crime Factory<br />==<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-41842362017172100332011-08-14T22:25:00.002-06:002011-08-14T22:35:51.230-06:00FANTE: A Memoir<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xlZDrtF1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xlZDrtF1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a>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.
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<br />In his new memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fante-Familys-Writing-Drinking-Surviving/dp/0062027093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313380348&sr=1-1">FANTE</a>, 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.
<br />
<br />In a fascinating and poignant fashion <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fante-Familys-Writing-Drinking-Surviving/dp/0062027093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313380348&sr=1-1">FANTE</a> 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.
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<br />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 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fante-Familys-Writing-Drinking-Surviving/dp/0062027093/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313380348&sr=1-1">FANTE: A MEMOIR</a>, and then grab everything else you can by these two wild giants of the dark heart and back alleys.
<br />Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-38740149785237972312011-08-06T21:11:00.003-06:002011-08-07T11:28:26.411-06:00Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N42dvVyWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N42dvVyWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" border="0" /></a> When recent Word War II vet Bull Ingram, a sort of private investigator, is hired by a Memphis radio station owner to hunt down vanished employee Early Freeman. Early’s job was to push new records and grease palms at privately-owned small southern radio stations. But somewhere along the way it’s believed that Early crossed paths with Ramblin’ John Hastur, a blues man said to have sold his soul to the devil. Hastur’s brand of music brings out the darkness in people. It’s said to be able to drive folks insane with rage and desire, and to raise the dead.<br /><br />As Bull travels across the backwoods of Arkansas trailing Early and Hastur, Sarah Rheinhart has just left her drunken, abusive husband to return with her daughter to the family plantation. Once there, Sarah reestablishes her relationship with her mother, a bitter woman dying from Lupus, and her best friend, Alice, the family housekeeper. She also finds her curiosity piqued by the family library, full of books on the occult that seem to call to her and infect her dreams. She seeks out Father Andrez, a local priest who was also once in charge of the Vatican’s secret library of occult literature.<br /><br />After Bull faces down the evil personage of Hastur during a riot at a bayou speakeasy, he finds himself being cared for by Sarah. Clearly great forces rather than coincidence are drawing these people together as ancient evils and apathetic gods abound in a savage, grand mystery.<br /><br />Jacobs shows real skill with weaving all these elements together, especially where the Lovecraftian mythos is concerned. I’ve never seen the mythos handled in quite this fashion, as background material to strengthen the main tale, but also with a unique spin. Here, the Old Ones are actually the first gods, the Titans, called the Prodigium, who are mostly indifferent to humanity. But they’ve severed off portions and aspects of themselves into a variety of lesser gods, referred as the "angry teenager gods," many of whom hate their very existence because they’re incapable of returning to their "parents." There’s also the concept of "Godshatter," which describes possession by these demons/deities. It’s funky stuff, and anybody who can pull off any kind of new flair where Lovecraft’s mythos is concerned gets high marks from me.<br /><br />If you dig crime/horror/dark fantasy/southern gothic crossover (and who doesn’t?) written with a confident voice and a haunting, poignant edge, pick up John Hornor Jacobs’s debut novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Gods-John-Hornor-Jacobs/dp/1597802859/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1312686136&sr=1-1">SOUTHERN GODS</a>. I recommend it wholeheartedly and look forward to whatever else Jacobs presents to us next.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-35441306917474841712011-07-26T09:58:00.002-06:002011-07-26T10:12:54.756-06:00Spinetingler Raves...