The Cold Spot

Every Shallow Cut nominated for a Spinetingler Award

2012-01-17T09:40:00.003-07:00

Just received word that my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, published by Chizine Books, has been nominated for a Spinetingler award for best novella. I’m honored to be included with writers like Ray Banks, Nik Korpon, Fingers Murphy, Gerard Brennan, Nigel Bird, Chuck Wendig and other talented folks. Voting runs from now until the end of the month. Go have your say.

You can visit my Amazon page to pick up any of my Kindle releases. We've extended our sale on three of my titles. My collection FUTILE EFFORTS and my noirellas YOU'D BETTER WATCH OUT and ALL YOU DESPISE are all just $.99 for the time being. For a couple of bucks more you can pick up NIGHTJACK, FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY, THE FEVER KILL, THRUST, THE NOBODY, THE LAST DEEP BREATH, LOSS, PENTACLE, A LOWER DEEP or any of my Bantam titles including THE COLD SPOT, SHADOW SEASON, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN.
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I also just received proofs of my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS, due out in hardcover from Bantam on June 5. You can check out the synopsis and blurbs on the Amazon page. You can also pre-order, "like" the book, and tag it, if you're so inclined. Thanks to everyone who's already shown such incredible support for the novel. I already have a feeling this is going to be the best selling book of my career. Grazie, all.

Library Journal ran a nice little preview of TLKW a week ago, along with other titles streeting this summer. Read the brief article here.
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Crime Factory #9 packs a hell of a lot of knockout content: pieces by Scott Phillips, Benjamin Whitmer, Daniel B. O'Shea, Ray Banks, Paul D Brazill, and a new short story by me. Features by Johnny Shaw, Cameron Ashley, Jimmy Callaway. Read, enjoy, quiver.

2 Recent Reads: Westlake & Lansdale

2012-01-12T05:19:00.002-07:00

The Comedy is Finished by Donald Westlake
Hard Case Crime

This book breaks my heart for two reasons. One, it’s probably the last Donald Westlake novel we’ll ever see unless they find another last lost manuscript by the master, which I hope for daily. Westlake’s work is a joy whether it’s one of his standalone novels, a laugh-out-loud humorous Dortmunder scheme, or a Richard Stark/Parker tale hardboiled enough to peel the skin from your face.

To add to that overall sadness is the fact that Westlake never got to see the book published in his lifetime despite the fact that this first-rate novel was written some thirty years ago. Westlake thought that the subject matter too closely resembled Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy, which hit the big screen shortly after Westlake completed The Comedy is Finished.

Set in the late 70s, the novel is an edgy suspense thriller about a kidnapping gone wildly wrong (do kidnappings ever go right?). When aging, acclaimed, right-winger comedian Koo Davis is snatched by members of a social revolution that’s grown passe, ideologies clash dangerously with Koo’s life on the line. Ironically imprisoned in a ritzy Hollywood home, Koo constantly cracks wise in order to keep his spirits up in the face of his often enraged, depressed, and possibly insane captors.

The novel is rife with unexpected scenes of great emotional power and poignancy. As the FBI’s chief investigator nicely sums up, the revolutionaries might’ve once been considered heroes, but the movement itself lost its way. The young captors try to hold onto their purity of vision even while they slowly come to realize how foolish their attempts at revolt have become. Foolish, deadly, and probably meaningless as their fight for a lost cause pushes them toward greater and greater extremes. As the story unfolds Koo learns that one member of the People’s Revolutionary Army may have a completely different grievance against him, one that might change Koo’s own outlook on life. You just don’t expect a razor-wire read like this to be so full of feeling.

To my mind, Westlake could have easily changed his protagonist from a comedian to any other entertainment personage and just given the guy an overdeveloped funny bone. The fact that he’s a comedian isn’t as important as that he’s a celebrity with some wit. But for someone like Westlake, who had hit series on his hands, screenwriting gigs, and an Oscar to win (for the screenplay of THE GRIFTERS), I suppose he just didn’t mind laying the manuscript on a closet shelf while keeping busy with so much else on his plate. In any event, THE COMEDY IS FINISHED is a perfect capper to a brilliant career.

Edge of Dark Water by Joe Lansdale
Mulholland Books

We all know Joe Lansdale can do it all. He’s written thrillers, westerns, young adult, and horror novels, as well as fusions containing elements of each. His latest, EDGE OF DARK WATER, is more or less one of these composites that gives a perfect arena to Lansdale’s strengths as a classic storyteller.

When teenaged May Lynn’s body is pulled from the Sabine River tied to an old sewing machine, her friends Sue Ellen, Jinx, and Terry take it upon themselves to give her a proper fond farewell. They decide to burn her remains and carry the ashes to Hollywood, a place where pretty May Lynn always believed she would someday become a movie star. The adventurous trio, along with Sue Ellen’s alcoholic mother, steal a raft and escape from town with some stolen loot, barely ahead of Sue Ellen’s abusive step-father and several other cretinous, criminal characters. As their trip unfolds they run across an odd array of broken and lamentable folks, including a preacher with a horrible guilty secret and an ancient crone with no reason to live except passing on her bitterness. They also learn that Skunk, a legendary beast of a man raised in the river bottoms who’ll commit any atrocity he’s hired to do, may be on their heels.

Despite the novel being set during the Depression, the story has a certain timeless nature. We get the feeling that this tale could almost have taken place at any period between the 1880s and the 1980s. East Texas remains as dark and romanticized as Hannibal, Missouri, full of wonder and possibility, thick with traps and villains.

This is a sharp, incisive, fun tale showing Lansdale’s fortitude at roping the reader into an impressive, alluring narrative. The flaws of our protagonists are what make them so sympathetic and relatable, their journey such an earnest and archetypal one. Even though this is only January, I’m certain EDGE OF DARK WATER will wind up on top ten of ‘12 lists come a year from now.

By the way, look for my interview with Joe in the first online issue of the new ezine The Big Click edited by Nick Mamatas, premiering in March.

Check it out: Thomas Perry's POISON FLOWER

2011-11-21T14:25:00.002-07:00

POISON FLOWER is the seventh novel in Thomas Perry’s highly acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, about a Native American "guide" who helps "runners" to escape from their enemies. In the past Jane has helped women disappear from abusive husbands and helpless witnesses elude drug cartels. In POISON FLOWER Jane plans and executes a daring courtroom breakout for James Shelby, an innocent dupe unjustly convicted of his wife’s murder. Things go perfectly for Shelby, but not so great for Jane herself, who is immediately abducted by a group of men posing as cops, shot in the leg, and tortured for answers on the whereabouts of Shelby.

Drugged and in agony Jane summons all of her willpower to keep quiet in the face of her torment even while she dreams of ancient Seneca warriors and the ghost of Harry Kemple, her one past mistake, a poker player she originally spirited away into a new life and then accidentally betrayed to a clever killer.

Refusing to give up Shelby’s only infuriates her captors, who work for the wealthy man who actually killed Shelby’s wife. Eventually she’s given up to auction–where all of evil adversaries of her previous runners gather together to bid on the chance to personally enslave or kill her.

But as any fan of the series knows, Jane is no weak lily. Instead, she’s quite a poison flower herself, prepared to do battle to the very end.

With a Perry novel you get full-on, relentless suspense and pretty much non-stop action. But smart, intense action. It’s not just a wild flurry of blood and killing, but instead wisely parceled out doses that build naturally upon character and narrative. Even when things get very nasty, the bloodletting only progresses the plot. One of the most fascinating elements of the series is how Jane draws on the lessons and traditions of the Seneca tribe in order to survive her adventurous life and dispatch her foes. POISON FLOWER is classic Perry, a novel that hurtles down desert highways at triple digits and will leave you with blisters on your hands from flipping pages so fast.

Mysterious Press
March 2012
$24

Harlequins from Hell

2011-10-16T11:30:00.004-06:00

For those of you paying attention, and even for those of you who haven't been, my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS hits in hardcover from Bantam in May. Just turned in the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK to my editor a couple of weeks ago. Since then I've been continuing on with a new short novel WHAT MAKES YOU DIE, due out from Apex next year. I'll also have a zombie novella--yes, you heard that right, chillun--entitled PALE PREACHERS out from Creeping Hemlock in a few months.
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The great writer/editor/reviewer/critic Thomas Roche recently did a hell of a thoughtful review of my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT. "If you're a washed-up fourth-rate writer with no hope for redemption -- or sometimes worry that you might be -- Tom Piccirilli's Every Shallow Cut is like ripping the scab off the place where Dr. Benway amputated your soul."
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Fresh on Kindle are three of my previously out-of-print books. My Stoker Award-winning suspense/horror/whatever novel THE NIGHT CLASS, the story of college student Cal Prentiss who returns to his university after the winter break only to learn a girl has been murdered in his room. Along the way he begins to suffer stigmata whenever someone on campus is killed, and his hands are bleeding a lot.

Also available now are PENTACLE, my short story collection following a modern-day warlock known only as the Necromancer and his demonic companion "Self" as they get into various occult adventures and battle a host of folks including the reincarnation of Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, a flooded town full of mutant demon fish-critters, and evil Navajo spirits.

A LOWER DEEP is my "Self" novel, originally published by Leisure Books, that continues the travails of the Necromancer and Self as they face down their former corrupted coven and try to stop them from bringing about Armageddon by resurrecting Christ before God Chooses to do so. The last half of the book takes place in Jerusalem, a city that lends itself to the themes of Biblical history, prophecy, witches, the mystical, and ancient pagan cultures.

Also, for the month of October, my collection FUTILE EFFORTS is selling for just $.99. Serious, for under a buck, you get 16 stories and novellas and something like 50 poems, plus introductions to each piece by likes of Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Simon Clark, Thomas F. Monteleone, Ray Garton, and bunches of other great generous folks.

And even though I'm pushing my e-books here, for the love of god, people, go to a real live bookstore today and buy a real live book. This is the one time when it's fine to be materialistic. I'm really hoping we learn to find a balance between e-technology and physical books. I just don't want to think about a world where there are no bookstores. Do you?

Some Recent Reads

2011-10-13T22:10:00.001-06:00

Been meaning to post about a bunch of recent reads, but I was fighting to beat out a few deadlines. Now that I've finished up a couple of projects, let me tell you all about some first-rate books that have recently hit:

BAD MOON RISING by Ed Gorman. This is Ed's latest Sam McCain novel. Chronologically, about ten years has passed between the first McCain novel THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED and this one, which brings us up to the late 60s and the collision between Black River Falls, Iowa's middle class mores and the influx of the hippie movement. While a local hippie commune outside of town keeps some of the more staunch white bread citizens in an uproar, the larger number of townsfolk don't seem to mind the bohemians much. Not until the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in town is found murdered on commune property and an unstable Vietnam vet becomes the prime suspect. The always sympathetic attorney and PI Sam McCain takes the case that nobody else wants, and soon finds himself butting heads on all sides of the political and social issues exemplified by the curious circumstances.

As is his forte, Gorman knows how to vividly portray his characters as they become swept up into a hurricane of historical importance. Small town America is portrayed honestly, filled with just as much darkness, bitterness, and long-standing secrets as there is apple pie, quaintness, and civic charm. Gorman writes with an emphasis on poignancy and pathos. You feel for these people as they try to navigate their way through turbulent times, trying to protect loved ones, understand complex politics, and stay friendly with nearly unrecognizable neighbors.

THE SIEGE OF TRENCHER'S FARM (STRAW DOGS) by Gordon Williams. Rereleased by Titan Books (www.titanbooks.com) to coincide with the recent movie remake, Gordon Williams's original novel that inspired both versions of STRAW DOGS proves exactly why it's the perfect source material for powerhouse filmmaking. American professor George Magruder rents Trencher's Farm in his wife, Louise's, isolated hometown of rural Dando parish, Cornwall. Cornwall is one of those small villages where you're considered an outsider no matter how many decades you might live among the people. If you're not born in Dando, you're not one of them. George doesn't seem to mind much as tries to finish his definitive study on an unknown eighteenth-century diarist. The fact that he and Louise have been drifting farther apart hardly seems to break his focus. Nor does the general rudeness of the local men even as he clumsily tries to befriend them. As Louise grows more and more discontent, George withdraws further into his work and his mannered, bumbling persona.

But when George accidentally runs over a mentally handicapped convicted child killer, Henry Niles, and the vicious locals set out to lynch Niles, George finds it within himself to defend the man and his own home from trespassers. Here, on Trencher's Farm, all the Dando men are outsiders, and George is soon fighting not only for the life of a guilty man, and the safety of himself and his own family, but for some innate sense of blood debt.

Williams has not only written a gripping novel that manages to show all sides to an oddly complicated set-up in the black, white, and gray area of morality, but he does so by stressing realism. The confused reasoning of George, the perplexing nature of his and Louise's relationship, the curious nature of the brutal Dando men, all lends itself to thoughtful and profoundly affecting themes. We're really not sure who to root for, who might be considered sympathetic, who are the innocents, and who is the guilty or mad. It's provocative storytelling at its finest.

NOIR AT THE BAR edited by Jedidiah Ayres & Scott Phillips. A first-rate crime fiction charity anthology designed to help out the beloved St. Louis indie bookstore SUBTERRANEAN BOOKS (http://store.subbooks.com/). Very few anthologies manage to hit on all cylinders, but this is one of those rare ones where there's not a dud to be found. Tales by Sean Doolittle, Laura Benedict, Jonathan Woods, Derek Nikitis, Frank Bill, and Anthony Neil Smith all win over the reader. These are dark, brutal, inventive, sharply-wrought, grabbing stories that will hopefully invite audiences to seek out more work by everyone listed in the table of contents. I'm honestly ashamed that I wasn't already familiar with more of the authors within and that I hadn't read more short fiction by those I was. If I had to choose a couple of faves, I think I'd go with Dennis Tafoya's "Doe Run Road," a cleaved to the bone narrative about a gut-shot loser trying to make it home just so he can face his hated mother once again; and Pinckney Benedict's "Pig Helmet and the Wall of Life," about a powerhouse burnt-out cop who should've been born in the savage dark ages, who manages to discover an odd form of grace while watching a carny motorcycle act where the riders whip around the inside of a wooden cylinder. Both tales offer even-handed subtleties even while they offer up hard left hooks to your heart. Go, order now.

CHICAGO LIGHTNING by Max Allan Collins. The short stories featuring Collins's classic private eye Nathan Heller have finally been collected by Thomas & Mercer. This is an excellent companion piece to the recent Heller novel BYE BYE BABY, featuring Heller's involvement with solving the Marilyn Monroe case. The Heller tales offer up terrific historical PI fiction. Heller's career spans practically the entire history of American crime. In the short stories we meet up with the likes of Frank Nitti, Mickey Cohen, Eliot Ness, Thelma Todd, all involved with real cases of the 30s and 40s that Heller always winds up in the middle of.

Collins's does his homework. These pieces read like actual historical documentation, the eras and famous personages taking on a real and authentic sense. The pieces are vivid, have depth, and traverse the arena of mystery fiction from noir to hardboiled to police procedural. Heller also grows as a protagonist, his past shaping him as he goes along from one piece to the next.
I missed a lot of these tales on their first publication so I was thankful to finally get a chance to check out those I hadn't seen before, as well as the revamped "The Perfect Crime," a tale that was originally written for a Philip Marlowe compendium that was rewritten to become an even more entertaining Heller piece. My fave might be "The Blonde Tigress," a smart, fun, playful, twister of a mystery that's put together in such a way that you'll reread it immediately just to see how smoothly it was done.

The Last Kind Words

2011-09-14T10:30:00.002-06:00

That’s our new puppy Dash(iell Hammett). We found him at the pound where the poor little guy had already been through eight miles of hell. He was an abandoned stray, survived Parvo, and just got over a bad bout of pneumonia. Now he’s active, healthy, putting on weight, and a total joy.

Although the publication date of THE LAST KIND WORDS is still eight months away, you can pre-order it now from Amazon. Standard discount is already in place, so you can save yourself over 30% on the cover price. As soon as ordering info is up at B&N and elsewhere, I’ll relate that info here too. No cover art yet, but you can bet a dog will be on it.

Even if you’re not inclined to purchase the book at this time, I’m hoping fans will stop by and "like" the page, add a few Amazon tags, or start a discussion.

THE LAST KIND WORDS is the story of a young thief named Terrier Rand who returns to his criminal family (each member of whom is named after a different breed of dog) on the eve of his brother Collie’s execution. Collie went mad dog for apparently no reason and went on a killing spree murdering eight people. Now, five years later, Collie swears he only killed seven people, and the eighth was the work of someone else. Terry not only has to deal with an ex-best friend, a former flame, some mob guys, and other assorted badasses, but he’s also forced to investigate that night his brother went crazy and find out if Collie is telling the truth. But more than anything, he really wants to know the reason for why his brother went on a spree, in the hopes that Terry himself is never pushed to that kind of edge.

But at its heart this story is a family drama, about Terry’s search for his own identity amidst all the usual conflicted emotions we have for our loved ones and our own personal histories. Is he anyone special if he’s not doing what he does best? Can he really turn his back on the people who accept him for who he is despite his flaws and his past? Can he ever live with the guilt of abandoning his girlfriend? And can he survive his own covetous nature in wanting his best friend’s life, wife, and child, the life he could’ve had himself?

Currently I’m working on the sequel THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK.

A few blurbs from some of the biz’s most talented and generous people. My undying thanks to them all:

"Perfect crime fiction...a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story."--LEE CHILD

"Tom Piccirilli is clearly a writer to embrace now before he becomes huge. In THE LAST KIND WORDS he takes us inside a mutated family of crooks and unleashes a stunning story that ranges far afield at times but never truly leaves home, a place where shadows grow in every corner. It’s superbly told, with prose that doesn’t mess about or flinch from evil and characters who are best known from a distance."–DANIEL WOODRELL

"For the first time since The Godfather, a family of criminals has stolen my heart. A brilliant mix of love and violence, charm and corruption. I loved it."–NANCY PICKARD, author of The Virgin of Small Plains

"You're in for a treat. Tom Piccirilli is one of the most exciting authors around. He writes vivid action that is gripping and smart, with characters you believe and care about. I always pay attention when I see his name."–David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of FIRST BLOOD and THE NAKED EDGE

"You don't choose your family. And the Rand clan, a family of thieves and killers, is bad to the bone. But it's a testimony to Tom Piccirilli's stellar writing that you still care about each and every one of them. THE LAST KIND WORDS is at once a dark and brooding page-turner and a heartfelt tale about the ties that bind. Fans of Lee Child will love this hard-boiled, tough-as-nails novel."–LISA UNGER, New York Times bestselling author of FRAGILE

"A modern noir master, Tom Piccirilli's usual propulsive prose and relentless storytelling are on display in THE LAST KIND WORDS, but it's his sense of relationships and the haunting power of family that lifts his writing beyond others in the genre. A swift-moving and hard-hitting novel, THE LAST KIND WORDS reads as if it's being whispered to you in a dimly lit bar where violent men, tough women, and powerful ghosts flicker in the mirrors."–Michael Koryta, Edgar-nominated author of SO COLD THE RIVER

"There's more life in Piccirilli's THE LAST KIND WORDS (and more heartache, action, and deliverance) than any other novel I've read in the past couple of years. Nobody in crime fiction is doing a better job than Tom Piccirilli right now. Simple as that."–Steve Hamilton, Edgar Award-Winning Author of THE LOCK ARTIST

"Tom Piccirilli 's narrative voice is one of the most stylized and fearless of the current batch of neo-noir novelists."–Crime Factory
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Also coming up: more ebook releases of my out-of-print stuff. My first ever zombie novella entitled PALE PREACHERS will see print from Creeping Hemlock Press. And another short novel along similar lines to Every Shallow Cut called WHAT MAKES YOU DIE, published by Apex.