<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419Zzj5dEFL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419Zzj5dEFL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" border="0" /></a>Thought I'd share this <a href="http://www.spinetinglermag.com/2011/07/26/every-shallow-cut-by-tom-piccirilli-review/">extremely generous and thoughtful review </a>of my noirella <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Shallow-Cut-Tom-Piccirilli/dp/1926851102/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311696053&sr=1-3">EVERY SHALLOW CUT </a>written by <a href="http://nikkorpon.com/">Nik Korpon </a>(author of STAY GOD and OLD GHOSTS) over on the illustrious <a href="http://www.spinetinglermag.com/">Spinetingler Magazine</a>.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-14693150418144216402011-07-25T18:46:00.002-06:002011-07-25T19:24:44.649-06:00Bye Bye, Baby by Max Allan Collins<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JtVF2Y_4Ia0/TevXP3IBqXI/AAAAAAAABFA/LE1J7l-b-Nc/s320/51nhyI6yoEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JtVF2Y_4Ia0/TevXP3IBqXI/AAAAAAAABFA/LE1J7l-b-Nc/s320/51nhyI6yoEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>Mark your calendars, kids. Nate Heller, "PI to the stars" and the hero of Max Allan Collins’ historical mystery series, returns on August 16, 2011 with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bye-Baby-Nate-Heller/dp/0765321793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311643343&sr=1-1">BYE BYE, BABY</a>. <br /></div><br /><div>The novel is vivid, rich, evocative, and atmospheric. You feel L.A. here, the classic L.A. era as it was in the early 60s, just before MM’s death and JFK’s assassination ushered the innocent days out and the age of Viet Nam in. <br /></div><br /><div>As Marilyn Monroe goes to war with her studio, fighting off a smear campaign by the powers that be who want to leverage the control of her career, she hires Nate Heller, her friend and occasional lover, to bug her phone. She wants proof of what’s being said by the likes of studio head Darryl Zanuck as she counters reports that she’s been addled by drugs and alcohol. Heller does as he’s asked but soon discovers that Marilyn’s house is already being bugged by a colleague, under orders from Jimmy Hoffa...and perhaps others as well. Turns out that Marilyn’s become a chess piece among powerful political opponents of JFK and Bobby Kennedy, both of whom have been among her lovers. Nate knows big trouble is right around the corner for Marilyn, though he’s unable to truly break through to the still somewhat naive girl who still resides within the heart of the most fabulous sex symbol of all time. <br /></div><br /><div>Soon Marilyn is found dead of an overdose, an apparent suicide. But Nate knows that there’s a lot more that’s gone on behind the scenes, and he launches his own investigation into Marilyn’s death, hoping to make someone pay. Collins has put a mind-boggling amount of research into this work. It reads with an authenticity that is rare among mysteries that deal with historical subject matter as mythic as Monroe, Sinatra, Sam Giancana, Joe DiMaggio, Peter Lawford, Jimmy Hoffa, Bobby Kennedy, and JFK. Their literary versions are almost never humanized, but Collins’ has gone to extremes to give us not only an informative and entertaining account, but also a realistic one, walking a narrow and neutral line so we see our legends in a genuine light.<br /><br />Another thing I appreciated in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bye-Baby-Nate-Heller/dp/0765321793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311643343&sr=1-1">BYE BYE BABY </a>is just how long Marilyn is in the novel. From the synopsis you might think that she’s only in the story for the opening chapter, nothing more than a catalyst for action. But Collins isn’t satisfied with just providing impetuses–he gives us full flesh and blood characterizations. <br /><br />Another excellent entry in the Heller series. In fact, I think it’s my favorite to date. A gripping and fascinating read that takes us from the bright lights of Hollywood and deposits us in the alleyway shadows of shattered dreams. </div>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-50678029085211216522011-07-16T14:35:00.001-06:002011-07-16T14:37:54.303-06:00All My Crushes Are DeadWe live and die by our great and minor loves. Our lifelong obsessions and our constantly changing compulsions. Our new favorite songs, movies, books. Glimpsed faces on the street, hopes in the night. Some of which stay with us for decades, and some of which drop away after a few days or weeks, only to be replaced by others that will drop away in days or weeks. We love. Sometimes forever, sometimes for a little while. We crush.<br /><br />We find ourselves overcome by that profound burning delirium and adoration for whoever...whatever. A carefully stored moment. A scene, a lyric, a verse. Rock stars, movie stars, literary legends. Flavors, colors, dynamics, touches, textures. We lose ourselves in daydreams. We run the clip over and over.<br /><br />You shut your eyes and you’re there again, in your place of safety, exchanging the same dialogue you’ve exchanged before. Maybe only twice, maybe ten thousand times. The voices are clear in your ear. You tell your dead father the things you never got to tell him before. He reacts. You see him smile. He holds that smile like a yellowing photograph framed on your night stand. He’s been holding it for about forty years. He’ll be holding it until the end of time. Until the end of you, the end of me.<br /><br />I need him to hold it. I won’t ever not need him to hold it.<br /><br />And it’s a bright hot summer day with only the barest breeze. It takes us back to another summer. To a street whose name we don’t recall.<br /><br />To talk to a poet who wrote something that lives inside you like another chamber of your heart. The poet is long gone. Perhaps because of love. The kind of love we’re talking about. The kind of love that feels as if it will never dissipate, even though it sometimes does.<br /><br />We dream about dancing with and fucking our imaginary lovers, sitting and drinking top shelf whiskey with our rugged heroes, coming face to face with our long-gone parents or high school sweethearts. Our biblical myths. Our faces for God. Our perfect selves, where we’re younger and trimmer and much more beautiful, and we know the right thing to say all the time, and the right things are said to us, all the time. We live inside songs. We live within frames of film. We live between lines of books.<br /><br />We sometimes die but we die performing brave and lasting actions. Gorgeous, sweet girls shed tears for us. Handsome men make gestures of brotherhood and pride as we sink beneath the water, fall into cracks in the ice, burst into flame, drift away from pulsing chest wounds, die on the cross.<br /><br />I’ve died for my crushes. And they’ve died for me. Right now, as I write this, they’re all dead. I crush on matinee idols no one remembers, I read books no one else owns. I play songs over and over that no one else remembers the words to. Maybe I’ll resurrect them with this sentence, or the one after it, or in my next story. Because they’re trapped in me, protected for now. And new loves are always waiting somewhere on the street, in the park, in the next bookstore aisle, or in that slim volume of poetry on the shelf.<br /><br />Another night’s dream, another wild obsession that brings me this much closer to edge of the big ledge. The thing that dooms and damns and kills me by inches, and yet is somehow also the thing that, at least so far, has always kept me alive.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-30669799854826055022011-07-12T12:13:00.002-06:002011-07-12T13:09:52.003-06:00Getting Off: A Novel of Sex & Violence by Lawrence Block<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510r8JtYc7L._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510r8JtYc7L._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div>Lawrence Block has written it all. Just check out his <a href="http://www.lawrenceblock.com/">website</a> for more than 50 years worth of material in a wide array of genres under a whole helluva lot of pseudonyms. Noted primarily as a crime writer, and voted a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, Block is one of the most beloved and highly awarded mystery authors in the world. Hard Case Crime even started its line off with the first-class Block reprint GRIFTER’S GAME, which remains a favorite title among HCC fans. With another bestseller on the shelves at the moment, the latest in his long-running Matt Scudder series <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drop-Hard-Stuff-Matthew-Scudder/dp/0316127337/ref=pd_sim_b_4">A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF</a>, the author seems busier than ever. Also, for a guy who just celebrated his 73rd birthday, he’s utterly at ease with the inner works of social media. Just check out his <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LawrenceBlockOfficialFanPage">Facebook</a>, Twitter (@LawrenceBlock), <a href="http://www.blogger.com/LawrenceBlock.com@mail.vresp.com">newsletter</a>, and brand new <a href="http://lawrenceblock.wordpress.com/">blog</a>. It’s safe to say that Lawrence Block hasn’t slowed his step up in the least.