People: Remember that writers and other artists live and die by word of mouth. Readers, fans, critics, keep reviewing books, films, and other creative product as much as you can. On Amazon, B&N, your blog, on Goodreads, message boards, wherever. We could always use more feedback. Send notes and emails to your heroes. Make sure you review a book, indie film, or some other piece of art today. Talk them up. Promote, publicize, keep the creative impulse alive. We need you, folks.

FANTE: A Memoir

2011-08-14T22:25:00.002-06:00

Dan Fante grew up in the shadow of his father, John, a damaged, raging writer of great literary talent who always believed he’d sold out his genius for the easy Hollywood screenwriting check. Much like his father, Dan grew up a victim of his own chaotic emotions, driven to succeed and doomed to sabotage his accomplishments with drugs, alcohol, violence, and his own intense, unstoppable self-loathing.

In his new memoir FANTE, Dan explores his relationship with his father and examines how familial resentment and envy drove him from his hometown of Los Angeles to the mean streets of New York. He takes the reader on a harrowing, sorrowful, and detailed tour of hell, exposing the seedy and seductive side of quick cash, perverse sex, and numbing booze. His battle with drugs and alcohol brought him to the edge of suicide and madness many times over, but he always managed to make it through the storm of frenzy. Among dozens of dead-end jobs Dan also became a carny, a runner for the mob, a private eye, the owner of a booming limo company, manager of a musician, and eventually, with the help of his father’s own typewriter, a novelist.

In a fascinating and poignant fashion FANTE offers up touching lessons in passion, pain, forgiveness, acceptance, survival, and redemption. It makes for captivating and gut-wrenching reading, the kind of savagely explicit and candid prose we just don’t see enough of anymore.

Just as importantly it should reinvigorate the name of Fante so that readers will immediately seek out John Fante’s wonderful books ASK THE DUST, BROTHERHOOD OF THE GRAPE, and DREAMS FROM BUNKER HILL as well as Dan’s powerful novels CHUMP CHANGE, MOOCH, 86'D, and SPITTING OFF TALL BUILDINGS. Go now and read FANTE: A MEMOIR, and then grab everything else you can by these two wild giants of the dark heart and back alleys.

Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs

2011-08-06T21:11:00.003-06:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 SOUTHERN GODS. I recommend it wholeheartedly and look forward to whatever else Jacobs presents to us next.

Spinetingler Raves...

2011-07-26T09:58:00.002-06:00

Thought I'd share this extremely generous and thoughtful review of my noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT written by Nik Korpon (author of STAY GOD and OLD GHOSTS) over on the illustrious Spinetingler Magazine.

Bye Bye, Baby by Max Allan Collins

2011-07-25T18:46:00.002-06:00

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 BYE BYE, BABY.

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.

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.

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.

Another thing I appreciated in BYE BYE BABY 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.

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.

All My Crushes Are Dead

2011-07-16T14:35:00.001-06:00

We 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.

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.

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.

I need him to hold it. I won’t ever not need him to hold it.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Getting Off: A Novel of Sex & Violence by Lawrence Block

2011-07-12T12:13:00.002-06:00

Lawrence Block has written it all. Just check out his website 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 DROP OF THE HARD STUFF, 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 Facebook, Twitter (@LawrenceBlock), newsletter, and brand new blog. It’s safe to say that Lawrence Block hasn’t slowed his step up in the least.

GETTING OFF 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.

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.

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.

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.

Camouflage by Bill Pronzini

2011-07-08T13:58:00.003-06:00

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 CAMOUFLAGE.

CAMOUFLAGE 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.

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?

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.

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.

Choke Hold by Christa Faust

2011-07-04T16:29:00.002-06:00

In CHOKE HOLD, the follow-up to Edgar Award-nominated and true noir classic MONEY SHOT, 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.
After the events of MONEY SHOT, 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.

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.

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.

Fast-paced, witty, and engaging, CHOKE HOLD 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 Hard Case Crime going.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

2011-06-29T12:24:00.003-06:00

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.

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.

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.

Author Megan Abbott’s 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.

Abbott 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, The End of Everything 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.

The Conclusion, LKW Launches, and How Brian Keene Almost Blew Up the World

2011-06-19T16:31:00.003-06:00

Lots of updating to do, so here goes.

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.

Speaking of headlines, my tribute to my pal Brian Keene, “How Brian Keene Nearly Caused the Nuclear Apocalypse and Yes, Every Word of This is True, Mostly,” 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!

An all-new original story of mine "The Conclusion" has been posted over on Horror World. Check it out for free.

The 4th issue of NEEDLE 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."

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.

Also keep your eyes open for "Riding the Bus" in Warren Lapine's new anthology FANTASTIC STORIES.

Several more terrific reviews have come in for my little slice of noir hell EVERY SHALLOW CUT, including one by Paul Goat Allen over at the B&N Bookclubs, 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."

Also, a Milwaukee Public Library blog that compares Every Shallow Cut to Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead. Finally, I can hold my head high!

Jessica Blanchard of The Hipster Book Club 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."

Since our May $.99 sale for NIGHTJACK was such a hit, we're doing another one in June. Get my SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE noirella for under a buck on Kindle, Nook, Smashwords or just about anywhere!

SUPERNATURAL NOIR 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:

"The Dingus" by Gregory Frost
"The Getaway" by Paul G. Tremblay
"Mortal Bait" by Richard Bowes
"Little Shit" by Melanie Tem
"Ditch Witch" by Lucius Shepard
"The Last Triangle" by Jeffrey Ford
"The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" by Laird Barron
"The Romance" by Elizabeth Bear
"Dead Sister" by Joe R. Lansdale
"Comfortable in Her Skin" by Lee Thomas
"But For Scars" by Tom Piccirilli
"The Blisters on My Heart" by Nate Southard
"The Absent Eye" by Brian Evenson
"The Maltese Unicorn" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
"Dreamer of the Day" by Nick Mamatas
"In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos" by John Langan

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 PicSelf1@aol.com.

And how's everybody else doing?

Headstone by Ken Bruen

2011-06-14T12:50:00.002-06:00

I just finished HEADSTONE, 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.

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.

All the JT books are savage reads but HEADSTONE 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.

THE KILLER IS DYING by James Sallis

2011-05-09T18:41:00.003-06:00

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 DRIVE, 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 DRIVE and any other Sallis book you can get your hands on, including the very hip Lew Griffin series that takes place in New Orleans.

Also, it’s time for you to pre-order his next novel THE KILLER IS DYING. 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.

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.

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.

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 THE KILLER IS DYING asap and see for yourself.

Remaining Strange

2011-04-29T15:30:00.002-06:00

I’ve talked about my father a lot, in this blog and across most of my fiction. Which remains strange because I barely knew him and all that I really discuss is this man’s shadow and myth and the Oedipal trauma under which I continue to labor. He was a handsome slim Sicilian kid who lied about his age to join the Navy during the tail end of WWII. He was a jock and engineer and the foreman of his crew at Gruman. He helped build the Apollo 11 space module. He spent the last year of his life taking me to a ton of horror movies. He left a deep impression on me.

I didn’t know he was sick. I was seven. Most seven year olds are apparently sharper than I was.

I don’t fully understand why I didn’t quite get it, except that my mother, knowing I was a sensitive kid, apparently fought to keep me in the dark. We borrowed a barker lounger from my uncle to give my father some comfort. I recall leaping up onto his lap and hearing him groan loudly. It scared me. I faced him and spotted a long, inflamed biopsy scar across his throat. I remember being shocked into silence while he tried to soothe me, saying, "Don’t be scared, it’s okay, Tommy."

He was dead a short time later. I didn’t know about it. They didn’t tell me until after the funeral. I was shuttled to my aunt’s place where the family took turns looking after me while they sneaked out to attend services and wakes. It probably isn’t so easy to fool most seven year old’s but I was blithely unaware. I was a dumb shit. They took advantage of that fact. They decided it would be easier to break the news to me after first pumping me up full of laughter. My 18 year old brother and my cousins took me down in the basement to teach me how to play Monopoly. They rigged the game so I’d win all the property and money. I was overjoyed and giggling like a hopped up pothead when my brother brought the sledge down. He was a dumb shit himself. He said, "I’m your new father. Dad died."

I tore ass up the stairs and made an Olympiad standing jump into my mother’s arms. She was waiting alone on the couch.

Later on the anger hit. I felt betrayed and empty that I hadn’t been able to mourn with everyone else. I felt abused and hyper-assinine because they’d all been in the know, creeping around me in my ignorance. Somewhere down the line I found my brother’s journal. I wasn’t interested in his anything about it except one day. Nov. 4, the funeral. I read the couple of pages over and over. It had stormed horribly and my brother drew a few gravestones with slashes of rain.

The next day I went to read the journal again and it was gone. I found it torn to pieces in the trashcan. I questioned him about it and he told me I’d violated him by reading his secret thoughts. Like I said, he was a dumbshit kid too. He didn’t pick up on my need to share in the mourning. He wasn’t wise enough to understand the need for a closure I could never entirely have.

So my old man was gone at 46, and the number took on a greater meaning the closer I came to it. Writers live and die by these kinds of symbols. They lend meaning and purpose to the craft and the intent. We’re all painfully self-aware of our own need for drama. And so I give you my upcoming birthday on May 27th. On that day I turn 46. I match the extent of my father’s life, if not his testament. No matter what I accomplish in this life I feel like I can never match him. I know that at least a part of this is wild insecurity on my part. The rest has something to do with living in the looming shadow of the dead.

All of this has added to my incessant struggle and pursuit for identity. Taken as a body of work, I would say that my fiction deals mostly about the search for identity. And nowhere else is this more clear or obvious than in my original-to-digital novel NIGHTJACK. The symbolism is clear. So’s the theater and the drama. So’s the fear.

In an effort to do some damn thing to semi-celebrate my b-day, to note this watershed year, I decided to reduce the price on NIGHTJACK to .99 all across the board. On Amazon, B&N, the Crossroad website, everyplace. Go, enjoy. And find yourself.

Here's the info:

On the day of his release from a mental institution Pace is taken "hostage" by Faust, Pia, and Hayden, three escapees from the hospital who disappeared after the presumed rape and beating of Cassandra Kaltzas, daughter of the Greek munitions tycoon Alexandra Kaltzas. Each suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, experiencing complex delusions and sometimes fantastical identities. Pace tries to piece together what happened when apparently one of their alternate personalities tried to kill Cassandra.

Pace himself is an alternate of William Pacella, a man whose wife died in a restaurant fire set by a local mobster for insurance money. William Pacella "dies" so that Nightjack can be born-a new personality who may or may not be Jack the Ripper.

For unknown reasons, Pace is able to see others' delusions-when alternates take over members of the group, Pace alone is able to interact with each persona. Included among them is Princess Eirrin, a ten thousand year old sorceress and heir to the Atlantean throne; Smoker, a half-breed gunman from 1880s Arizona; Thaddeus, friend and companion to St. Paul; and the ancient Greek architect Daedalus, who soared among the clouds with his home-made wax wings and watched his son perish in the sea.

Now the four find themselves under attack from assassins sent by Kaltzas to punish the person who attacked his daughter. Conflicting stories abound about Cassandra-whether she was raped, if she was perhaps murdered, or if she and Pace somehow crossed paths even before the hospital. In fact, she may not even exist.

As the attacks persist, the group is forced to face their own personal traumas and terrors, and go in search of Kaltzas in Greece. There, on an island where fantasy, myth, and truth are all entangled, Pace and his many alternates must sift through madness and deceit to unlock the mystery. And everyone may wind up dead unless Pace willingly unleashes the most brutal killer of all: Nightjack.

PRAISE FOR TOM PICCIRILLI & NIGHTJACK

"Tom Piccirilli straddles genres with the boldness of the best writers today, blending suspense and crime fiction into tight, brutal masterpieces."-JAMES ROLLINS, New York Times bestselling author of The Judas Strain

"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"

Tom Piccirilli is at the forefront of the new breed of crime writers, welding his sense of history to a modern sensibility, creating a strong new voice."-Max Allan Collins, author of ROAD TO PERDITION

"Tom Piccirilli writes like a crazed banshee. I love his work."-KEN BRUEN

Are you reading Gifune?

2011-04-25T19:50:00.002-06:00

Well you damn well ought to be. It’s no secret (I say so here, here, and here) that I’ve been writing and reading less horror in recent years, but one author who can always make me dive back into black waters is Greg F. Gifune. He’s got a gripping, literate sensibility soaked in atmosphere with a narrative momentum built on seriously muscular prose. He cooks up a flavorful stew full of characters out of myth, serial killers, acts of violence, and the ever fucked-up reality as nightmare, nightmare as reality theme that many attempt but few can pull off with any real style or meaning. Gary Braunbeck can do it. TM Wright can do it. And Greg is another stylistic master of the motif.

Greg was kind enough to send me a package of his latest releases, and in the past five days I’ve finished up both GARDENS OF NIGHT and DREAMS THE RAGMAN.

GARDENS OF NIGHT follows the sordid story of Marcus Banyon, who after suffering an unspeakable trauma vacations with his wife and best friend to a chalet in the deep woods where his apparently newfound capabilities to see and communicate with animals and the very forces of nature lead him to a farmhouse that’s been taken over by the three fates.

DREAMS OF THE RAGMAN focuses on two long-time friends, one now a junkie locked away by a small-minded, sadistic sheriff, who have been haunted by the Ragman, a serial killer who’s been on the prowl for decades, using the trains to enter towns and escape without a trace. The Ragman may or may not be a mythic boogieman, but his very presence has corrupted the lives of the protagonists and torn their friendship apart.

But don't stop there. Keep reading all the books and stories by Greg Gifune that you can get your hands on. I still haven't had enough and will be starting LONG AFTER DARK tonight. Go, now.

Special shoutout to Robert Dunbar of UNINVITED BOOKS for making his new publishing company's debut novel release Greg's own GARDENS OF NIGHT. Is this man wise or what? Hell yeah.

Having Fun with Duane Swierczynski

2011-04-09T14:03:00.002-06:00

Just finished an advance copy of Duane Swierczynski's next novel FUN & GAMES, the first in a trilogy from Mulholland Books. Book 2: HELL & GONE and Book 3: POINT & SHOOT will come out in short order, just four or five months apart. It's a rocket of a read, about Lane Madden, a noted actress who's being hunted by "the Accident People," a shadowy organization connected to the Hollywood establishment that seems to have all-powerful connections. They clean up Hollywood's power elite's messes, and if you happen to be a part of that mess, as Lane is, they clean you up too.

Into this set-up wanders Charlie Hardie, a house-sitter/kinda-ex-cop who winds up running afoul of the Accident People and trying to protect Lane from near-omnipotent foes. He’s threatened, beaten, stabbed, tasered, poisoned, bushwhacked, and shot. But Charlie's already survived a couple of serious syndicate hits, and he's just too stubborn to die.

Duane takes no prisoners here (not that he ever does). It's a speed demon narrative that doesn't slow down for a second, not even while taking vicious and violent hairpin turns. Some of these scenes are bound to tie you in knots. The story bounces and whip-cracks and peels out, but instead of shaking the reader loose it just manages to grab hold of you that much tighter. Make sure you have a day set aside when you start FUN & GAMES because once you turn to page 1 you're strapped in for the full wild ride.

Deep Cuts

2011-04-01T12:29:00.003-06:00

In the newly revamped CHIZINE you'll find new original fiction by me as well as a lengthy (& enlightening & totally hilarious, natch) interview called Deep Cuts. You'll also find fiction and poetry by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Ed Lynskey, Bruce Boston, Marge Simon, Patricia Lee Macomber, Ursula Pflug, and Rain Graves. Also, over on Allan Guthrie's new CRIMINAL-E website, there's another (very brief) interview with me focusing on digital crime novel releases and my original digital novel NIGHTJACK. Some recent anthos my work appears in include PORTENTS, edited by Al Sarrantonio, a gathering of quiet-horror stories in the Charles L. Grant tradition, featuring Gene Wolfe, Joyce Carol Oates, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. Lansdale, Tia V. Travis, Steve Rasnic Tem, Elizabeth Massie, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Brian Keene; and CRUCIFIED DREAMS, edited by Joe Lansdale, an antho of reprints fearing the likes of Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Joe Haldeman, David Morrell, and Norman Partridge. Both are well worth their pricetags and I'm proud to be a part of both finished projects. Still doing critiques, folks. $50 for a 4k words and under short story, 2-3 page long critique. I charge $50 an hour for full-length manuscripts, minimum of 6 hours, max of 20, send the ms. on for an estimate. If interested, just drop me a message here, on Facebook, or at PicSelf1@aol.com. Also wanted to say thanks to everyone for making EVERY SHALLOW CUT one of my fastest moving, well-touted small press works. You guys are the best.

Boycott Dorchester/Leisure

2011-03-24T10:27:00.002-06:00

As a former Leisure author I can attest to these folks' shenanigans. I didn't have quite as many troubles as the current stable of authors seems to be going through in the face of Dorchester's near-bankrupcy and constant scrambling to find purchase in the new world of e-publishing. But I've been keeping to my own personal boycott since I parted company with them under a dark cloud back in 2005.

Now my pal Brian Keene is calling readers to arms. If you've been following his blog for any length of time you know the uphill battle he's been having with these people. Now he lays it all out on the line and asks for your help here.

Pre-order Sara Gran's Latest Now

2011-03-08T16:33:00.003-07:00

So I just finished an advance copy of wildly inventive mystery CLAIRE DEWITT & THE CITY OF THE DEAD, the first in a new series by the ever-impressive Sara Gran. You get a serious bang for your buck here, kids, because this one has got it all. It’s a gut-clencher of a crime novel that tackles the concept of Mystery with a towering capital "M", offering up a unique perspective on exactly what drives someone to look for answers and unveil secrets that nobody really wants known.