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Off-Novel-Sex-Violence/dp/0857682873/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310493433&sr=1-1">GETTING OFF </a>is the first new novel Block has written for HCC and its first hardcover release. It revives his "Jill Emerson" pen name from his lesbian porn-writing past, and follows the bloody swath made by Kit Tolliver, the beautiful and psychotic anti-heroine of the novel. Kit has some impulse control issues thanks to the early trauma from advances made by her child molesting father. Now Kit has become a chameleon, whose identity is always changing but whose compulsion remains the same: she needs to have a lot of sex, and she needs to kill the men she sleeps with. <br /></div><br /><div>When the narrative begins Kit is already a wily, self-reliant killer who’s chalked up a lot of victims, but as they say, too much is never enough. Kit soon becomes obsessed with the five men she slept with who, for one reason or another, managed to get away alive. Now she’s on a mission to hunt each of the five down and scratch them off her list. Along the way she revisits an early boyfriend, finds herself the plaything of a murderous couple's sex game, and possibly even discovers true love.<br /></div><br /><div>This is racy, raucous, highly readable, and just plain fun naughty material that is as much a blazing satire of sexual dynamics as it is an over-the-top actioner of a serial killer stalking victims. Various chapters read like self-contained short stories (and according to the copyright page, some sections have appeared as complete tales in a couple of anthologies). You can practically hear Block chuckling as he tackles such scenarios and topics as married businessmen on the prowl in hotel lounges, slipping roofies to unsuspecting dates, sneaking out of bed before your one-night stand awakens, conjugal visits with the dame who set you up, the proper technique to snap somebody’s neck, and of course, how to clean blood off your icepick and whether to dispose of the body or just leave it where it lies. <br /></div><br /><div>So go and make room on your bookshelf now. Block is back, Jill Emerson is back, HCC is back, Scudder too is back, and the sexual revolution is back. And it’s a killer.</div>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-15729561786160919192011-07-08T13:58:00.003-06:002011-07-08T14:10:39.971-06:00Camouflage by Bill Pronzini<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514XiiyAWTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514XiiyAWTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>Every time I finish off a Bill Pronzini novel I proclaim that it’s one of his best. And I do not lie. There’s a reason why he was elected a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master a couple of years back. The man raised the bar on himself and crime fiction decades ago and keeps it as high today as he ever has. Case in point, his latest Nameless Detective novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Camouflage-Nameless-Detective-Mysteries-Pronzini/dp/0765325640/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310154205&sr=1-1">CAMOUFLAGE</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Camouflage-Nameless-Detective-Mysteries-Pronzini/dp/0765325640/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310154205&sr=1-1">CAMOUFLAGE</a> is a spot-on title that perfectly illustrates the theme of the novel’s two side-by-side plotlines. We’re talking about sociopaths who hide their inner evil from the rest of the world beneath a so-called normal exterior.<br /><br />Nameless and his partner Tamara are asked by obnoxious well-to-do David Virden to hunt down the third of his three ex-wives so he can have the marriage annulled, leaving him free and clear to marry wife #4, an heiress who will set him up for life. However, after wife #3 is found Virden claims that Nameless and co. have made a mistake and he’s never met this woman before in his life. Soon after, Virden disappears, leaving Nameless and Tamara to wonder exactly what’s going on. Is it a case of mistaken identity, identity theft, or something much more sinister?<br /><br />Meanwhile, employee Jake Runyon is taking care of a personal matter dealing with Bobby, his new lady interest Bryn’s son, who appears to be the victim of abuse. Covered in bruises and with a recently fractured arm, Bobby refuses to discuss the matter with his mother. Jake steps in to offer the kid some much needed guidance that Bobby isn’t getting from Bryn’s ex-husband, and he slowly earns the boy’s trust. Soon Jake is dealing with a psycho with a past full of cruelty and eventually finds himself knee-deep in murder.<br /><br />The set-ups are relatively simplistic until you realize just how much truth, honesty, and humanity Pronzini has filled the novel with. In an age of thriller material that whips by at bullet train speed, the author purposefully slows the pace of his work in order to concentrate on authentic motivations, reactions, fears, and perplexities. Nameless has never been a brawling, gun-toting superman, and as he’s grown older he’s become even more of a sympathetic understandable everyman kind of character. Therein lies the strength of the series, and our unflagging interest in Bill Pronzini’s discerning, heart-felt literature.</div>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-71909364674458093232011-07-04T16:29:00.002-06:002011-07-04T16:36:26.821-06:00Choke Hold by Christa Faust<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DoOs+ThNL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DoOs%2BThNL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a>In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Choke-Hold-Hard-Case-Crime/dp/0857682857/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309817493&sr=1-1">CHOKE HOLD</a>, the follow-up to Edgar Award-nominated and true noir classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Money-Shot-Hard-Case-Crime/dp/0857683462/ref=pd_cp_b_3">MONEY SHOT</a>, author Christa Faust brings former porn star and black angel of vengeance Angel Dare back for another go-round of sex, danger, brutality, and all-around fun pulp nastiness.<br />After the events of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Money-Shot-Hard-Case-Crime/dp/0857683462/ref=pd_cp_b_3">MONEY SHOT</a>, where spitfire Angel wound up cutting a murderous swath through the Croatian mob and testified against the human trafficking ring, she was placed into Federal Witness Protection, given and new identity, and promised complete safety. But black angels of vengeance rarely live the quiet life, and after nineteen months of normalcy, Angel found herself outside her therapist’s door listening to a familiar Croatian voice, and was forced to go on a run again.<br /><br />Angel finds herself a waitress in an Arizona desert diner, using the outlaw owner to set herself up with a new passport, when in walks "Thick" Vic Ventura, a former lover and fellow star of adult cinema who just so happens to be meeting his eighteen year old son Cody for the very first time. So what’s noir fiction without at least one major coincidence to set the fuse on the whole explosive story? When Vic is blasted in the back by a bunch of punks, Angel promises to help the kid, a Mixed Martial Arts wannabe champion, get to Vegas and an MMA tryout. Along the way they pick up Cody’s trainer, the punchy but good-hearted Hank, and the trio is forced to outrun various killers and high-powered criminals through the desert and along the Mexican border.<br /><br />Faust knows action; how to start it up and keep it going, and make it burn and jump either with gunfire, asskicking, or raucous sex. Her narrative is lean, readable as hell, and full of humor with just the right amount depth when it comes to her growing feelings for Cody. Angel’s attracted to him even while she’s forced to act as his surrogate parent, which is kind of funky and weird and adds a different kind of spin on the dynamics here. Angel’s also interested in brain-damaged Hank, who may be forgetful and loopy but is also a gentleman, the kind not often found in any of Angel’s previous spheres.<br /><br />Fast-paced, witty, and engaging, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Choke-Hold-Hard-Case-Crime/dp/0857682857/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309817493&sr=1-1">CHOKE HOLD </a>is likely to snap your clavicle or fracture your sternum with its high intensity action, violence, and stylish naughty verve. Also, let's all give it up to TITAN BOOKS for helping to keep our beloved <a href="http://hardcasecrime.com/">Hard Case Crime </a>going.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-338631980019768232011-06-29T12:24:00.003-06:002011-07-01T22:19:39.684-06:00The End of Everything by Megan Abbott<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1nDzc5GL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1nDzc5GL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div></div>Lizzie Hood and Evie Verver are two inseparable 13 year-old best friends who share in everything from field hockey to picnics at the lake. Evie’s older beautiful sister Dusty is sophisticated and loved from afar by all the schoolboys, a dynamic but damaged young woman who offers the girls an exciting view of what’s to come in their own near-future. Evie’s father is a handsome, strong, and giving man who has replaced Lizzie’s own distant father.<br /><br />So when Evie goes missing one afternoon after school Lizzie is left feeling not only frightened for her friend but incomplete in herself. As the Verver family stumbles along day by day with a fruitless police investigation, it’s up to Lizzie to pull together fleeting impressions and half-remembered comments made by Evie that might hold the answer to where she’s gone or who may have taken her.