Claire DeWitt is the world’s greatest PI, a one-time Nancy Drew teen-queen of deductive reasoning who has since become a follower of the enigmatic French detective Jacques Silette, whose mysterious handbook Detection has led Claire to using the I-Ching, omens, her prophetic dreams, and mind-expanding drugs to help her solve cases along the way. And it’s cost her greatly–she’s lost her friends, family, and even her mind.

Now, still recuperating from a nervous breakdown, Claire is hired to find a respected D.A. who’s gone missing in New Orleans either just before, during, or shortly after Katrina. Is he just one of the storm’s many victims or did something else happen to him?

As powerful as Gran’s descriptive power of a decimated New Orleans is--both the place and the people--Claire’s backstory is just as riveting. We discover that she was mentored by the late, brilliant Constance Darling, a contemporary of Silette, who devoted much of her life to trying to find Silette’s vanished young daughter, and who was murdered in an act of unfathomable violence. Claire, too, lost someone close to her. Her best friend as a teen, who disappeared from a subway station and has never been seen again. These awful mysteries haunt her and drive her forward, consuming her dreams and offering bizarre clues to current cases. The book Detection is her bible, a contradictory text that seems to almost revel in the fact that it pushes Silette’s followers to the edge of sanity. Gran populates the novel with other once-famous, now fallen detectives. Iconic Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe-like figures who were shattered beneath the overwhelming truth that you don’t actually seek out mysteries, your mysteries seek you.

This is a sharp, smart, wry work, the perfect opener to a series that’s bound to draw readers in from all neighboring genres of mystery: fans of horror, fantasy, and noir will all be invigorated by Gran’s offbeat fusion of the mysterious and the mystical. And if you’re anything like me, as soon as you finish CITY OF THE DEAD you'll be clamoring for the next Claire Dewitt adventure.

ESC is Music to Keene's Ears

2011-03-06T12:33:00.002-07:00

My big thanks go out to my little bro, Brian Keene, for his gracious comments about EVERY SHALLOW CUT.

"With an already-impressive body of work behind him, Piccirilli delivers his greatest book yet with Every Shallow Cut. Piccirilli's prose is stripped-down and almost acoustic for this effort. Every word counts... and cuts. If this were music, Every Shallow Cut would sit right alongside Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, Johnny Cash's American Recordings, and Neil Young's Harvest Moon. Highly recommended."--Brian Keene

And don't forget to pick up Brian's latest rip-snorter JACK'S MAGIC BEANS from Deadite Press.

EVERY SHALLOW CUT Starred PW Review

2011-02-28T14:20:00.002-07:00

EVERY SHALLOW CUT received a starred review in Publishers Weekly today. Check 'er out, friends.

"Lovers of gritty noir will devour this stand-alone from Piccirilli (Shadow Season), a pulse-pounding account of a writer's descent into despair and violence. The unnamed narrator's wife has left him; he feels guilty about their decision to have an abortion; and his once-promising literary career, which netted him several awards, has petered out. As the story opens, he's a homeless drifter, alone except for his dog, Churchill. When three punks attack him on a Denver street, something snaps and he fights back, seriously injuring his assailants. He pawns his few remaining possessions from his late parents and uses the cash to buy a gun, before traveling across the country to seek out his brother in New York. On his tortured odyssey, he revisits parts of his past in an effort to tease out some sort of meaning. Piccirilli makes his fall from grace utterly convincing and his emotional rage all too understandable. (Apr.)"

Do You DRIVE ANGRY?

2011-02-27T16:29:00.002-07:00

My pal Patrick Lussier's new film DRIVE ANGRY hit the screens on Friday. This movie is pure action-packed grindhouse gore galore, a total rip-snorting speed demon of a flick. The trailers have done everything but crabwalk backwards to hide the fact that this is a supernatural pure 8-valve horror-grinder. The trailers imply it's another Gone in Sixty Seconds or Fast & the Furious kind of whiz-bang on wheels picture, but don't be fooled. DRIVE ANGRY gives you the cars and the crashes but you also get buckets of blood, hot naked chicks by the barrel, ten million bullet casings and shotgun shells, and a face full of hellfire.

The film follows the adventures of Milton (Nicolas Cage), a badass who recently escaped from the meanest prison of all...Hell! He's returned to earth in order to chase down the Satanic cult that's murdered his daughter and stolen his newborn granddaughter to sacrifice under a full moon in an abandoned Louisiana prison yard. Why? Who the fuck knows or cares? This is a grindhouse picture, baby. You just strap in as best you can, prop your feet up on the dashboard, and try not to take a header through the windshield.

Along the way Milton hooks up with Piper (Amber Heard), a badass chick with a heart of gold, who just happens to have an amazing right cross and doesn't take shit offa nobody. Together they tear up the road in her super-hot (like her) black Charger and kill about a thousand cultists in a variety of heinous ways while trying to stay ahead of the bad guys, the cops, and the Accountant (William Fichtner), a suave representative of Hell sent to retrieve Milton's soul and balance the books.

You'll especially love all the gorgeous muscle cars and the various wicked crashes, the shotgun blasts to the heads, guts, and kneecaps of various crazed villains, Tom (THE MAN) Atkins as a sheriff out to stop Milton at any cost ("Aim for their tires, and when I say tires, I hope you all understand me to mean their heads"), and William Fichtner as the Accountant. He's the ultimate in cool and hilarious to boot.

And for an extra couple bucks you get all of this in 3D. Unlike other flicks which are converted to 3D after the fact, director Lussier films to take full advantage of the digital format so that you not only get razor-sharp shit flying at your eyes all the time but a real depth of focus to the film with the ongoing effect. This movie doesn't just come after you, you fall INTO it.

So all you fans of grindhouse, go now and fly your colors and loudly pronounce your love of badass flicks like this. Rip-roar and do 110 down the highway (but drive safely) to see DRIVE ANGRY.

Every Shallow Cut

2011-02-20T20:06:00.000-07:00

My new noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT is due out from Chizine Pubs on March 15th. You can order a paperback, signed limited hardcover, or ebook here: http://chizine.com/chizinepub/

Some nice advance reviews/blurbs have come in over the past couple of weeks.

"Written in the sparest prose, Every Shallow Cut can easily be read in 90 minutes—and it should be. Doing so makes Piccirilli's matter-of-fact portrait of utter despair more compelling and drives home its austere beauty. Inspired by current economic hardship and possibly by his own worst nightmares, Piccirilli dedicates the book to readers who share such fears. Ninety minutes spent with Every Shallow Cut will sting for years."—Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

"Sometimes we write in blood, sometimes in tears, and in EVERY SHALLOW CUT Tom Piccirilli has done both. It's a book that is profoundly moving and astonishing, his most vulnerable, shining, stunning hour."–Ken Bruen, author of The Guards and London Boulevard.

"It's the rare and gifted writer who can convincingly relate abject despair and be funny without diluting the impact."—Eddie Muller, Founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation.

"Every Shallow Cut is bloody brilliant. So many emotional wallops in so few pages."—Sarah Weinman, Crime fiction columnist for the LA Times

"I love the writing here. It is stripped down to a kind of Charles Willeford-Charles Williams simplicity that is all the more effective for its bluntness and accessability. The dialogue is dead-on....Tom Piccirilli has written many fine books and stories but at this point in his career, for me anyway, I would call Every Shallow Cut his masterpiece."–Ed Gorman, author of The Day the Music Died.

While the World Freezes

2011-02-02T16:06:00.005-07:00

Baby, it's cold outside. We've had a balmy autumn and winter thus far, but last night we hit negative numbers and still haven't come out of them. It would make for good writing time except a new story I just started takes place in summer, and I just can't even remember right now what summer feels like.

So while the world freezes, here's a bit of what's been happening here:

My noirella FRAYED is now available via Amazon Kindle. Thi sis one of my earlier attempts at writing an offbeat crime story at the novella length, with some slight (possible) brushes of dark fantasy.

From the jacket:

“Are you the one who helped him kill the angel?”

Twenty years of repressed anger and memories. A bitter knot of hatred that binds and divides two friends. The dark secret that fuels and devastates them both.

“He killed it. I only helped him to bury it.”

Eddie's doing his best to get by, but every day the good fight just gets harder. And now there's a new burden to shoulder. Gray - his best friend and nemesis in literature, romance, and life - has landed in a bizarre mental hospital, known for its radical treatments, because Gray couldn't bear the weight of an unspeakable trauma. The last time they met, Gray almost killed Eddie, but it seems that all is finally forgiven. Tonight, there's a wild hootenanny up at Gray's house. The nuthouse. And Eddie's invited.

A new interview with me is now up at Spinetingler, focusing on the e-publication of NIGHTJACK.

Another nice review of NIGHTJACK can be found HERE.

The one and only Ed Gorman had some generous comments for my upcoming noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, due out in March from Chizine Publications. Ed states: "I love the writing here. It is stripped down to a kind of Charles Willeford-Charles Williams simplicity that is all the more effective for its bluntness and accessability. The dialogue is dead-on....Tom Piccirilli has written many fine books and stories but at this point in his career, for me anyway, I would call Every Shallow Cut his masterpiece."

Here's the product description of EVERY SHALLOW CUT: "He's nameless, faceless, and has nothing left to lose - and now he has a gun! Alone except for his beloved bulldog, Churchill, a man who's failed at his career, his marriage, and his own simple hopes makes his way across the American landscape and the spectacle of his own bitter past, heading home to his brother when he knows there's no home left for him. Tom Piccirilli brings us a story for our current struggling times, taken directly from a broken heart. It is full of realism, grit, and a depth that gives voice to the fears most of us can barely imagine. The terror of loss, the overwhelming dread of failure, the horror of missed-out, mediocre dreams. And the all-too average explosive rage."

Also: Still doing critiques for those who are interested. $250 for 5-10 single-space critique of a full manuscript or $50 for up to 40 pages of a short story, novella, or opening chapters of a novel, 2-3 page critique. Drop me a line here or at PicSelf1@aol.com.

Cabin Fever

2011-01-18T11:47:00.003-07:00

Suffering through a touch of cabin fever since the weather's been less than peachy with snow and wind storms the past few days. But it looks like it'll be rather balmy today. Man, I can use a stroll around the lake or at least a visit to B&N. Anybody else feel like they're going out of their frickin' heads this winter?

But being locked away inside has at least kept me busy working steadily on THE LAST WHISPER IN THE DARK, the tentatively-titled sequel to THE LAST KIND WORDS, my next novel due out from Bantam...some time this year, hopefully. About 20k words in and pleased with the feel and direction of the book.

==

The first generous comment has come in for EVERY SHALLOW CUT, via Twitter: "ESC is bloody brilliant. So many emotional wallops in so few pages."--Sarah Weinman, Crime fiction columnist for the LA Times. This noirella is due out from Chizine Publications on March 22.

Comin' at ya this February, a new anthology from Joe R. Lansdale and Tachyon Books. Crucified Dreams looks like another great compilation from Hisownself, and I'm proud to be part of it. Also included are: Stephen King, Harlan Ellison®, Joe Haldeman, Norman Partridge, David Morrell, Charlie Huston, Lewis Shiner, Jonathan Lethem & plenty of other talented folks. This one will feature a reprint of my lengthy piece "Loss."

Also, due out in Oct. from St. Martin's, is The Monster's Corner ed. by Christopher Golden. The theme of this anthology is that all the stories are from the monster's point of view. Included here are: Jonathan Maberry, Kevin J. Anderson, Sharyn McCrumb, David Moody, Kelley Armstrong , Dana Stabenow, Chelsea Cain, Heather Graham, Tananarive Due, Michael Marshall Smith, Gary A. Braunbeck, and Simon R. Green. My own offering is entitled "The Cruel Thief of Rosy Infants."

Critiquing

2011-01-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

I've been critiquing the novels of friends and professional colleagues for years, and now I'm going to offer my services to others. $250 for 5-10 single-spaced pages of critique pointing out strengths and weaknesses of narrative voice, characterization, plot, dialogue, and what bestseller Steve Berry calls the "oomph factor." What I won't do: red-pen your ms. where grammar/typos are concerned or help you find an agent or publisher. Depending on what kind of a response I get, the return time could be anything from a couple of hours to a couple of months. If you're interested, drop a line here, on my Facebook, or privately at PicSelf1@aol.com. Keep in mind I've written everything from cozies, noir, occult, horror, dark fantasy, and erotica in my twenty-year career. Don't send me romances. Not because I'm biased against them (I'm not) but I haven't written in the form and so don't feel comfortable offering advice in the genre. Otherwise, have at it.

The Last Deep Breath

2011-01-05T17:09:00.002-07:00

My noirella THE LAST DEEP BREATH, which was originally published by Tasmaniac and went out of print in short order, is now available in digital format from Crossroad Press. Only $2.99. You'll find it up on Amazon Kindle in a day or two.

Thank Christ that 2010 is Fucking Over

2010-12-30T15:12:00.002-07:00

Or almost so. Man, I don't think I know anyone who had a truly good year. Every kindness was tempered with some vicious blow to the kidneys. Everybody was pretty wrecked financially, took a shellacking personally and professionally, and more than a little emotionally. Most of us made it through though, singed around the edges as we might be.

Those of you paying attention know my wife Michelle suffered a heart attack back on April 1st (prompting me to actually tell the 911 operator, "This isn't an April Fool's joke, man, send an ambulance pronto.") After a spookyass ride to the hospital where I followed behind the ambulance and watched as it stopped at all the stop signs, casually drove the speed limit, and waited patiently at red lights, only to see them finally turn on the siren about a half-mile from the hospital, they finally got to the ER and zipped her inside. (Ambulance driver drove around the parking lot twice looking for the ER entrance--seriously). In any case, she came through surgery with flying colors. She handled a few days in ICU and months of physical rehab like a trooper. She's now much healthier than me. And you, for that matter.

At least three of my buddies saw the dissolution of their marriages, and several watched as their careers took a major step backwards for one reason or another. For the first time in something like 11 years I didn't have a novel come out in print, although NIGHTJACK did see its digital and audiobook release.

For more on the beatdown, you can check out my essay "Dead Mower Dreams & the Weeds of Boo Radley."

But some good stuff did occur in 2010, so let me focus on that from now until we usher the nasty bitch right out the door:

A ton of my stuff was released on Kindle through Crossroad Press, including NIGHTJACK, THE FEVER KILL, ALL YOU DESPISE, FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY, SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE, LOSS, and THE NOBODY.

Bookgasm noted FUTILE EFFORTS as Collection of the Year.

The audiobook of THE MIDNIGHT ROAD became available.

THE COLDEST MILE won the International Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original.

And of course, in the end, the best thing I can say about 2010 is that I survivied it, and so did you. We're both still here, my friend, trying to hold onto our faith. It's not always easy. In fact, often its impossible, but somehow we find ourselves still moving forward, trying our damnedest to collect the dream and haul it in close for a bear hug. Here's hoping 2011 is a little easier on us all. In the meantime, thanks for being here and sharing this bizarre thing called life with me.

The Midnight Road Audiobook now available

2010-12-17T14:14:00.002-07:00

The Blackstone Audio release of THE MIDNIGHT ROAD is now available. Seriously dig the reader, Donald Corren, who brings a real life to the story without indulging in theatrics. My thanks to Blackstone and Don!

New Books to Snatch Up Now

2010-12-11T14:34:00.003-07:00

And here's a bunch of terrific new books by some of the best authors out there:

Ed Gorman's latest collection of crime fiction is NOIR 13. According to Publishers Weekly: "Gorman (STRANGLEHOLD) showcases the darker side of his talents in this solid collection, a mix of previously published and original stories. Gorman is comfortable with futuristic settings ("The Baby Store," in which a couple deals with the loss of a child and the prospect of having another) as well as fantasy ("A Little Something to Believe In," in which a changeling seeks the secret to paradise), but he's at his best in a crime story like "Flying Solo," in which two elderly Midwestern men facing a death sentence (cancer) embark on a new career of crime in the service of protecting others. In "The Long Way Back," successful brother Giff visits struggling brother Michael in their Cedar Rapids hometown and bails Michael out when his weakness threatens his family's well-being. In the chilling "Killing Kate," a husband decides on a unique way to punish his wife for her infidelity."

Dave Zeltsmerman's first e-book original for Kindle and Nook is VAMPIRE CRIMES, a high octane kick-ass thrill ride and easily, according to him, his "mos tnoir novel. Think Pulp Fiction with vampires to give you some idea." Fans of any of his 'man out of prison' noir books (Small Crimes, Pariah, Killer) are going to dig this one.

BYE BYE BABY is Allan Guthrie's first foray into detective fiction. The novella is due to be published by Barrington Stoke as part of their 'Most Wanted' series sometime in 2013 but is out now on Kindle in the US, the UK and on a variety of digital formats from Smashwords , and costs a mere 99 cents! The story centers on Frank Collins, an inexperienced detective who comes across a rather unusual kidnapping when a seven-year-old boy disappears after school. Collins has been looking to lead a high-profile case for a while, and sets out determined to prove his worth. But the missing schoolboy is only a trigger for another crime. It gradually becomes clear that someone is intent on exploiting the boy's grief-stricken mother, but what Frank Collins doesn't know is that they have plans for him too. According to the DO SOME DAMAGE blog:
"The approach is so fresh that it makes the whole thing feel like the first time I've read a police story."

Ken Bruen's latest is his most recent offering in the dark as sack cloth Jack Taylor series THE DEVIL. This eighth novel in the series is surprisingly tinged with the supernatural as Jack rushes forth to battle...well, you can guess. There's sly nods to previous Taylor tales and a showdown you have to read to believe.

Greg Gifune's GARDENS OF NIGHT is now available in paperback at Amazon, Horror Mall, Barnes & Noble and pretty much anywhere else you’d want to buy it. GARDENS is published by UNINVITED BOOKS, a new independent publisher owned and operated by author Robert Dunbar (THE PINES, THE SHORE, MARTYRS and MONSTERS). I hope you’ll all check out GARDENS OF NIGHT (which critics are already calling perhaps his best work to date) and support Rob Dunbar's www.uninvitedbooks.com.

Colorado author Patricia Stoltey's second Sylvia & Willie mystery, The Desert Hedge Murders, was released in paperback in September from Harlequin Worldwide. The first book in the series, The Prairie Grass Murders, is now available as an ebook for Kindle.

I called the great T.M. Wright's SALLY PINUP "a sly, subtle, stylish tale of terror that will keep you spellbound." It's a terrific novella out by Nick Cato's Novello Publishers, which usually publish humorous fiction. But Wright's SALLY PINUP, while clever and hep, is also disturbing in the same way that all his finest fiction is.