<br /><br />Did she have a secret boyfriend? Were there troubles with classmates? Problems at home? As Lizzie’s pubescent crush on Mr. Verver grows, he entertains her with stories of his own adolescence and dazzles her with visions of what she can look forward to where heartache and true love are concerned. As dark intentions and veiled ambitions are slowly revealed, Lizzie is forced to come to a decision on exactly how much she should keep hidden and what she should acknowledge.<br /><br />Author <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Megan%20Abbott">Megan Abbott’s </a>narrative is exquisite, atmospheric, muscular yet subtle, exploring the mythic essence of truth as much as developing the story by parceling out clues and observations on characters and the secret spheres they inhabit. The plot is naturally and intricately built upon Lizzie’s memories, dreams, and sometimes imperfect understanding of the Verver family and the larger world around her. Like in life, small gestures take on greater significance: A hesitation, a glimpse, a half-spoken whisper, a touch on the wrist become powerful earmarks and signs for a pubescent girl.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&field-author=Megan%20Abbott">Abbott</a> puts as much emphasis on the pained human condition as the whos and whys of the tense mystery. The often cruel and confused motives of the human heart underscore a grand and involving maze of conflict, giving the story a broad and gripping canvas. This is mainstream literature by way of noir anguish and page-turning suspense. Dramatic, complex, poignant, and gut-plucking, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/End-Everything-Novel-Megan-Abbott/dp/0316097799/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1309367954&sr=1-1#_">The End of Everything </a>is the kind of realistic yet dark-hearted coming-of-age story that’s likely to reintroduce you to the skeletons in your own bricked-over family closet.Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-51476136139850795942011-06-19T16:31:00.003-06:002011-06-19T17:14:42.338-06:00The Conclusion, LKW Launches, and How Brian Keene Almost Blew Up the WorldLots of updating to do, so here goes.<br /><br />I received word that my next novel due out from Bantam in hardcover THE LAST KIND WORDS officially launched to the sales force a few days back. After a couple of painful delays this means that the novel will now definitely be coming out in spring of '12. That gives me a year to create as much mega-buzz as I can, beginning with my proposed sex scandal. I fully intend to send hundreds of strippers, porn stars, and prostitutes into laughing fits by showing them pictwitpics of my pee-pee. Headlines will be forthcoming.<br /><br />Speaking of headlines, my tribute to my pal Brian Keene, “<a href="http://www.briankeene.com/?p=7342">How Brian Keene Nearly Caused the Nuclear Apocalypse and Yes, Every Word of This is True, Mostly</a>,” taken from this year's World Horror Convention Program Book, has been posted on Brian's site. Don't just read it, my friends, learn from it. For God's sake, learn from it!<br /><br />An all-new original story of mine "<a href="http://www.horrorworld.org/fiction.htm">The Conclusion</a>" has been posted over on Horror World. Check it out for free.<br /><br />The 4th issue of <a href="http://needlemag.com/">NEEDLE</a> magazine has just hit, including work by Ray Banks, Todd Robinson, Patti Abbott, Scott Morse, Don Lafferty, and many others, including my own contribution "Osteoporosis."<br /><br />Not sure when it will hit, but be on the lookout for my lengthy tale "The Void It Often brings With It" in an upcoming issue of ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE.<br /><br />Also keep your eyes open for "Riding the Bus" in Warren Lapine's new anthology FANTASTIC STORIES.<br /><br />Several more terrific reviews have come in for my little slice of noir hell <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Every-Shallow-Cut-Tom-Piccirilli/dp/1926851102/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308524860&sr=1-3">EVERY SHALLOW CUT</a>, including one by <a href="http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Unabashedly-Bookish-The-BN/Writing-From-the-Marrow-Tom-Piccirilli-s-Dark-Little-Noirella-is/ba-p/1077986">Paul Goat Allen over at the B&N Bookclubs</a>, who says, in part: "This was a fascinating – and fast – read. Every Shallow Cut isn’t quite crime fiction or horror, but a story that deftly treads the boundaries between both genres. If I had to categorize it as anything, I’d call it a darkly nuanced thriller since it’s essentially an exploration into what happens when the stresses of modern day life become too much to handle for one man. And there’s a real sense of authenticity and timeliness here – Every Shallow Cut does a brilliant job of reflecting the feelings of economic and existential hopelessness that so many people are experiencing in today’s society. This powerful little noirella will surely delight – and disturb."