Gary A. Braunbeck's new non-fiction book TO EACH THEIR DARKNESS is the revised, corrected, and massively expanded version of his classic memoir FEAR IN A HANDFUL OF DUST, with typos and hundreds of other printing mistakes removed, and easily 60% new material. If you're not already a major fan of Braunbeck's then that just means you haven't read him yet. Correct that now, and start with this one, one of his very best.

Colliding Harder & Sparking Higher

2010-12-07T14:39:00.003-07:00

So is there a difference between sentimentality, nostalgia, and just being caught up in vivid memory thanks to the holiday season and some particularly strong subject matter to the latest story? I’m not sure. Maybe I’m just a moody prick. Strike that, I know I’m a moody prick, but things have been colliding harder and sparking higher lately.

I just finished my first real horror piece in several months for a new antho, using as its core concept the Say You Love Satan/Ricky Kasso case from back in the 80s. For those unfamiliar, on Long Island when I was a teenager a story broke about four kids who went off into the woods of a Northport park together ostensibly to do some carousing. There, Ricky Kasso, a burnout, dropout dope peddler, and two of his buddies, beat, stabbed, eye-gouged, and eventually murdered Gary Lauwers. It took hours. Not only was the crime vicious beyond belief, but it became iconic for the times because of all the hysteria surrounding heavy metal "satanic" lyrics and supposed teenage devil worship of the period. Besides digging up graves and claiming to have occult powers, Ricky demanded that Gary Lauwers say he loved Satan before being butchered.
For the next couple of weeks Ricky led other friends up into the woods to show them the body while he solidified his legacy in the annals of local spook legend by saying a black crow gave him a message from the devil to kill Lauwers, and that the trees all bowed down to him as he murdered. If nothing else, it was good copy, and drove Tipper Gore apeshit.

It’s a brutal story with a lot of impact, especially if you were around the same age as the principle individuals at the time, which I was. Thinking about the case, and being homesick for family and friends on Long Island during the holidsays, has made me sentimental despite all the ugliness associated with the circumstances. It's put me in a bizarre mood that's still clinging as I start a new story, a crime piece, which keeps wanting me to traipse over the line into horror regardless of how hard I try to hold it in place.

Rarely have tales clung to me so desperately, although it’s atypical that I use real events as the subject of my stories to begin with. Hopefully I’ll shake free of this residue soon and I can throw myself back into the sequel of THE LAST KIND WORDS, which is really what I ought to be doing.

In the meantime, back to this crime tale, if I can wrestle it into form.

==

Now available for $2.99 download: "In ALL YOU DESPISE, Tom Piccirilli’s characteristically lean prose grimly illustrates the high price of redemption and the violent limits of brotherly love. When a nameless man awakens to find his blood-spattered brother passed out in his trailer it sets off a chain of painful, hard-hitting events that tests family loyalty and shows the savage impact of a father’s dark legacy."

Here’s some generous words on NIGHTJACK by Greg Gifune, author of GARDENS OF NIGHT (definitely read Greg if you haven't already): "Per usual, I love the way you approached the concept. The unique angle at which you come at your subject matter and characters is often what fascinates me most about your work...you made all the right choices, and as a result, pulled it off seamlessly. Really well done."

==

5 anthologies with my work have hit recently.

BY HOOK OR BY CROOK edited by Ed Gorman & Marty Greenberg features my piece "Blood Sacrifices & the Catatonic Kid": DAMN NEAR DEAD 2: LIVE NOIR OR DIE TRYING ed. Bill Crider & the late Dave Thompson includes "Zypho the Tentacled Brainsucker from Outer Space vs. the Mob"; FESTIVE FEAR GLOBAL EDITION ed. Steve Clark features my 20k word noirella "You'd Better Watch Out"; SPECTERS IN COAL DUST edited by Michael Knost includes "Holding the Line"; and THE BEST OF TALEBONES edited by Patrick Swenson has my oldie dark fantasy piece "Caucasus."

Check 'em out, Folks

2010-11-27T12:07:00.004-07:00

Been meaning to drop a line here about some recent reads that I really enjoyed.

Here's two from Chizine:

Tim Lebbon's THE THIEF OF BROKEN TOYS is a haunting, surreal novella-length tale about a grief-stricken father trying to find some way to come to terms with the death of his young son. With his marriage on the outs and little left to live for, he meets a mysterious stranger who somehow manages to retrieve the boy's broken toys and fix them, which returns good memories in the father to help replace his pain and sorrow. Poignant, honest, and with a truly emotionally impacting ending, give this one a whirl.

Also, Paul Tremblay's collection IN THE MEAN TIME. I've been a big fan of Paul's since reading his novels THE LITTLE SLEEP and NO SLEEP TILL WONDERLAND, which follow the dubious investigations of a narcoleptic PI. Now he tears up the scene with short fiction that is striking, original, enigmatic, surreal, and horrific in all the best ways. If you're a fan of the likes of Dennis Etchison, Donald Barthelme, Thomas Ligotti, or Kelly Link, you'll love Paul's work. In any case, scarf up his books, you can't go wrong.

Dave Zeltserman's OUTSOURCED is a speedy, gritty, hardboiled bank robbery tale that bops and weaves along as a group of out-of-work computer programmers decide to get their hands dirty and find they like it a lot. As with Zeltserman's previous novels SMALL CRIMES, PARIAH, and KILLER, his greatest storytelling skill is in the small true, emotional details that every reader will understand. He will definitely keep you flipping pages as fast you can, and once you finish one book you'll be racing on to the next.

Max Allan Collins' iconic hitman QUARRY returns in a series of reprints including all of Quarry's earlier adventures: QUARRY, QUARRY'S LIST, QUARRY'S CUT, QUARRY'S DEAL, and QUARRY'S VOTE. If you were lucky enough to get hooked on the Quarry novels published by Hard Case Crime over the past few years, then here's your chance to go back to the beginning and fall in love with our favorite killer all over again.

For you lovers of old school horror, try Harry Shannon's A HOST OF SHADOWS. His tales are fun, affectionate throwbacks to the kind of horror you dug back in the 80s and 90s: nasty, dark as hell, and action-packed ripsnorters. Monsters a'plenty with some thoughtful psychological threads to balance them out.

Loss & The Nobody

2010-11-24T11:45:00.002-07:00

Two more of my noirellas are now available for digital download from Crossroad Press. LOSS and THE NOBODY. $2.99 each. Hope you'll give them a whirl.

LOSS:

Employing the unique, darkly humorous, and powerful noir voice that is his trademark, Piccirilli demonstrates why he's become a must-read author for admirers of both crime and horror fiction. LOSS concerns a failed writer working as a handyman in an old Manhattan apartment building with a strange history and numerous oddball tenants, not all of whom may be what they seem. The penthouse is owned by a bestselling novelist and his wife, the nameless narrator's longtime unrequited love, who soon goes missing. Is she dead or somehow trapped within the endless corridors of a lair full of twisted memories and half-forgotten ambitions? This is a haunting noir-ghost story fusion that not only spotlights the fear of missing out on one's greatest hopes and romantic dreams, but also features such memorable characters as Mojo the talking monkey and the corpse of the real inventor of aluminum foil.

This book is available in MOBI (Kindle) EPUB (Sony / Nook) PDF (Adobe) and PRC (Mobipocket) formats. Please choose your preference from the drop-down menu below before proceeding to checkout.

Also available on Amazon Kindle.

THE NOBODY:

Cryer once had another name, but he can't remember it.

The man he used to be was stabbed in the head by an assailant. After months of catatonia Cryer awakens in a mental facility to find that his former life is almost completely forgotten. He knows his wife and daughter have been murdered - he saw them die moments before his own assault - but his shattered mind is incapable of retaining their names. Or even his own.

Now Cryer is free again and trying to track down an elusive killer through his own unknown past. But how do you investigate the murders of your loved ones when you can't remember them? When you have no idea who your friends or enemies were? Where you lived and worked? And what secrets you might have once had and failed to keep?

And how is he supposed to deal with the little man who keeps crawling in and out of his skull?Cryer is a nobody now, but that won't stop him from finding a vicious murderer and making him pay.

"Part vigilante procedural part hard-boiled PI yarn and part examination-of-post-loss-survival weepie, THE NOBODY is Tom Piccirilli at his uncompromising best. The dialogue is so crisp it's like Leonard on speed, and the second and third pages are the literary equivalent of being hit in the face with a shovel. A roller-coaster ride? You bet. A page-turner, even? Yep, no question. A palpable atmosphere, larger-than-life characterisation and impeccable plotting? They're all there. Like I said - clichés: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em." --Peter Crowther - PS Publishing

This eBook is available in MOBI (Kindle) EPUB (Sony / Nook) PDF (Adobe) PRC (Mobipocket)

Signed, limited edition hardcover edition of EVERY SHALLOW CUT can now be pre-ordered from Horror Mall.

A nice review of NIGHTJACK right here.

Another fine review of my latest collection FUTILE EFFORTS here.

Some news:

The option for my novel THE COLD SPOT has gone to Norman Twain Productions. The script is being worked on at the moment. Stay tuned for more in the coming months.

Sold a new story to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Look for "The Void It Often Brings With It" in 9 months or so.

Check out a new interview with me over at Chizine.

Received a very hip & complimentary note from actor Elijah Alexander, the reader for the Blackstone Audiobook release of SHADOW SEASON. Look for the finished product sometime early next year. THE MIDNIGHT ROAD and THE COLD SPOT audiobooks should be arriving within the next month or two as well.

Hideous Babies and the Loom of My Muse

2010-11-02T14:36:00.001-06:00

So how does someone come to write a horror-dark-fantasy-crime novel about a group of four people with multiple personality disorder who wind up together in a mental institution where a murder may or may not have occurred, leaving a list of 167 suspects including gods, creatures of myth, historical figures, private eyes, cowboys, and a talking dog? *gasp* And a protagonist who channels the spirit of Jack the Ripper, who can see all the other bizarre personalities and interact with them?

I have no clue. Scream “Cop out!” if you like, but I’m here to tell you the truth, friends, and the truth is that the longer I write, the less I understand the process. It’s like trying to explain how you breathe–the more you think about it, the more you’re likely to hiccup, choke, snort or hyperventilate. I’m always in awe of authors who can pinpoint the reasons, inspiration, and catalysts behind their fiction. My own muse is quite silent on the subject. She gathers up all the threads of my history and weaves and knots them together in a fashion that remains inexplicable to me.

The metaphor holds true. I never know what elements will reflect some small incident from my childhood or some unresolved situation or trauma. I look back on a scene and wonder, Why did I feel the need to discuss that? Jesus Christ, now everyone will know THAT about me. It’s that kind of a personal mechanism. I never know how deep the muse is going to ply. Maybe she’ll pluck some subject that’s currently on my mind. Maybe she’ll drag out my deepest fear. She might send me to the bureau where my high school yearbook resides. I could turn over from a dream and remember a line from Abbott and Costello that sends me to the keypad to knock out a new chapter. If it plays its part in making me, it plays its part in the work. And it all plays its part in making me.

I wrote NIGHTJACK about five years ago, just as I was making my move out of the horror genre and into the crime field. It felt to me that horror was a young man’s game. Writing dark fiction about the fears that lay ahead around the next corner, as opposed to crime, which seemed to be an older guy’s arena. Dark dramatic fiction dealing with the regrets and mistakes coming up behind you. My inherent story themes and current concerns dovetailed perfectly with my mid-life crisis. Since I started my screaming slide over the hill, I’ve become more and more invested in noir fiction. I don’t need speculative dreads anymore, I’ve got a wealth of real ones to keep me busy. The well of my past is deep. Just like yours. Just like anybody’s.

So Nightjack was a swan song of sorts, a strange cross-genre fantasy that starts off in a mental hospital, moves to the mean streets of New York, and eventually winds up on a Greek island where myth and reality, the damned and the doomed, the dead and the divine all meet. I wasn’t sure if this one would ever see print. It didn’t fit in with my crime fiction career at Bantam. And my small press works, even the pieces that can be considered fantastical, leaned heavily toward the noir field. But digital publishing has opened up some new doorways for works that fall outside the usual parameters of one’s career. You don’t have to worry about your ugly babies anymore, you can allow the little hideous bastards out in public and let them lope along with the beautiful kids.

NIGHTJACK

2010-10-19T16:45:00.002-06:00

An original to digital novel from Crossroad Press - first publication in any format. Cover art by the brilliant, one-and-only Caniglia.

On the day of his release from a mental institution Pace is taken “hostage” by Faust, Pia, and Hayden, three escapees from the hospital who disappeared after the presumed rape and beating of Cassandra Kaltzas, daughter of the Greek munitions tycoon Alexandra Kaltzas. Each suffers from Multiple Personality Disorder, experiencing complex delusions and sometimes fantastical identities. Pace tries to piece together what happened when apparently one of their alternate personalities tried to kill Cassandra.

Pace himself is an alternate of William Pacella, a man whose wife died in a restaurant fire set by a local mobster for insurance money. William Pacella “dies” so that Nightjack can be born–a new personality who may or may not be Jack the Ripper.

For unknown reasons, Pace is able to see others’ delusions–when alternates take over members of the group, Pace alone is able to interact with each persona. Included among them is Princess Eirrin, a ten thousand year old sorceress and heir to the Atlantean throne; Smoker, a half-breed gunman from 1880s Arizona; Thaddeus, friend and companion to St. Paul; and the ancient Greek architect Daedalus, who soared among the clouds with his home-made wax wings and watched his son perish in the sea.

Now the four find themselves under attack from assassins sent by Kaltzas to punish the person who attacked his daughter. Conflicting stories abound about Cassandra–whether she was raped, if she was perhaps murdered, or if she and Pace somehow crossed paths even before the hospital. In fact, she may not even exist.

As the attacks persist, the group is forced to face their own personal traumas and terrors, and go in search of Kaltzas in Greece. There, on an island where fantasy, myth, and truth are all entangled, Pace and his many alternates must sift through madness and deceit to unlock the mystery. And everyone may wind up dead unless Pace willingly unleashes the most brutal killer of all: Nightjack.

This book is available in MOBI (Kindle) EPUB (Sony / Nook) PDF (Adobe) and PRC (Mobipocket) formats. Please choose your preference from the drop-down menu below before proceeding to checkout.

Update

2010-10-19T16:13:00.002-06:00

Above is the cover art to my next noirella EVERY SHALLOW CUT, due out from Chizine Publications in mid-March.

Here's the synopsis:

He's nameless, faceless, and has nothing left to lose — and now he has a gun. Alone except for his beloved bulldog, Churchill, a despondent man who's failed at his career, his marriage, and his own simple hopes makes his way across the fierce American landscape and the spectacle of his own bitter past. As he heads home to his distant brother, he witnesses various tragedies and crimes which bring out the killer in him

Tom Piccirilli gives us a suspense story for our current struggling times, taken directly from a broken heart. It is full of realism, grit, and a depth of the dark streets that give voice to the fears most of us can barely imagine. The terror of loss, the overwhelming dread of failure, the desperate push towards crime, the horror of missed-out, mediocre dreams. And the all-too average explosive rage.

Over at Examiner.com, I'm Blu Gilliand's second victim (following the great Norm Partridge) for a new feature called "Interview 5.5.5." That means I'll be answering five questions about five different topics over a period of five days. DAY ONE is Tom Piccirilli on Writing. And DAY TWO is about my early days in Horror.

SPECTERS IN COAL DUST is new antho featuring fiction by Gary Braunbeck, Christopher Golden, Elizabeth Massie, Bev Vincent, Lee Thomas, Steve Rasnic Tem, and yers truly.

I have a new blog up over on DO SOME DAMAGE, wherein I get maudlin over my lost youth and the onrush of Autumn. Come on and check it out.

Book Sale, Baby

2010-09-22T15:11:00.005-06:00

WHILE SUPPLIES LAST
Media Mail shipping free in the US!

Email to PICSELF1@aol.com to confirm availability and Paypal info.

FUTILE EFFORTS - signed, limited edition new collection, nearly 500 pages of fiction & poetry - $30

Futile Efforts features nearly 500 pages of Tom Piccirilli's unique blend of intense and provocative writing. In addition, the four-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award invited a group of guest contributors that reads like a "who's who in horror" to write smart and insightful introductions for every piece in this outstanding collection. These authors include Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Thomas Monteleone, Gerard Houarner, Ray Garton, Brian Keene, Christopher Golden, Simon Clark, Ed Gorman, James A. Moore, and many others.

Leading off with the controversial novella Fuckin’ Lie Down Already and concluding with 45 of the author's most acclaimed poems, Futile Efforts is an incredible collection of horror and suspense. Whether you're experiencing Piccirilli's compelling writing for the first time, or you're a long-time fan and collector, this is a must-have addition to your bookshelf.

"In this disturbing, often grotesque and ultimately mesmerizing collection, Piccirilli reprints 17 stories and 45 poems. Although the star-studded introductions are a nice bonus, Piccirilli's stories are the selling point, and all are standouts. 'An Average Insanity, a Common Agony' is an emotionally devastating tale of a man trying to do the right thing for the sake of an innocent creature. 'Alchemy' tells the story of five emotionally stunted people whose discovery of a dead body lets them visit their own dark places ('They weren't frightened [by the sight of the corpse]. None of us were. It broke up the monotony'). 'With an Ear for My Father's Weeping' manages to be both touching and hysterical. Piccirilli's unique mix of gore, violence and a literate style bordering on the lyrical help make this collection one that horror fans will relish."— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

DEEP IN THAT DARKNESS PEERING - limited edition collection, 500 pages of fiction & poetry, signed by the author, the late great Richard Laymon, Poppy Z. Brite, and artist Chad Savage - $30

"As a short story writer, Piccirilli proves himself a master of the snap shot, of the slice of life--he plunges you headlong into various worlds, makes his points, then ushers you out, leaving you to reflect on what you've experienced. To help pull this off, his stories have to be utterly convincing, which, for the most part, they are. Whether writing about Lovecraftian horrors ("Inside the Works"), supernatural noir ("Familiar Child"), or crafting a story for a shared theme anthology ("Of Persephone, Poe and the Whisperer" or "Broken 'Neath the Weight of Wraiths"), Piccirilli makes you feel as though you're looking over someone's shoulder rather than reading a story--his prose has an accessibility that belies the deeper nature of his work as a whole. As Ed Gorman once said, he's "a great storyteller, one of those people who seizes you by the throat and just doesn't let go." In addition to a number of memorable stand-alone short stories and poems, the book also features ten pieces in Piccirilli's popular "Self" series, which he uses as vehicles to provide a unique take on a variety of myths and legends. Throw in an informative, wide ranging interview with the author conducted by horror great Richard Laymon, and you have a truly memorable collection."--Hank Wagner, Cemetery Dance

THE LAST DEEP BREATH - limited trade paperback edition noirella, signed by author, introduction by director Patrick Lussier - $20

"The Last Deep Breath is an absolute gem of a crime novel, with prose so dead-on and moving, you'll be laughing and gasping, often in the same sentence. Tom Piccirilli is already one of the big guns in crime fiction, and proves here that he may be the heir to Elmore Leonard."--Jason Starr, author of PANIC ATTACK, THE CHILL

THE NOBODY - limited trade paperback edition noirella, signed by author, introduction by Norman Partridge, who did the introduction - $30

"Can't live with 'em but, as I discovered when I read this remarkable novella, you can't live without 'em. Part vigilante procedural, part hard-boiled PI yarn and part examination-of-post-loss-survival weepie,THE NOBODY is Tom Piccirilli at his uncompromising best. The dialogue is so crisp it's like Leonard on speed, and the second and third pages are the literary equivalent of being hit in the face with a shovel. A roller-coaster ride? You bet. A page-turner, even? Yep, no question. A palpable atmosphere, larger-than-life characterization and impeccable plotting? They're all there."--Peter Crowther

Signed paperbacks - $9 each - including THE COLDEST MILE, NOVEMBER MOURNS and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN

SALE ENDS on OCTOBER 1st, 2010

Fuckin' Lie Down Already

2010-09-18T12:42:00.003-06:00

My early noirella FUCKIN' LIE DOWN ALREADY is now available for digital download from either Crossroad Press or through Amazon Kindle.