<br /><br />Also, a Milwaukee Public Library blog that compares <a href="http://blog.mpl.org/mke_reads/2011/06/every_shallow_cut_by_tom_picci.html">Every Shallow Cut to Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead</a>. Finally, I can hold my head high!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.blogger.com/The%20Hipster%20Book%20Club%20-%20Review:%20Every%20Shallow%20Cut%20by%20Tom%20Piccirilli">Jessica Blanchard of The Hipster Book Club </a>had these generous words to say: "While he may not become a tween girl favorite, Tom Piccirilli's ability to relate the maddening but human experiences of unfulfilled hope or fear of failure through an evocative and exhilarating story makes EVERY SHALLOW CUT a standout. The story will resonate long after the short time it takes to read."<br /><br />Since our May $.99 sale for NIGHTJACK was such a hit, we're doing another one in June. Get my <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003ZDP0WC">SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE </a>noirella for under a buck on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords or just about anywhere!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Supernatural-Noir-Ellen-Datlow/dp/1595825460/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1308521602&sr=1-1">SUPERNATURAL NOIR </a>ed. by recent Bram Stoker winner Ellen Datlow is due out next week, including a tale from me. If you don't mind a little horror or fantasy mixed with your crime and noir, check it out. Here's the TOC: <br /><br />"The Dingus" by Gregory Frost <br />"The Getaway" by Paul G. Tremblay <br />"Mortal Bait" by Richard Bowes <br />"Little Shit" by Melanie Tem <br />"Ditch Witch" by Lucius Shepard <br />"The Last Triangle" by Jeffrey Ford <br />"The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" by Laird Barron <br />"The Romance" by Elizabeth Bear <br />"Dead Sister" by Joe R. Lansdale <br />"Comfortable in Her Skin" by Lee Thomas <br />"But For Scars" by Tom Piccirilli <br />"The Blisters on My Heart" by Nate Southard <br />"The Absent Eye" by Brian Evenson <br />"The Maltese Unicorn" by Caitlín R. Kiernan <br />"Dreamer of the Day" by Nick Mamatas <br />"In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos" by John Langan<br /><br />One last thing. For anyone interested, I'm still offering critiques. $50 for a story 4k words long or under, 2-3 pages of comments. $50/hr, minimum 6 hours for a full-length novel manuscript, 8-10 pages of comments, pointing out strengths/weaknesses/trouble areas with characterization, plot, style, narrative voice, momentum, etc. Just drop me a line here or at <a href="mailto:PicSelf1@aol.com">PicSelf1@aol.com</a>.<br /><br />And how's everybody else doing?Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-43117727690059082662011-06-14T12:50:00.002-06:002011-06-14T12:55:25.841-06:00Headstone by Ken Bruen<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hnipLQYlL._SS500_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 500px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 500px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51hnipLQYlL._SS500_.jpg" border="0" /></a>I just finished <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Headstone-Ken-Bruen/dp/0802126006/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308076538&sr=1-1">HEADSTONE</a>, the latest Jack Taylor novel from Ken Bruen, and my friends it's a serious rip-snorter. In this one JT goes up against a group of youths who are devoted to the idea of killing off "misfits," including homosexuals, alcholics, the mentally handicapped, and pretty much anybody they just don't like. And, as you might guess, they really don't like Jack. After he and his two companions--Garda Ridge and the erstwhile ex-con Stewart--all receive miniature headstones in the mail, they know they're on the list of undesirables. Meanwhile, the cold and calculating Father Gabriel hires Jack to chase down another priest who absconded with certain church funds set aside for a satellite group of priests called the Brethren who are apparently up to no good. <br /><div></div><br /><div>Jack trudges through his cases even while he makes plans to meet with his current lady love, an American he had a whirlwind affair with in Paris and who might just be able to lift the darkness from Jack's heart, at least for a while. He's at the whim of his own history, constantly thinking about his sins and his life's small graces. The lessons of his late father spur him on, and friends and enemies from the past seemingly come out of every piece of woodwork.</div><br /><div></div><br /><div>All the JT books are savage reads but <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Headstone-Ken-Bruen/dp/0802126006/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1308076538&sr=1-1">HEADSTONE</a> goes to very wild, deep crevices. Bruen almost gleefully tortures his protagonist, giving him a ray of hope and happiness before quashing it. He falls into the clutches and traps of his enemies time and time again, only to survive with greater scars. It's a tremendously brutal and bleak read, but you're not reading Ken Bruen for butterflies and giggles. You want him to take you to that stinging knife-edge, and he does so with skill, poetry, and honesty, and without reservation.</div>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8642040507586245737.post-12309559607559938002011-05-09T18:41:00.003-06:002011-05-10T17:04:07.042-06:00THE KILLER IS DYING by James Sallis<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OX3cFqVTL._SL500_AA300_.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OX3cFqVTL._SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div>If you don’t already know who James Sallis is, then shame on your ass. Just keep your eyes open for the film version of his brilliant harboiled noir actioner <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drive-James-Sallis/dp/0156030322/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304987088&sr=1-3">DRIVE</a>, coming to theaters everywhere with the mega-cast that the story so richly deserves. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, Christina Hendricks, and...well, I’m stuck on the gorgeous Christina Hendricks and can’t think beyond her, but lots of other cool people are in the flick too. Get your tickets early. But what you should do right now, this minute, people, is run out and pick up the novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Drive-James-Sallis/dp/0156030322/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304987088&sr=1-3">DRIVE</a> and any other Sallis book you can get your hands on, including the very hip Lew Griffin series that takes place in New Orleans.</div><br /><br /><div><br />Also, it’s time for you to pre-order his next novel <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Dying-Novel-James-Sallis/dp/080277945X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304987088&sr=1-1">THE KILLER IS DYING</a>. A taut, cerebral, quirky, and punchy tale of a, well, no spoilers here, a killer who is dying. As the hitter, named Christian, faces the grand mystery, he also reflects on his own life and the various choices he’s made along the way. He’s not a whiner or a coward, not a sadist (unless you cross him in a bad way) or an animal. He’s an insightful, thoughtful, curious person about to take the first and final step beyond the veil, almost with a curious and hopeful air about him.</div><br /><br /><div><br />On his heels is a cop named Sayles, whose dying wife has withdrawn from him to face her own losing battle alone, a situation he can’t fully accept but must acknowledge. He hunts for Christian, called the Dollman thanks to the code words clients use to garner his services, but he’s not one of those brutally obsessed detectives burning with self-righteousness and a crazed need for justice. He too is more circumspect, doing his best to accept the world on its own terms.</div><br /><br /><div><br />The final thread of the narrative belongs to Jimmie, a teenager whose parents have simply abandoned him and their home in order to go their own way. Jimmie, a very enterprising kid, is amazingly adept at accepting adult responsibilities. He works a full-time job via eBay, buying and selling antique and offbeat products, especially toys. He’s an extremely capable lad, in control of his own fate, except for the fact that he’s having bizarre dreams. They turn out to be Christian’s dreams. Somehow he’s apparently attuned to the dying killer, and is drawn into nightmares and memories not his own.</div><br /><br /><div><br />Let me tell you, only James Sallis has the kind of cojones and skill it takes to throw these sorts of disparate elements into a story and make it all work. He’s a craftsman almost completely disinterested with the usual forms and techniques of crime fiction, choosing instead to center on minimalist meditations on life, dying, and death. This is an intricate, complex and poignant examination of three disconnected souls who somehow find consolation in each other despite remaining separate throughout the novel. It’s a wildly courageous gambit, but Sallis is a sharp and proficient artisan who makes it all work. Nab <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Dying-Novel-James-Sallis/dp/080277945X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304987088&sr=1-1">THE KILLER IS DYING </a>asap and see for yourself.</div>Tom Piccirillihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11342750725233851622noreply@blogger.com2