With an introduction by the brilliant Jack O'Connell, author of Box Nine, Word Made Flesh, and The Resurrectionist. Cover art by the amazing Caniglia.

Description: Clay was an honest New York City cop driven to bring down the mob and make his city a little safer, even when it seemed like nothing he did made any difference. He always played by the rules until a two-bit junkie hit man destroyed his family and left him for dead. But Clay won't let himself lie down until he gets one last thing: revenge.

Praise for Fuckin' Lie Down Already:

Jack Ketchum, author of RED and THE LOST: "This is a small masterpiece. It's said that the devil's in the details and Tom got all the details exactly right. I always said Pic was one to watch. Fuck watching. He’s utterly there. A voice to listen to and learn from."

Ed Gorman, author of THE POKER CLUB, THE AUTUMN DEAD and THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED: "Short, tight, effective crime fiction. My kind of writing."

Bill Pronzini, author of SPOOK and STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY: "Hard, hard, hard noir, very well done."

Al Sarrantonio, author of Moonbane and Orangefield: "A potent mix of GoodFellas and the classic 1950 Edmond O'Brien film D.O.A. A pedal-to-the-metal cops and mobsters roller coaster ride— this story delivers!"

This book is available in MOBI (Kindle) EPUB (Sony / Nook) PDF (Adobe) and PRC (Mobipocket) formats. Please choose your preference from the drop-down menu below before proceeding to checkout.

===

FLDA has a fairly inglorious history. The original publisher, Endeavor Press, lost their first printer thanks to the title, who refused to print up copies of the chapbook despite the bulk of their production being nudie cookbooks. And yes, I'm dead serious here. Nudie cookbooks. Send one of those to your Aunt Tilda for X-Mas.

Shortly after publication Endeavor folded up shop and the title's been a difficult find ever since. It is included in my latest massive short story & poetry collection FUTILE EFFORTS, but if you don't want to spend the cash for a 500 page limited signed hardcover edition, then here's an alternative.

Also: Upon FLDA's initial release I received a dozen or so emails from women who wagged their virtual fingers in my face and refused to read the novella because they suspected it had something to do with rape. I assure you it does not. And I really need to say to you ladies that if "Fuckin' Lie Down Already" instantly makes you think of being ordered to bed against your will, then you are definitely hanging around with the wrong bad boys.

Reaching: Finding a Direction

2010-09-09T12:31:00.002-06:00

So I'm about 5k words into my new novel BLUE AUTUMN. I'm already jumping around, writing piecemeal–a section here, a bit of dialogue there, a paragraph to fit in someplace toward the end. It keeps the work flowing but it scatters me all over the place. I have to consciously dial myself down, try to get into the zone, kill off the distractions.

This one is something of a new direction for me, I suppose, although it's full of themes I've used before. But the atmosphere and attitude are a little different. More honest in some ways, more reflective in others. It's odd to take a different storytelling position after all these years. It's a reach but I'm not sure in what direction. Am I reaching farther? Or higher? Or just out that way instead of out the other way?

What's the damn thing about? Good question, glad you asked. I've been trying to come up with an answer, and I'm still not quite there.

The basic set-up: Eight years ago, 17-year-old Dash was waiting at a train crossing when a car whipped around him trying to beat out the train. It didn't make it. Everyone in the car–including Dash's sister, his girlfriend, and his best friend, died. Torn by the question of just what they were all doing together, and where they were rushing off to, and why his best buddy was stupid enough to cross the tracks, Dash starts coming apart. A Golden Gloves boxer, Dash kills a guy in a bar fight and winds up in prison. Five years later, he's released, returns to his hometown with his cell mate, a former hitman, and begins a search for the truth, if there's even one to find.

So, BLUE AUTUMN is a mystery, except it isn't really. It's a crime novel, except it isn't. It's got action, except where there's the lovey-dovey stuff. It's a treatise on first love, except when it's one on hate. It's about friendship and family, and the warmth they bring us, and the pain. In other words, it's about all the shit that most books in the world are about, except for me it's something of a new recipe for the stew.

It was easier to make something up than try and put truth into perspective. To really look at it, head-on and from the side and from the back, and figure out how I'd been affected, and what it meant to me in the short and long runs.

I've said before that horror was a young man's game, (so far as my own career seemed to be concerned). Horror was about fear skulking up ahead, around the next corner. It lays wait in the shadows, unknown, sometimes unknowable, often fantastical. Because the only thing that might scare a young man is the unknown.

But crime–and by extension dark mainstream fiction, if there is such a thing--is about fear coming up from behind you. You recognize it. You've seen it before. It's about your mistakes, and regrets, and disappointments, and failures. It's places you've been and hated, women you've loved and disregarded, friends you've lost, family members who've left and died. It's the known. It's the well-known, the completely known. It's what you can't get out of your head.

So that's where I'm at, starting a new page, still trying to figure out in which direction I'm moving, with or against the current of my own history. Can you believe I actually just paged through my high school yearbook? Holy fuckall. I feel myself growing more maudlin. I just hope to hell I can keep it out of the novel, or turn it to my best advantage. The reach is on, the reach is in, I'm extended, now to see what it is I pull back in with me.

Kindle

2010-09-02T08:30:00.002-06:00

THE FEVER KILL is now available on Kindle, along with SHORT RIDE TO NOWHERE and all of my Bantam titles.

We've all heard that e-books is the most rapidly growing aspect of publishing. My wife loves her Kindle, and apparently so does everyone else who owns one. Other folks seem to be willing to go to the stake and burn alongside their printed paperbacks before they'll ever go digital. I had to think of a world without physical books in it anymore,w hich seems more and more likely nowadays. Even if publishers are willing to print them and readers are willing to buy them, bookstores are drying up everywhere. B. Dalton's is gone, Waldenbooks is gone, Borders is hanging by a thread, B&N is up for sale. Indies are having a harder and harder time of it. Where would we even go to buy books anymore? What would the outlets be?

Where do you fall on the topic? Are you a Kindle/Nook lover who enjoys saving space on the shelves? Or are you a Luddite who's hating this new technology that's rocking the bibliophile's world?

THE FEVER KILL

2010-08-28T12:43:00.005-06:00

THE FEVER KILL now available as a digital download for $3.99 from Crossroad Press.

Crease is going back to his quaint, quiet hometown of Hangtree. It’s where his father the sheriff met ruin in the face of a scandal involving the death of a kidnapped little girl and her missing ransom. It’s where crease was beaten, jailed, and kicked clear of the town line ten years earlier.

Now Crease is back. He’s been undercover for so long that most days he feels more like a mobster than a cop. He doesn’t mind much: the corrupt life is easier to stomach than a wife who can’t understand him, a son who hates him, and a half-dozen adopted kids he can’t even name anymore. He’s also just gotten his drug-dealing, knife-wielding psycho boss Tucco’s mistress pregnant. A fine time to decide to settle old scorers and resolve a decade-old mystery.

With Tucco hot on his tail, Crease has to find his answers fast. Who kidnapped little mary? Who really killed her? Was his own father guilty? And what happened to the paltry fifteen grand ransom that seems to spell salvation to half the population of Hangtree? The town still has a taste for his blood and secrets it wants to keep. Crease has a single hope; a raw and raging fever driving him toward the truth that might just burn him up along the way.

"A wondrous blazing talent... Intense and astonishing!" --From the introduction by Ken Bruen

"It's the rare crime novel that pulsates with the nightmare intensity of THE FEVER KILL. Piccirilli pulls it off masterfully." --Charles Ardai, editor of the Hard Case Crime series

"THE FEVER KILL is a rattlesnake-mean noir... powerful, hard-hitting, fearsome stuff." --Ed Gorman

This book is available in MOBI (Kindle) E-PUB (Sony / Nook) PRC (Mobipocket) and PDF (Adobe) Formats. Coming soon to Amazon Kindle.

The Last Kind Words

2010-08-22T16:41:00.003-06:00

Preliminary cover art for my next novel. What do you think, gang?

Dead Mower Dreams

2010-08-19T10:43:00.002-06:00

My new column "Dead Mower Dreams and the Weeds of Boo Radley" is now up at the Mulholland Books site: http://ow.ly/2rPIt

It's my take on life during the recession, battling a mid-life crisis (and losing), and trying to navigate through the ever-changing world of publishing and willful illiteracy.

4 Upcoming Anthos

2010-08-14T18:59:00.006-06:00

Pleased to report the full table of contents of Ellen Datlow's upcoming anthology SUPERNATURAL NOIR. Very proud to have my tale appear besides the work of so many uber-talented folks.

SUPERNATURAL NOIR, edited by Ellen Datlow
Introduction Ellen Datlow
The Dingus by Gregory Frost
The Getaway by Paul G. Tremblay
Mortal Bait by Richard Bowes
Little Shit by Melanie Tem
Ditch Witch by Lucius Shepard
The Last Triangle by Jeffrey Ford
The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven by Laird Barron
The Romance by Elizabeth Bear
Dead Sister by Joe R. Lansdale
Comfortable in Her Skin by Lee Thomas
But For Scars by Tom Piccirilli
The Blisters on My Heart by Nate Southard
The Absent Eye by Brian Evenson
The Maltese Unicorn by Caitlín R. Kiernan
Dreamer of the Day by Nick Mamatas
In Paris, In the Mouth of Kronos by John Langan

Look for the antho at some point next year. I'll, of course, report when I have more info.

Also: Bev Vincent had a little more information about the upcoming anthology SPECTERS IN COAL DUST, edited by Michael Knost. I hadn't heard who else was slated for the book, but Bev reports that besides me and him, the lineup will include Gary A. Braunbeck, Christopher Golden, Steve Rasnic Tem, Elizabeth Massie, Lee Thomas, Ronald Kelly, William Meikle, Nate Southard, Joshua Reynolds, Barbara Jo Fleming, Brian J. Hatcher and Michael Bracken. To be published this fall.

And: just received the gorgeous chapbook of Joe Lansdale's DREAD ISLAND, which is being used to promote CLASSICS MUTILATED, a new antho line coming from IDW. My tale "Benediction," about a hitman forced to deal with witches and a succubus in the form of Jayne Mansfield, will appear beside such fellow contributors as Joe Lansdale, John Shirley, Nancy Collins, Mike Resnick, Kristine Rusch, Thomas Tessier, Marc Laidlaw, and Rio Youers.

From the product description: "Monster Lit meets Remix Culture in IDW's all-new, all-original story collection by top talents from horror, science fiction, and dark fantasy scenes. IDW's first foray into genre prose takes the formula of "literary classic/historic figure + supernatural element" and drives a stake through its heart with fourteen brand-new stories, all written specifically for this collection, that transform the so-called Monster Lit movement in ways the mainstream could never imagine. Notable characters include Huck Finn, Capt. Ahab, Billy the Kid, Emily Dickensen, Jim Morrison, Edgar Allan Poe, and Albert Einstein."

Speaking of Joe Lansdale, he'll be editing a reprint anthology of supernatural/horror/crime/noir fiction entitled CRUCIFIED DREAMS. All I know about it so far is that it'll be out from Tachyon in early '11 and feature fiction by the likes of Joe Hisownself, Harlan Ellison, and David Morrell. He's taken a reprint of my novella "Loss," a noir-ghost story fusion that spotlights a talking monkey and the real creator of aluminum foil.

Here's the product description I nabbed from Amazon: "Crossing noir with the supernatural, this luridly visceral anthology attacks polite society and plunges into the unthinkable horrors lurking in its underbelly. Searching for some beauty in a time of increasing poverty and neglect, the desperate are all the more menacing, and in a brief moment, ordinary people turn into something far less human. Offering stylish yet savage tales of private dicks, serial killers, lurking demons, and femme fatales, these surreal and often bloody tales provide glimpses into sinister worlds that mirror our own. Boasting an intriguing assortment of stories from celebrated authors such as Harlan Ellison, David Morrell, and the infamous editor himself, each gritty and sensational undertaking proves that being human is a far cry from being civilized."

==

Also, I just returned the line edits for my next novel THE LAST KIND WORDS to my editor at Bantam. Man, these people have some eagle eyes and caught a ton of small (and not so small) errors on my part. Big-time kudos to the editors and copyeditors who go all out to make the authors look so damn good.

LKW looks like it's slated for an April '11 release in trade paperback.

Short Ride to Nowhere

2010-08-12T12:26:00.002-06:00

Now available for the first time anywhere: A new digital noirella from Crossroads Press.

Product description:

Jenks and Hale aren't friends, partners, or even next door neighbors anymore. Not since they each lost their jobs and had their homes foreclosed. Not since they lost their wives and kids and whatever stability they'd fought for in the world.

Adrift on the streets of New York, Jenks' dark path seems to parallel Hale's step by step. After Hale is found nearly dead beside the corpse of a nine-year-old girl, and soon after commits suicide in a mental hospital, Jenks decides to find out just what the hell happened.

What happened to Hale and the girl, what happened to the wayward American Dream, and what happened to his youth and forfeited hopes.

Because whatever happens to Hale happens to Jenks just a few months later.

This book is available for $4.99 in MOBI (KINDLE) - EPUB (Sony/Nook) - PDF (Adobe) and PRC (Mobipocket) formats. Please choose your preference from the dropdown menu below before proceeding to checkout.

Over the next few weeks I'll be making several of my out-of-print and rarer novels available via Crossroads Press in Kindle, PDF, and other various formats. Some will also be released as audio recordings. As a self-professed Luddite this is all new territory for me. Let me know what you kids think of it.

You'd Better Watch Out

2010-07-29T10:54:00.002-06:00

That's the title of my latest noirella (with incredible kickass artwork by Andrew McKiernan), due to be published in Festive Fear. Info below:

FESTIVE FEAR – GLOBAL EDITION

The fear returns and this time it’s worldwide! Anthology of original dark stories set around the Christmas period. Tales that will encourage you to check and recheck doors and windows are securely locked, that you know exactly what ingredients went into the punch before taking a sip, and evokes a heart murmur every time you hear, "Merry Christmas!"

Gift bearers:

Christopher Conlon - Christmas Night

Steve Cameron - Ghost of the Heart

Paul Kane - Humbuggered

Tim Curran - That Olde Christmas Spirit

B. Michael Radburn - They Own the Night

Ellen Shaw & Wayne C Rogers - Givers & Takers

Scott Tyson - Dear Santa

GNBraun - Santa Akbar!

Matthew R. Davis - Debutante

Adrian Chamberlin - Winter Sun

Daniel I Russell - It Comes But Once a Year

Alison J Littlewood - Cold White Fields

Lee Thompson - A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky

Tom Piccirilli - You'd Better Watch Out

Now available to pre-order through the Horror Mall: https://www.horror-mall.com/FESTIVE-FEA ... 21016.html

Cover art by Daniele Serra

Internal illustrations by Andrew McKiernan

Limited to 200 soft covers

Only $15.95

Released this December

Order from: bugme@tasmaniacpublications.com

http://www.tasmaniacpublications.com/

New blog by me up at The Book Trib: "Neverending Puberty and Ongoing Mid-Life Crisis Duke it Out for My Soul and Career." http://booktrib.com/?tag=tom-piccirilli

You can check out my tale "Husks and Formless Ruins" for free online at: http://www.thehorrorzine. Drop a line and let me know if you enjoy it.

Ed Gorman weighs in on my noirella The Last Deep Breath. He says, in part: "Tom Piccirilli has given us a small but absolute masterpiece that is the kind of work that all neo-noir should aspire to."

http://newimprovedgorman.blogspot.com/2010/07/last-deep-breath-by-tom-piccirilli.html

New interview with Bill Pronzini, creator of the Nameless Detective series, up over at The Big Adios: http://thebigadios.yuku.com/topic/1223

Norm Partridge has some generous words about my work in his latest blog. http://americanfrankenstein.blogspot.com/2010/07/dedication-day.html

Thrillerfest & THE COLDEST MILE

2010-07-12T12:30:00.002-06:00

Just got back from Thrillerfest in NYC, a conference I’d never attended before but will certainly be heading off to again. What a great bunch of encouraging, embracing folks. The big news was that THE COLDEST MILE won a Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original, so wha hoo for that (...and yes, just let me repeat, wha hoo).

It was especially great to meet the hardworking Bantam/Random House Publishing team, whose efforts I appreciate in the extreme. So a big shout-outs to:

Gina Centrello, President and Publisher of the Random House Publishing Group; Kim Hovey, Associate Publisher of Ballantine Bantam Dell, Libby McGuire, Publisher of Ballantine Bantam Dell; Kristin Fassler, marketing; Theresa Zoro and Susan Corcoran, publicity; Kate Miciak, Editorial Director, Jennifer Hershey, Editorial Director, and Randall Klein, editor, who promised he would catch me if I stage-dived into the audience, despite the fact that I would have flattened every vertebrae in his spine. And of course to my editor Caitlin Alexander, who actually started green-penning my speech at the banquet table. Is this a woman who takes her job seriously or what?

Terrific to see old friends and meet new ones and discover email pals in the flesh, including John Schoenfelder, Chris Golden, Doug Clegg, Nate Kenyon, Matt Schwartz, Linda Addison, Hank Wagner, Dave Sakmyster, and John Rector.

Another real high point of the conference was finally getting a chance to meet two of my fave Jasons–Jason Pinter and Jason Starr. Two incredible writers of noir/hardboiled/thrillers and two terrific guys. Rock on, buds.

Other incredible folks I wish I’d had more time to spend with included Joe Finder, Joe Moore, Larry Light, Laura Caldwell, MJ Rose, Steve Berry, Heather Graham, and the master himself Ken Follett. But just being in their very presence and listening to them on panels was inspiring in ways I can’t fully explain.

Lastly, I’d like to give a special word of thanks to David Morrell, who’s a true literary hero of mine. Not only did he start the Thriller Writers organization but he’s always gone out of his way to offer advice and encouragement my way. Sitting and talking with him and learning craft at the knee of such a fine gentleman means more to me than I can possibly say. Although I didn’t actually take the time to dedicate my Thriller Award to anyone while I was on stage, if I may do so now, I humbly dedicate it to David Morrell.

======

Other stuff:

Only 20 trade copies left of THE LAST DEEP BREATH. Hardcovers have long since sold out. Last chance to nab this bad boy.

My huge new collection FUTILE EFFORTS is due to ship soon from Cemetery Dance. Last chance to pre-order and save.

Shroud Publishing is doing an extremely limited second run of my novella ALL YOU DESPISE. Only 50 copies, but you'll get the same sig sheets signed by me and Brian Keene, who did the introduction.

A lengthy three-way interview with Norman Partridge, Gary Braunbeck, and me own self. Enjoy.

Here's the cover art for the German edition of Shadow Season...Der Geruch Von Blut...The Smell of Blood. Due out in early December.

Brian Lindenmuth of Spinetingler wrote a brief review/article on my recent noirellas.

Raven's Tree Jewelry

2010-04-25T14:42:00.002-06:00

My wife Michelle's back to making fine hand-crafted jewelry, which she finds very therapeutic. Tons of new stuff listed. Plus, she's doing a shipping sale. $1 anywhere, no matter how many pieces you order! Quotes from Poe, Plath, Wilde, Baudelaire...gothic images, etc. She does book covers, personal images, pets, you name it.... Check it out.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ravenstree

Last Deep Breath & Thuglit

2010-04-23T08:56:00.002-06:00

Here's the finalized cover layout for THE LAST DEEP BREATH. A big shout-out of thanks to Daniele Serra, for doing such a fantastic noirish job with the artwork, and my pal Patrick Lussier, who wrote a humbling introduction for the novella. (And just wait until Patrick's next movie DRIVE ANGRY hits theaters, starring Nicolas Cage. It's a throwback to 70s road rage/evil car on the road flicks and it's going to rock us all).

Also, keep an eye out for:

Blood, Guts & Whiskey Edited by Todd Robinson. Kensington, $14 paper (336p) ISBN 978-0-7582-2268-8 Twenty-four gritty, violent stories of the mean streets slug their way through a third volume mostly culled from the Web zine Thuglit (after Hardcore Hardboiled and Sex, Thugs, and Rock & Roll). Max Allan Collins's concise yet wide-ranging introduction traces the tough guy school of short crime fiction from Hammett writing in the pulp Black Mask up to the current generation riffing off the films of Tarantino. Highlights include the Derringer Award–winning “The Cost of Doing Business” by Mike Penncavage, and a fistful of tales appearing for the first time anywhere from the likes of upcoming noir stars such as Dave Zeltserman (“Bad Move”) and Tom Piccirilli (“The Return of Inspiration”). For dedicated fans of the genre, this anthology is worth the money just for “Death of a Rat,” a prison yarn found in the files of the late Edward Bunker (aka Mr. Blue in Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs), iconic author of No Beast So Fierce. These stories are as bleak and exciting as a cold rainstorm. (June)--Publishers Weekly

Hell, never expected to share a TOC with the great Eddie Bunker! Very proud to be a part of this anthology. If you dig hardboiled/noir fiction and haven't already tried the previous two anthos edited by Todd Robinson, go now and do so.

Clown in the Moonlight

2010-04-13T10:48:00.002-06:00

My first horror tale in a while "Clown in the Moonlight" went up for sale today from Digital Darkside/Delirium. It's available in two formats:

Digital Edition: https://www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital/product.php?productid=20677

Audiobook: https://www.horror-mall.com/darksidedigital/product.php?productid=20678

Hope folks dig this one.

Update #2 - Professional

2010-04-07T13:28:00.003-06:00

Received the news that two of my novels are up for a Thriller Award in the same category! Is it wrong that I want to tie with myself and win twice? Probably just proves I'm a greedy bastard.

2010 THRILLER AWARD NOMINEES

Best Hard Cover Novel:
VANISHED by Joseph Finder
LONG LOST by Harlan Coben
FEAR THE WORST by Linwood Barclay
THE NEIGHBOR by Lisa Gardner
THE RENEGADES by T. Jefferson Parker

Best Paperback Original:
SHADOW SEASON by Tom Piccirilli
URGE TO KILL by John Lutz
VENGEANCE ROAD by Rick Mofina
THE COLDEST MILE by Tom Piccirilli
NO MERCY by John GilstrapBest

First Novel:
FRAGMENT by Warren Fahy
DEAD MEN’S DUST by Matt Hilton
COLLISION OF EVIL by John J. Le Beau
DRACULA: THE UN-DEAD by Dacre Stoker
RUNNING FROM THE DEVIL by Jamie Freveletti

Best Short Story:
THE DESERT HERE AND THE DESERT FAR AWAY by Marcus Sakey
A STAB IN THE HEART by Twist Phelan
ICED by Harry Hunsicker
BOLDT’S BROKEN ANGEL by Ridley Pearson

Big-time congrats to all the nominees!

==

Also, SHADOW SEASON has been nominated for a Spinetingler Award. Voting is open to the public, so take a minute and go vote for your favorite novels, short stories, graphic novels, etc.

==

Some more extremely generous blurbs have come in for THE LAST KIND WORDS, tentatively set to be released in May '11:

"For the first time since The Godfather, a family of criminals has stolen my heart. A brilliant mix of love and violence, charm and corruption. I loved it."—Nancy Pickard, author of THE VIRGIN OF SMALL PLAINS

"You 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

"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

Update #1 - Personal

2010-04-07T13:20:00.002-06:00

As many of you already know, my wife Michelle suffered a heart attack at 3:30am April 1. Paramedics couldn't have arrived any quicker and they immediately zipped her off to the new Medical Center of the Rockies, where she was met in the ER by a crack cardio team. They ran a line up through her femoral artery and put a stent in to clear a blockage. She was in the ICU for two days before being moved to her own room for a half day.

She's now home relaxing, doing excellent, and recuperating quickly. She's on several medications and tires easily but she's making an ultra-speedy recovery. The tough part for her is that she's had to quit smoking and we're now on a heart-healthy diet. No more of the shit I usually eat. This has been a big wake-up call all around (already lost 6 lbs just not pigging out the way I normally do).

Thanks to everyone for their prayers, well-wishes, cards, flowers, books, and wonderful thoughts. It all means a lot to Michelle and just as much to me.

Update - More Kind Words for the Last Kind Words

2010-02-27T11:51:00.002-07:00

So what the hell have I been up to, you ask? Fair question. Like most of you I've been working my ass off but still winding up falling farther and farther behind. This economic crisis coupled with my mid-life crisis are dovetailing nicely to inspire me to writing darker and nastier noir.

Finished off three more novellas that will be out over the next year or so. More on those when the info becomes available. Started a new novel, began revising an old screenplay, and knocked out a couple of short projects here and there, but I still feel like I'm clawing my way up the side of an icy cliff. I could go on about the pain of ripping your guts out and smearing them on the page day after day, but rather than bitch about my usual neuroses and travails, let's jump to the good stuff.

Two major blurbs have come in for my next novel, still tentatively titled THE LAST KIND WORDS, and now tentatively set for release in May of '11. (Everything is so damn tentative, eh?)

First up is the extremely generous comments of one of your favorites and mine:

"Perfect crime fiction...a convincing world, a cast of compelling characters, and above all a great story."--LEE CHILD

Yes, Lee f'in Child, baby!

The first Child novel I read was ECHO BURNING, followed soon after by THE ENEMY, which made me a staunch lifelong fan. Some people bitch about THE ENEMY because it's a throwback to Child's erstwhile iconic hero Jack Reacher's past as an MP. Reacher's still in the Army and we finally find out exactly why he left. I picked up the novel in an airport bookstore and read it cover to cover during a flight from New York to Colorado. Despite bad weather and lots of turbulence my concentration, flimsy during the best of times, couldn't be broken from the story. Since then, I line up on the day of release for each and every new Reacher book. If you haven't already picked up his latest GONE TOMORROW, do so asap. It might very well be Lee Child's best.

Now, onto another literary hero of mine, and I ain't kidding. This man has set the bar so high that the rest of us mooks can only gaze up at it aghast the same way I used to stare up at the rings in high school gym.

"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

Daniel Woodrell is one of the very best writers we've got, period. Not just of crime fiction, but of fiction. I said it, you heard me say it, so let me say it again. Daniel Woodrell is one of the very best writers we've got. If you've never read him, then shame on you. Right now God is pointing his fiery sword at your heart and judging you fiercely.

This is the man who wrote WINTER'S BONE, THE DEATH OF SWEET MISTER, TOMATO RED, GIVE US A KISS, WOE TO LIVE ON. What's been noted as Appalachian noir but is in reality so much more. He takes us into the backwoods and presents us with tales of strife, struggle, family, and crime that absolutely everyone can relate to. The film version of WINTER'S BONE recently premiered at Sundance and won acclaim and prizes and, most importantly, distribution. Cannot wait to catch this adaptation of one of my favorite novels of all time. Busted Flush Press will be reprinting some of his rarer novels over the next year or so, but do not wait. Order whatever you can as soon as you can. Seriously, you will thank me and I will bask in your thanks and we shall all rally and be thankful together for the abiding genius that is Daniel Woodrell.

Also from the feather in the cap department: My man KEN BRUEN states here that his favorite character in crime fiction is my protagonist Crease from THE FEVER KILL. Read and enjoy. Ken's next Jack Taylor novel THE DEVIL won't be out in the US for quite a while, so do what I did and order it from THE BOOK DEPOSITORY so you can nab the UK version due out in April.

So gather round, my friends, and let us praise the work of Lee Child, Daniel Woodrell, and Ken Bruen together. It is right to give thanks, or don't you already know that?

Sharing the Sweetness

2010-01-30T12:26:00.003-07:00

First blurb has come in on my next novel, due out in late '10.

"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

A big shout-out of thanks to Mike for taking the time to read the galleys. If you haven't read Mike, do so asap, there's a well-deserved growing buzz about this masterful author.

The Last Deep Breath

2010-01-11T20:27:00.002-07:00

Published by Tasmaniac Publications

Introduced by Patrick Lussier

Artwork by Daniele Serra

The story follows Grey, a drifter on the search for his foster sister, who showed up for the first time in ten years with a knife in her side, then vanished without a trace. Grey winds up in Los Angeles dealing with manipulative actresses and scummy agents, hoping to find some clue as to what happened to her after she dropped out of a porn career he didn't know about.

"By now I'm convinced that Tom Piccirilli is genetically incapable of delivering a tale that's anything less than immaculately conceived and beautifully rendered. The Last Deep Breath is the latest evidence, a tough yet tender noir that cuts to the heart of what sibling bonds are all about. It ricochets around like a bullet in a cinderblock room - you can never be sure where it's going to go, but you know it's probably going to hurt before it's done."--Brian Hodge, author of Wild Horses, Mad Dogs.

180 signed soft covers - $14
26 lettered hardbacks - $80

Reserve your copy now! Order direct from Tasmaniac (bugme@tasmaniacpublications.com) and you'll receive free shipping within the US and AUS. Also available from Horror Mall (US) and Jeff'N'Joys (UK).

Sometimes Santa Shows Up a Couple of Days Late

2009-12-27T09:00:00.002-07:00

Santa showed up a couple of days late and left these kind words beneath my tree.

You know Brian Keene. You read Brian Keene. You love Brian Keene. You hinge on his every word. So go, fly, Keene-minions, and buy multiple copies of his favorite books of '09, including SHADOW SEASON. Your master bids you.

Also, purveyor of literary taste in all things thriller, mystery, and suspense, David J. Montgomery gave his year-end roundup, and had these wonderful words for SHADOW SEASON as well: "Tom Piccirilli, the ITW Thriller Award-winning author of The Midnight Road, has produced one of the most chilling thrillers of the year. Shadow Season is an intriguing story of isolation and violence with a haunted man at its center." For the full review, check HERE.

Straub's the Man

2009-12-20T16:09:00.001-07:00

My interview with Peter Straub, focusing on his latest novel A DARK MATTER, is now up over at The Big Adios.

Some Updates

2009-12-04T13:28:00.003-07:00

Me and my BFF James Ellroy, who I met at the Tattered Cover down in Denver a month or so ago.

I'm the featured author over on New Mystery Reader. Interview/review of SHADOW SEASON can be found at: http://newmysteryreader.com/Tom_Piccirilli.htm

Nerd of Noir did a sweet review of SHADOW SEASON over at the popular BSC site: http://www.bscreview.com/2009/12/shadow-season-by-tom-piccirilli-review/

DEADLY PLEASURES MYSTERY MAGAZINE has voted THE COLDEST MILE one of their favorite novels of 2009: http://www.deadlypleasures.com/yearsbest.html

Here's an interview with the one and only Ed Gorman, focusing on his latest, and he says last, Sam McCain novel TICKET TO RIDE: http://thebigadios.yuku.com/topic/995?page=-1

As for what's upcoming: Finished up a novella recently entitled COLD COMFORTS that will be available through Delirium Books' digital releases next month. Currently working on an X-Mas crime-themed novella for Tasmanic's FESTIVE FEAR 2 anthology, due out next Christmas. Also turned in the latest draft of my novel THE UNDERNEATH to my editor at Bantam. Look for it hopefully late in '10.

How's the end of '09 shaping up for you kids?

Plenty o' Pulp Goodness

2009-11-13T17:42:00.002-07:00

Over at PULP SERENADE, hardboiled/noir/crime fiction critic Cullen Gallagher has a lengthy write-up of SHADOW SEASON where he says, in part: "Shadow Season was one of those books that I connected with from the very first line, and went on to read in a single afternoon. It’s an uncompromisingly dark story masterfully told that speaks well beyond its gripping scenario. Piccarilli allows us to connect with the characters on a level that feels very private, perhaps all the more so because of the main protagonist’s blindness: together, we share in his darkness. Piccirilli’s refined artistry as a writer, particularly his expressive phrasing and impeccable pacing, are on display throughout Shadow Season."

While you're there, definitely take a gander at Cullen's previous interviews, reviews, and critiques of some great fiction & film noir.

Jedidiah Ayres of HARDBOILED WONDERLAND took some time out of his busy schedule blogging about all things hardboiled and hip to do a lengthy interview with yours truly. Find it right here: Hardboiled Wonderland: TP Your Bookshelf

Uber-hep author Seth Harwood, author of JACK WAKES UP, chats with me about my writing process on Bantam's blog Blood on the Page.

Shroud Magazine also has a terrific review of my upcoming Cemetery Dance collection FUTILE EFFORTS, due out, hopefully sometime early next year.

"To say the fiction of Tom Piccirilli often defies convention or genre labeling would be a grand understatement. Better to say Piccirilli creates his own literary space, in which inhabits beings of a dark but strangely beautiful grotesqueness, characters that offer readers twisted, warped reflections of themselves. The work contained in his upcoming Cemetery Dance collection “Futile Efforts” certainly does that and more. They run the gamut, proving what most already know: that Tom Piccirilli is a skilled and versatile wordsmith: a dark fantasist with the heart of a crime/Noir writer, a sculptor of oddities, and a gifted poet, also. However, for all Piccirilli's strange, melancholic grace, the sharp edge of steel isn't far behind."

SHADOW SEASON out today!

2009-10-27T11:10:00.002-06:00

My new novel SHADOW SEASON hits bookstores today. Race across the face of the earth, people, and get your copy of SHADOW SEASON today. Hope you love the fuckall out of the book. If you do, and you blog about it, write a review on Amazon.com or B&N.com,buy extra copies for your mama & daddy... & the kiddies, spread the word, then you will be blessed by heaven and all the riches you so rightly deserve will be yours for the plucking.

You can find a new piece by Jeff VanderMeer on the Amazon blogs here: http://bit.ly/2UcuXg

Here's an interview with me up at The Big Adios focused on the writing of the book: http://thebigadios.yuku.com/topic/959

And a few really nice reviews:

"In Piccirilli's brooding, character-driven chiller, former New York City cop Finn, recently blinded, wallows in his new role as an English teacher at a posh girls' boarding school. A storm looms as Finn and a skeleton staff remain to supervise a handful of girls staying at the school during winter break. Piccirilli (The Fever Kill) harps on his theme of isolation with palpable glee as Finn, surrounded by self-absorbed adolescents and mysterious, brutally violent attackers roaming the campus, grapples with blindness amid a sonar-dulling snowstorm in a remote area with no cellphone service. Terrified of solitude and driven by his cop instincts, Finn embarks on a wrenching journey that exposes the raw emotion of a man nearly destroyed by disability and circumstance."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The Christmas recess has just begun at St. Valarian's, a private secondary school for girls in upstate New York. A handful of students and staff are still on campus as a nasty blizzard gathers strength. Finn, a blind and deeply conflicted former NYPD detective, teaches literature at the school and longs to murder Ray, his former police partner. Making his way across campus through the storm, Finn encounters a teenage girl, a townie, who warns him that an "ill will" is coming for him. Soon, students and staff are dying, and Finn must defend himself and the survivors. Shadow Season has enough mystery, suspense, dread, and mayhem to satisfy nearly every crime fan. Characters are well developed, but most maintain a hint of mystery. Finn's students, variously precocious, willful, mocking, and provocative, are totally believable. The blizzard ratchets up tension, as does our eagerness to learn why Finn wants to kill Ray. The portentous "ill will" may be a bit over the top, but the novel is terrific entertainment."- Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

Also, northern Colorado's biggest newspaper, The Coloradoan, had this to say: "This is an intense thriller not for sissies. The complex main character tears into savage situations described with authenticity as he grinds through each crisis while dealing with his blindness.You will appreciate the portrayal of the main character Finn's so-called disability, which really isn't one given the way he knows how to utilize it. The entire plot never lets the reader take a breath and never lets up on the gut-wrenching emotional safari into Finn's world of blackness.The dialogue, plot and the multi-layered character reveals itself to you with hammer blows page after page. Highly recommended for thriller fans who appreciate a quality read."

How You Waste a Whole Day Trying to Track Down A Comic Book (and Fail Miserably)

2009-10-14T18:23:00.002-06:00

The longer I live out here in Loveland, Colorado, the more I miss New York. In NY I could toss a stick and hit 20 comic shops. Out here, there’s two within an hour’s drive.

Punisher #75, featuring stories written by Greg Hurwitz, Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Huston, Peter Milligan, and myself, hit the stands today. I started the day out all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I’m ever likely to get anyway, and decided to hit the local comic shop to nab a couple copies. I’m a comics geek. This is a big moment for me. Right on.

Got to the shop about 20 minutes before they opened at 12:30, so I drove over to a second hand bookstore and scrounged around the dusty stacks for a while. Zipped back over to the shop at 12:45. Still not open. With growing irritation, I killed another half hour at a different bookstore.

Tried the comic shop one more time at 1:15, 45 minutes after they supposedly opened today. Still closed. Fuck ‘em, they’ve lost my business.

So I drove up to Fort Collins and tried the one comic shop they have in town. Took me a half hour to get there and another ten minutes to park down in Old Town where there’s all kinds of tight road work happening.

The place is owned by a husband and wife team. Stepped in and spotted the wife putting new comics on the wall. Asked her about Punisher #75.

She said, "That’s not out today."

"Ah, yes, it is."

"No, you’re wrong. No matter what they say on their website, it’s due out next week."

She seemed very certain of herself. Was it possible I’d made a mistake? My editor at Marvel specifically told me it was due out today. But he edits dozens of comics a month. Maybe he was wrong or I got confused on the dates?

The husband pops up from behind the counter and says, "No, it’s here."

"Great!" I say.

"But they’re all damaged copies."

"All damaged?"

"Yes, they’re really fucked up."

"Can I see a copy anyway?"

The guy reaches down into a box and flings the issue at me as if he’s disgusted with its condition. It has the slightest bend at the corner. It probably got bent when he zealously hurled it at me. It’s damn near pristine. I tell him, "This is fine. I’ll take five copies."

He looks at me like I’m out of my bird. "Well, I’m not going to sell it to you!"

"Why not?"

"I’ve already reported them damaged. I have to mail it back. I’ll have more copies next week. Come back then."

I leave the store in somewhat of a daze. Fuck ‘em, they’ve lost my business.

I decide to try the first shop one last time. Maybe someone just overslept. Maybe they took an early lunch. Maybe their car stalled on the side of I-25. I head back to the shop and sure enough, now it’s open. All I needed was faith.

I walk in and check the new comics rack. No Punisher #75. This no longer surprises me. This is something of a foregone conclusion. I ask the owner about the new comics.

"We don’t get new comics on Wednesday."

"But new comics come out on Wednesday. Everyone knows that."

"Yeah, they’re out, but we don’t get them. We get ours on Thursday."

"Why?"

"Otherwise we’d have to drive down to Denver to get them."

This makes no sense to me. Comics are delivered to comic shops. "Why?"

"It’s just how we do it."

Well, in point of fact, it’s just how they don’t do it. If they were doing it, if they were actively pursuing something to its goddamn conclusion, they’d have the comics.

"Okay," I tell the guy. "Pull five copies aside for me."

"I can’t."

"You can’t?"

"I don’t know if I’ll have five extras."

"Okay, pull one extra."

"I can’t."

"You can’t?"

"I don’t know if I’ll have even one extra."

"How about if I come back tomorrow and check and if you have any extras I’ll buy them from you?"

"Okay."

Score: The World 1, Pic 0.

Hopefully you will have much better luck than I did.

While I was there I did manage to nab a copy of issue one of Ed Brubaker’s CRIMINAL: THE SINNERS. Another noir/hardboiled storyline that will rock your socks off. If you haven’t picked up the earlier CRIMINAL comics or graphic novels, do so immediately. The man knows how to write a hard tale, and Sean Phillips, the artist, is also flat-out amazing. Best of all, Ed even gives a nod to SHADOW SEASON at the back of the issue.

More Yackity Yack (I'm Talkin' Back)

2009-10-12T15:48:00.002-06:00

Another new interview up over at THE BIG ADIOS. This one, oddly enough, is actually WITH me.

Been trapped in the mire of two projects that WILL NOT FUCKING QUIT! And jonesing to start another that I can't get around to yet. Driving me out of my head. Literally. Well, kind of literally. Wound up suffering through two occular migraines this afternoon. Only nominal pain but my head fills up with flashing kaleidoscopic lights. Bizarre and freaky, and nothing to do but lie down in a dark room and wait for it to stop.

And what goes on with you?

Update: Where ya been, Pic?

2009-10-05T22:40:00.002-06:00

Since you asked, I'll tell ya:

Been busy as hell, kids. Sorry it's been so long since I've done a blog, but the work's been rougher than usual lately. Finished two major projects, including revisions on my next novel, tentatively titled THE UNDERNEATH (but that might change to THE LAST KIND WORDS or who the hell knows, maybe something else. Which do you like better?) Knocked out three short stories for various anthologies, and I'm currently in the midst of a noirish ghost story, or maybe it's a supernatural noir, I'm not certain.

Here's a few places you can catch up with some of what's been going on--

You can check out the brief article about me now up at the International Thriller Writers zine THE BIG THRILL.

New review of SHADOW SEASON over at Horror World.

Another new interview can be found on Ed Gorman's blog.

The German edition of THE MIDNIGHT ROAD retitled SMERZ (PAIN) is out now and can be ordered via the German Amazon.

Also, over on THE BIG ADIOS you can find new interviews with the likes of:

Russell Atwood, author of EAST OF A and LOSERS LIVE LONGER.

Seth Harwood, author of the uber-hip crime novel JACK WAKES UP.

Joe Schreiber, horror author of CHASING THE DEAD, EAT THE DARK, and NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS. His latest is a real chiller.

And REMEMBER, it's T-minus 21 days (that's right, three frickin' weeks) until SHADOW SEASON hits the shelves.

And PUNISHER #75 should be out in the next week or two. Nab a copy and let me know what you think of my first comic book story. Unless you hate it, then you don't need to share.

Update: Interview & Starred PW Review

2009-09-08T09:32:00.002-06:00

Sorry I've been in complete hype mode on the blog recently. I know that can be wearying for readers, but after months of trying to build buzz and start the always sluggish process of pushing a new novel, it's a huge relief when the publication date finally approaches. SHADOW SEASON streets in about six weeks on October 27th.

Received a sweet starred review in PW this morning: "In Piccirilli's brooding, character-driven chiller, former New York City cop Finn, recently blinded, wallows in his new role as an English teacher at a posh girls' boarding school. A storm looms as Finn and a skeleton staff remain to supervise a handful of girls staying at the school during winter break. Piccirilli (The Fever Kill) harps on his theme of isolation with palpable glee as Finn, surrounded by self-absorbed adolescents and mysterious, brutally violent attackers roaming the campus, grapples with blindness amid a sonar-dulling snowstorm in a remote area with no cellphone service. Terrified of solitude and driven by his cop instincts, Finn embarks on a wrenching journey that exposes the raw emotion of a man nearly destroyed by disability and circumstance."

You can check out a new interview with me over at HORROR WORLD.

Books you need to read:

Seth Harwood's JACK WAKES UP, a fine action-packed Hollywood-hip ripsnorter about a one-hit wonder action actor who is thrust into living the life of his once big screen persona by the murder of a friend and one big drug deal that causes strife and mayhem a'plenty.

Joe Schrieber's mystery chiller NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS, about a man who returns home for his father's funeral only to discover that his Dad had started writing a dark fantasy novel about a haunted house. When the house turns out to be real, our protagonist attempts to finish his father's book and learn whatever secrets his Dad, and the house, might have long held.

BLUE CANOE by T.M. Wright. Damn fine surrealistic novel in the grand Wright tradition about a man who may or may not be dead, living in what may or may not be the afterlife, recalling memories that may or may not be real. It's an evocative, haunting, sweet tale that packs an emotion wallop. With an introduction by yours truly.

Also:

You can also find a new interview up at THE BIG ADIOS with Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman talking about their collaboration on the one-of-a-kind TOWER.

Booklist review of Shadow Season

2009-08-12T10:57:00.002-06:00

SHADOW SEASON received a nice review from Booklist today:

The Christmas recess has just begun at St. Valarian’s, a private secondary school for girls in upstate New York. A handful of students and staff are still on campus as a nasty blizzard gathers strength. Finn, a blind and deeply conflicted former NYPD detective, teaches literature at the school and longs to murder Ray, his former police partner. Making his way across campus through the storm, Finn encounters a teenage girl, a townie, who warns him that an “ill will” is coming for him. Soon, students and staff are dying, and Finn must defend himself and the survivors. Shadow Season has enough mystery, suspense, dread, and mayhem to satisfy nearly every crime fan. Characters are well developed, but most maintain a hint of mystery. Finn’s students, variously precocious, willful, mocking, and provocative, are totally believable. The blizzard ratchets up tension, as does our eagerness to learn why Finn wants to kill Ray. The portentous “ill will” may be a bit over the top, but the novel is terrific entertainment.
— Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

Also, northern Colorado's biggest newspaper, The Coloradoan, had this to say:

This is an intense thriller not for sissies. The complex main character tears into savage situations described with authenticity as he grinds through each crisis while dealing with his blindness.You will appreciate the portrayal of the main character Finn’s so-called disability, which really isn’t one given the way he knows how to utilize it. The entire plot never lets the reader take a breath and never lets up on the gut-wrenching emotional safari into Finn’s world of blackness.The dialogue, plot and the multi-layered character reveals itself to you with hammer blows page after page. Highly recommended for thriller fans who appreciate a quality read.

Futile Efforts

2009-08-07T12:14:00.002-06:00

The long wait is over, friends. Just announced: my new massive collection FUTILE EFFORTS will soon be available from Cemetery Dance. Starred review in PW. Almost 600 pages long featuring introductions to my short fiction by the likes of Brian Keene, Jack Ketchum, Christopher Golden, TM Wright, Tom Monteleone, Ray Garton, Jack O'Connell, Simon Clark, James A. Moore, Gerard Houarner, Tim Lebbon, Michael Laimo, and many others.

Check it out here: http://cemeterydance.com/

"What's Been Going On, Pic?" Well, Since You Asked...

2009-07-30T15:14:00.004-06:00

Let's hope he doesn't fall off the roof while reviewing THE COLDEST MILE. Our favorite librarian from the L.D. Fargo public library in Lake Mills, WI is out of the basement and up on the roof battling his air conditioning unit while telling the world on YouTube to check out TCM.

New interview up with the nicest writer of haunting crime novels you're likely to find, the inimitable Ed Gorman. Check out what he has to say about his latest THE MIDNIGHT ROOM over at The Big Adios.

A new blurb for SHADOW SEASON is in from one of the very best in the biz. If you haven't already checked out Bill Pronzini's novels, you're doing a disservice to yourself. His Nameless Detective series continues to rock hard after 40 years, and his standalone novels are just as good.

"Reading SHADOW SEASON is like being put through an emotional wringer. Visceral. Savage. Intense. Powerful. Finn is a fascinating character, the most complex of all Pic's noir protagonists; I can't think of another in recent memory with such a multi-faceted personality or more compelling mix of gut-level feelings. Flawless portrayal of his blindness and his ways of dealing with it, particularly in crisis situations. For my money, Pic's best novel to date."--Bill Pronzini, MWA Grandmaster

Books you should be reading:

Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman's dynamic & twisted collaboration TOWER.

Lester Dent's lost crime novel HONEY IN HIS MOUTH written back in '56 by the man who brought you most of the Doc Savage pulps. Sharp & engaging noir.

HOGDOGGIN' by Anthony Neil Smith, a riotous hardboiled biker novel. Sequel to his YELLOW MEDICINE.

Megan Abbott's superb historical noir BURY ME DEEP, based on the true story of the "Trunk Murderess."

PARIAH by Dave Zeltserman, brutally dark follow-up to his first novel SMALL CRIMES.

Charlie Williams' uber-funky crime-horror-dark fantasy-rock'n'roll crossover STAIRWAY TO HELL.

KILLING MUM by Allan Guthrie, a black as night noir about a murder broker who discovers somebody wants him to off his own mother. And the Kindle version comes with a grabber of a cover, featuring a squirrel that looks ready to chew your face off, man.

Soft Hearts of Hard Case Crime

2009-07-18T12:51:00.000-06:00

Some generous words have come in from one of my faves and yours: "Tom Piccirilli is at the forefront of the new breed of crime writers, welding his sense of history to a modern sensibility, creating a strong new voice."--Max Allan Collins, author of ROAD TO PERDITION.

Check out Al's Hard Case Crime novels featuring his hitman for hire QUARRY.

And:

He's hot! You love him! You want him! You need him! You got him! New interview with crime/suspense author Jason Starr, author of THE FOLLOWER, FAKE ID, and the upcoming PANIC ATTACK over at The Big Adios.

More on Punisher #75

2009-07-15T09:46:00.005-06:00

In Joe Quesada's regular Cup O' Joe column he spotlights Punisher #75, an issue where the direction of Punisher Max is bound to change.

Kiel Phegley: After last week’s CUP O’ JOE about Marvel’s pricing sparked discussion of what gets published under the MAX banner, you’re back with some MAX news this week on the Punisher front?

Joe Quesada: Yup. “Punisher: Frank Castle” #75 is a double-sized special with stories by Charlie Huston (“Moon Knight”), Gregg Hurwitz (“Vengeance of Moon Knight”), Peter Milligan, Duane Swierczynski and a great crime novelist, Thomas Piccirilli with art by Ken Lashley (“Black Panther”), Laurence Cambpell (“Punisher”), Das Pastoras (“Wolverine”) and more.
All the stories take a hard look at that fateful day in Central Park when Frank Castle’s family was slaughtered in a mob crossfire, and the Punisher was born.

Looks like crime fiction fans are really going to have a good time with this one. Charlie Huston's "Hank Thompson" books are some of my very fave neo-noir novels (and also make sure you check out his latest THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH). Gregg Hurwitz's latest TRUST NO ONE is racing up the charts, and my buddy Duane Swierczynski tackles suspense/thriller fiction like no one else out there. His novels SEVERANCE PACKAGE, THE BLONDE, and THE WHEELMAN are all ripsnorters that will keep you nailed to the page

Neuroses is Me, Still

2009-07-14T21:57:00.003-06:00

Amazing how after 20 years, 20+ novels, and 200+ stories, the skin can still be thin and the insecurities abundant. Advance Reading Copies (actually just bound manuscripts as for the time being Bantam is no longer printing true arcs up for their mass market paperback originals) of my new novel SHADOW SEASON are winging their way to various reviewers, friends, peers, comrades, hopefully a literary hero or two--and so once again my heart's on the line. I guess it never gets any easier, really. And I guess it's not supposed to. The fact that a writer still worries, gets excited, or becomes anxious is probably a sign that this bizarre biz/art of ours still matters deeply to us. Or maybe we are just fucking crazy.

ITW Announces Thriller Award Winners

On the evening of Saturday, July 11th, 2009, the International Thriller Writers announced the winners of their literary awards at a gala celebration in New York City. Unfortunately I couldn't be in attendance though my tale "Between the Dark and the Daylight" from Ellery Queen was up in the short story category. I got crushed but I hold no grudges. I'm just all zen-like and shit.

ThrillerMaster Award: David Morrel: In recognition of his vast body of work and influence in the field of literature
Silver Bullet Award: Brad Meltzer: For contributions to the advancement of literacy
Best Thriller of the Year: THE BODIES LEFT BEHIND by Jeffery Deaver (Simon & Schuster)
Best First Novel: CHILD 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Grand Central Publishing)
Best Short Story: THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN by Alexandra Sokoloff (in Darker Mask)

Congratulations to the winners.

A generous comment came in from Publishers Weekly about the piece, which is also the title of the new Gorman & Greenberg Year's Best.

Between the Dark and the Daylight and 27 More of the Best Crime and Mystery Stories of the Year Edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg. Bleak House (www.bleakhousebooks.com), $27.95 (600p) ISBN 978-1-60648-058-8; $17.95 paper ISBN 978-1-60648-059-5

"Gorman and Greenberg follow up A Prisoner of Memory (2008) with another impressive anthology, which features a diverse assortment of styles and settings. Readers familiar with Steve Hockensmith only from his novels will enjoy "The Devil’s Acre," a typically amusing story featuring the Amlingmeyer brothers, cowboys inspired by Sherlock Holmes. Joyce Carol Oates continues to display her facility with crime fiction with her portrait of a man’s descent into violence in "The First Husband." The title story should attract deserved notice for Tom Piccirilli, who tugs at the heartstrings while maintaining the moral relativism of classic noir. Other contributors include Michael Connelly, T. Jefferson Parker, Charlaine Harris, Bill Pronzini and Charles Ardai. "

Love for Pic

2009-06-26T14:58:00.004-06:00

This is the reason why you all want to become professional writers. Because of the adoration, respect, unconditional love, and a readership that's not too proud to shower you with a little grateful attention.

This fan letter comes from our good friend D. Ford of Mnpls, MN. "Always looking for new mytery writers, hoping I'll find a gem to add to my favs collection. Bought your "Midnight Road" sight unseen from Amazon. Have tried to get into it 3 times. All failures. This is the most disjointed, unrealistic attempt @ writing a mystery novel I've tried in over 5 yrs. The character and his rambling 1st person problems make no sense at all. There's no cohesion or sense of danger or any tension. The dead dog!! Give me a break, don't know what you're trying for, and I don't think you do either. And the manufactured danger he faces from the police for no apparent reason, just makes this a VERY weak attempt. $$ wasted. Go back to Lit 101 & read Mike Connelly, John Sanford, Stephen Hunter, Robert Crais, and start all over!!"

Sure, I could've spent a half hour writing a resounding & insulting missive that would ring his ass like a bell, but what's the point? Here's what I wrote instead:

"Thanks for your generous compliments. Keep reading!

Love,

Tom Pic"

Haters. You know you want more of them in your life. Become a novelist now!

Pic & the Punisher plus Another of those Damn Memes

2009-06-13T11:11:00.003-06:00

Been parceling out the info in drips and drabs the past couple of weeks, but the paperwork has been signed and things are official now.

My story "Dolls" will appear in Punisher #75, an oversized issue featuring 4 tales that's due out in October. I know brilliant crime novelists/comic writers Charlie Huston and Gregg Hurwitz will also be in this one, so that's a serious fuckin' honor right there.

Originally Marvel wanted a 4-6 page story but my terrific editor kept giving me more and more room. The final piece will be 10 pages long, about half the length of a regular issue. All the stories had to touch on the day in Central Park when Castle's family was murdered.

"Dolls" opens as Frank is about to take a sniper shot at a mobster when a little lost girl asks him to help her find her father. It's her birthday soon and she asks if he'll buy her a present. He buys her a doll that--ding ding--reminds him of his own dead daughter. Frank only has a certain amount of time to take out his target and is torn between helping the girl and leaving her and getting back to killing the guy.

The brilliant Laurence Campbell is slated to do the artwork. A sample of his work is up top.

Total fanboy geeking out here.

Got tagged with this four-shot meme which is going around to crime writers all over the place.

Four Movies You Can See Over and Over

Seven Beauties (fave film of all time)

The Wild Bunch

Sunset Boulevard

The Maltese Falcon

Four Places You Have Lived

There's only been two:

New York

Colorado

Four TV Shows You Love to Watch

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Dexter

The Odd Couple

Lost

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation

Santa Fe, NM

Phoenix AZ

Quebec City, CAN

New York, New York (If I had my way this is where we'd always go).

Four of Your Favorite Foods

New York Pizza

New York bagels

Pasta Fasool (I make it better than your grandma does)

London Broil

Four Websites You Visit Daily

The Big Adios

Shocklines

Ed Gorman

Internet Movie Data Base

Four Places You Would Rather Be

Manhattan (okay, so it's a running theme)

Florence, Italy

Newport Beach, CA

1977 (so I could tell my younger self not to be such a dweeb)

Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die

Have a New York Times bestseller

Have Hollywood woo me

Do film commentary for a film based on one of my novels

Celebrate my 83rd birthday with my 18-year old second wife Bambi (heart over the "i")

Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time

THE DEAD FATHER by Donald Barthelme (fave novel)

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP by John Irving

CATCH-22 by Jospeh Heller

Hard Eight

2009-05-30T15:58:00.002-06:00

So as of May 27 I’m now I’m 44–a hard eight as you craps shooters say–and another year closer to 46, which is something of a benchmark as it’s the age my father was when he died. Who knows if I’ll make it (place your bets, everyone). My mid-life crisis started a couple of years ago. I’m not sure when it’s supposed to end. With the advent of classmates.com and Facebook, clearly I’m not the only one suffering through severe bouts of sentimentality and romanticized youthful times. I suppose it’s just a part of what everyone goes through. We’re just louder about it because we all fucking blog.

So, some news:

You can find my article on Korean crime/horror films in the latest issue of Asian Cult Cinema (#62), including my reviews of Our Town, Dream, The Chaser, and Open City among others.

The cover for SHADOW SEASON has been finalized. It’s a bit tweaked from the previous images I’ve posted (now with "Edgar Award nominee" listed among my attributes). I think it’s a real grabber and hopefully it’ll pop nicely on the shelf. The book is due October 27 but of course you can pre-order now from Amazon or B&N.com. Also remember to spread the love and support your independent bookstore.

I recently placed my first script with Marvel. I’m playing it close to the vest for the time-being until all the paperwork is signed, etc., but this is a real dream come true. Comics have been a big part of my life, both personal and creative, since before I could read. I clearly remember my brother handing me issues of Daredevil #4 (1st app. of the Purple Man) and Avengers #5 (first app. of the Lava Men) when I couldn’t have been older than two or three. Although my collection has thinned considerably over the years, at one point I owned about 8k comics, all properly backboarded, bagged up and boxed. The collector’s bug, that need to own every issue of every series that came out every month, eventually left me and I sold off about half my comics. Which means I currently own about 4k, including DD #4 and Avengers #5 (though not the same copies my brother gave me).

From the You’ve Got to Check This Out Dept:

Gillian Flynn’s second novel DARK PLACES is out now. Her brilliant SHARP OBJECTS was an Edgar Award nominee and DARK PLACES might even be more twisted, naughty, and noir-stuffed. It follows the story of the lone survivor of a family slaughter, alternating between the narrative of that emotionally screwed-up young lady and flashbacks of her murdered mother and her brother, the supposed killer. A real grabber of a novel that is mysterious and haunting in the best ways.

Also, out now on DVD is J.T. Petty’s THE BURROWERS. A horror-western film that is gripping, realistic, grueling, and genuinely disturbing. The story focuses on a posse hunting after a missing family believed to have been taken by renegade Indians. But soon it becomes apparent that something else, something inhuman, has stolen the folks. There are scenes that won’t be leaving your mind anytime soon. This is one unsettling, nihilistic gut-stomper the way great horror fiction/film is supposed to be.

The Brotherhood of Inspiration

2009-05-22T12:17:00.001-06:00

You've heard the line so much that it's almost become a mantra: Writing is a lonely business. But the truth is that most writers hold down day jobs, travel for business, and have families that they have to make time for. Most writers can barely find any free time to write, much less time to become lonely. But for the professional author who's sitting in front of the screen with nothing but himself and his own thoughts, the process can become particularly wearying. Especially if he's working on something that draws heavily from his own life and keeps him locked inside his own past as well.

So it's good to get out and see friends and meet fans and discuss process and let the thoughts that are generally bouncing around inside your skull fly free. At last weekend's Mo*Con in Indianapolis we got a chance to hang with good friends (including Gerard & Linda Addison, Wrath James White, Alethea Kontis, Kelli Dunlap, the "Mo" himself Maurice Broaddus, and a slew of other buds), fun fans, and folks who are interested in all aspects of the writing life. Just being among other folks who understand where you're coming from, what challenges you face, what bars you set for yourself is inspiring. It can recharge the batteries.

So a big shout-out of thanks to everyone who attended Mo*Con and helped my flagging will. The past few months I've felt like Chev Chelios from Crank 2, running out of energy and being forced to stick my finger in a car lighter outlet or rub up against old ladies to build a static charge. Thanks for juicing my heart, people.

What is Noir?

2009-05-10T13:32:00.002-06:00

Over on Shocklines, uber-horror writer Douglas Clegg and I have been discussing fiction/film noir a bit. He says, "It seems to me that in noir, there is a sort of Fata Morgana or Lorelei aspect -- in that a woman leads men to their doom at the center of the story, whether she wants to or not. " He goes on to ask, "If I'm wrong let me know -- my reading and movie-viewing in noir has been limited. Has there ever been a noir where a man lead women -- or a woman -- to her doom, and still could be called noir? Are there specific parameters to noir in fiction? How would you define it?"

Here's my shot at an answer:

Well, in film noir the Femme Fatale is certainly a central figure. More than anything, I think that noir can be defined as a "date with doom." Characters know that they're making mistakes, missteps, tempting fate, but for whatever reason they're drawn to doing so anyway. Usually by a woman but not always. They step out of the average life and step into another life that they seem to have been destined for, a kind of surreal or hyper-real existence.

Take for example my fave noir SUNSET BOULEVARD. William Holden is an average joe just trying to escape from the repo man when he drives into the world of Norma Desmond, who lives in that bizarre mansion where she watches only her own old films, holds a funeral for a dead monkey, has her own ex-husband/former director for a man-servant. Even when Holden has a chance to escape and find true love with his best friend's girl he gives her up because he knows she's better off without him, and he re-enters Norma's world to find only sorrow and death. There's no way out. He was fated to meet his demise, and he more or less knew it.

Another great noir is ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW starring Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan. Ryan is a vicious racist who's thrown together with Belafonte to pull a bank heist. Belafonte is deep into debt with the mob so even though he knows he shouldn't be working with this prick, he's forced to do so. The entire movie he's aware that the score isn't going to work out. But he has to go forward. And of course, things end...explosively.

Step by step characters knowingly move to their own demise.

Charles Willeford wrote a fine noir novel called PICK-UP. I don't want to give the twist away but it's about a woman who falls for a guy and she eventually is led to her doom. He loves her, and she loves him, but for a twist reason (that you don't find out until the last line of the book...it's really just a big shaggy dog story) they're fated for destruction.

Jim Thompson's THE KILLER INSIDE ME can certainly be considered noir, full of nihilistic despair. Lou Ford is a sociopath deputy sheriff, a genius pretending to be a bumpkin. His "sickness" as he calls it forces him to murder. Two women love him and, as you might guess, two women end up doomed, as does Ford himself.

Cornell Woolrich wrote THE BLACK ANGEL, about a woman who's husband is leaving her for another woman. When the other woman is found murdered, the husband is found guilty. The wife believes he's innocent and searches for the real killer, invading several men's lives, making them fall in love with her, and then shattering them and casting them aside when she gets whatever information she needs. In point of fact, she's the femme fatale, but it's her blind love for her husband that sets her on her mission. So in one regard, she's as much a victim as the others.

In BORN TO KILL Lawrence Tierney plays a homicidal psychopath who murders his casual dates when he finds out they're seeing other men. Claire Trevor finds one of the victims and boogies out of town on a train, the same train that Lawrence happens to be on. When he figures out that she's a witness and she realizes he's a murderer they do what comes naturally...fall in love! They have a hot and heavy relationship even after she brings him home to her wealthy family. Of course, the inevitable happens and they kill each other and die in each other's arms.

That sense of fate, inevitability, highly romanticized-energized living before tragedy, the flame burning brighter before it burns out is the essence of noir, I think.

So how about you folks? How do you define noir?

Update & Spreading the Love

2009-05-05T21:37:00.003-06:00

Just found out I was nominated for a Macavity for "Between the Dark and the Daylight" (EQMM), which is also up for a Thriller Award. Sweet. For the full list, check HERE.

New interviews with Lawrence Block and David Morrell can be found at THE BIG ADIOS. Larry discusses his memoirs STEP BY STEP and David explains just where he got some of his ideas for his latest thriller THE SHIMMER.

From the YUMPED UP YIMMINY YEESUS YOU NEED TO BE READING THIS Dept.:

If you're not already a hardcore fan of ED BRUBAKER then you need to jump on board now. This minute. Get thee to a comic shop or start picking up his graphic novels off Amazon. Read his CRIMINAL graphic novels and follow the brilliant INCOGNITO. Ed is deservedly the hottest writer in comics right now, due in no small part to his edgy noir underpinnings. CAPTAIN AMERICA, DAREDEVIL, IRON FIST, every series he touches he transcends. SLEEPER is in development with Sam Raimi and Tom Cruise attached.

From the THANK KEERIST IT'S FINALLY OUT ON DVD Dept.:

Well, not quite yet, but in under two weeks we finally get a Criterion edition of THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, the gritty and gutwrenching film based on the brilliant novel by George V. Higgins. And yes, it really IS Robert Mitchum's best performance.

From the ED GORMAN IS THE MAN YES HE AM Dept.:

Our good pal, the incredible writer Ed Gorman informs us on yesterday's blog that FOOLS RUSH IN, his latest Sam McCain mystery, is out now in trade paperback. Do yourself a favor and scarf this baby up now. All the McCains are terrific novels and FOOLS RUSH IN might be his best yet.

I'm a Loser, Bay-Bee...

2009-04-30T22:06:00.002-06:00

I'm a loser, bay-bee...so why don't ya kill mee...

Okay, so no sour grapes about losing out at the Edgars. I was damn sure Christa Faust would take the award home for MONEY SHOT but instead Meg Gardiner walks off with it for CHINA LAKE. My thanks to everyone who was willing to toss a molotov cocktail and cry foul, overturn tables, set fires, smash bottles of tequila and wave around the busted glass ends at the throats of the MWA judges. Never trust whitey!

You can check out all the winners right HERE.

Bleeding at the Bottom of the Tiger Trap

2009-04-25T14:40:00.002-06:00

Writing a scene where my protagonist regrets some of his life's choices and pines for what might have been. Really shaking my head up. Sometimes you create a character so you can slip inside someone else's skin, and sometimes it feels like you're just suffocating inside your own. You go in deep and pick open your emotional sores and let them bleed all over the page. You wonder what life would have been if you’d cut right instead of dodging left, if a phone conversation thirty years ago went a different way, if you’d cared more about that instead of this. The trouble is that this kind of thinking can’t be quantified. It has no parameters, no start and stop. Way leads on to way, the dominoes fall. I dwell on mistakes. I reflect on faults and fumbles. I ponder oversights and blunders. Writing is nothing but a series of what ifs. Sometimes the scenes sweep you in. I finish a sentence and then stare at it and reread it and reread it. What if? What if? I see myself in the page, I hear speeches that have been swirling around inside my skull for decades that have never been spoken aloud. Bits and pieces show up in dialogue. One regret leads to another, one dream into the next, and a few dusty holdout hopes come creeping out of their corners. It makes the writing real but it leaves me in a sweat. What if? All these years of digging so deeply inside have left trenches and abysses. There are spots now that are like camouflaged tiger traps set with punji stakes. If I get too close I drop in and get carved up, and it takes me forever to claw my way out again.

So how’s your day going?

The Redemption of the Sandman

2009-04-16T19:19:00.002-06:00

For all friends & fans in France, and for those of you who just want to put your high school French to the test, La Rédemption du Marchand de Sable aka The Redemption of the Sandman aka The Dead Letters is available in France today. And while you're hanging around Amazon Francais, you can check out Un Choeur d'enfants Maudits aka A Choir of Ill Children as well.

Shadow Season - The Coldest Mile Contest Winner

2009-04-15T19:20:00.003-06:00

We had twenty-two entries in the SHADOW SEASON - THE COLDEST MILE contest. I scrawled each person's name on a piece of scrap paper, and with the help of my trusty sidekick Edgar Allan Poe and a piece of tape, a winner has been chosen at random.

NICK CATO, editor of the HORROR FICTION REVIEW will receive a signed, pre-advance reading copy of my next novel SHADOW SEASON, due out October 27th. This is a printed out copy of the final edited manuscript placed in one of those cheapo binders with the cover art attached. Publishers occasionally send these out extra-early to start some buzz and bring in a few early blurbs. Only about 20 of these have been done, and this is the only one that is signed by me.

My thanks to everyone who bought, read, reviewed, and help to promote my latest novel THE COLDEST MILE, the follow-up to my Edgar Award-nominated THE COLD SPOT. I appreciated all the isnightful, positive, and even critical comments.

SHADOW SEASON is the story of a blind ex-cop turned teacher at an isolated girls' school. Amid some scandalous events concerning an enamored student, he tries to struggle by with his handicap and a lot of unresolved issues dealing with his girlfriend, his dead wife, and his former partner. When a deadly blizzard hits, it brings along with it a mysterious girl and a pair of killers.

What else is doing--

TASMANIAC has accepted my latest noir novella THE LAST DEEP BREATH for an early 2010 release. More details when the Taz site is updated with ordering information. They'll also be reprinting my story "Between the Dark and the Daylight" as either additional material in the volume or as a separate chapbook.

I'll also be a guest at MO*CON this year, alongside my good pals Gerard Houarner, Linda Addison, Gary Braunbeck, Lucy Snyder, Wrath James White, and the sinister minister himself Maurice Broaddus. I've never attended before but I'm looking forward to a weekend of horror fiction, poetry & spirituality. Yes, you read that right. If you're planning to attend, make sure you step up and say hey. Or bless you. Or get thee behind me Satan. They all work.

Q & A

2009-04-08T22:56:00.004-06:00

A few questions came in during ASK ME WEDNESDAY. Thanks for the interest, folks.

Josephine asks:

Ok. How did you come to be represented by David Hale Smith, an agent who does not accept queries? A referral? Or you were already established and repped by another agent, like J. D. Rhoades was?

DHS and I worked together years ago through Write Way Publishing, a small press that brought out three of my mystery novels in the mid-90s. David was their agent and sold THE DEAD PAST and SORROW'S CROWN to Berkley for mass market paperback release. Then for about ten years afterwards I wrote horror novels and worked without an agent. When I turned my eye back towards crime fiction, most of the guys who were doing all kinds of great work in the field--Duane Swierczynski, Sean Doolittle, Victor Gischler, among others--turned out to be repped by DHS. So I contacted him and discovered he'd been keeping an eye on my career over the interim, so we started working together again.

He's the fifth agent I've had in my career and the first to ever sell something for me. The other four failed to garner any interest at all, although on my own I sold seventeen novels to the likes of Pocket Books, Leisure, and Bantam. So no, I have absolutely no advice I can give you about how to find a good agent, because it took twenty years for me to find one.

Tony Zuma asks:

W.H. Auden commented on how crime fiction follows a familiar pattern:

1) First there is peace2) Peace is shattered3) Search for wrongdoer4) Apprehension5) Punishment6) Restored Peace

Your crime novels are anything but formulaic (with the exception of the theme of revenge) and I was wondering if you can contribute your success to not following this or other established patterns in your mass market crime fiction. Are you a blank slate for every novel?

I think Auden's list is pretty accurate for my work, with the exception that none of my characters ever starts off or ends up truly at peace. And it's because I focus my energies on trying to explore that chaos of a charater's life that I think each of my novels follows its own course. Even if I do return to certain themes and plot points, it's in that confusion that I try to find exactly what sets a protagonist off on his quest and how he is stymied and suffers and may or may not eventually overcome. I don't think "blank slate" quite conveys the impetus--rather the opposite. The slate is covered over and it's how I try to weave the mess into a cohesive tale that gives the story its structure, momentum, heart, and resolution.

TT also asks: Do you prefer white or red clam sauce with linquine.

If you mean white sauce as in alfredo sauce, then I'm all about the alfredo. If you mean a garlic and butter sauce, then I've gotta go with the red clam sauce.

Keith Rawson asks:

Okay, as you know I'm a pretty big fan of your fiction and I've read just about everything of yours that's in print. And I've noticed in your novels the running themes of automobiles and dreams. So my question is, what's the deal with muscle cars and hanging with dead folks in your novels? Are you a gearhead? Do you have a vivid dream life that carries over into your writing life?

I'm about as opposite from a gearhead as you can get. I know how to start a car, where to put the gas, and maybe in a clinch I could change a tire. Other than that, I'm useless. But as a person and a writer and a 70s movie junkie I know that the Americana myth is front-loaded with on-the-road freedom and muscle car mayhem and movement. We don't just tap into what we are to find our stories, we guess at who we want to be, at what our alter-egos might be like, what they'd do in certain situations that, God willing, we never find ourselves in. So I groove on muscle cars. I can respect their power and their iconic imagery on the road and in film and in fiction. It's a way for me to bring some street value into the work. It's a way for me to dig on my own fantasies. Who doesn't want to be Steve McQueen in BULLIT? Or Peter Fonda in DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY? Or Burt Reynolds in WHITE LIGHTNING? I don't need to know shit about an engine to drop the hammer.

As for the dead folks who ride shotgun or sit in back--along with that iconic imagery comes a lot of Americana history and personal burdens. Freedom costs on the road. Who doesn't like to kick back and go for a ride and hit a righteous radio station and gun for the sun? But it's during those long lonely rides that my thoughts turn back to the folks I've lost--who might be dead or might just be distant, who might be twenty years out of reach. But they're with me in my lonely moments, and the dead and the missing are with my characters on their treks. It's a theme that reverberates with me. That sticks in my gut. So I revisit it every so often.

Anyway, in my next two novels I promise you won't get any muscle car mythos.

Stink-Eye Pete asks:

What else can you tell us about your latest "noirella" THE LAST DEEP BREATH?

It'll be another novella for Tasmaniac Publications, due out in early '10. The story follows Grey, a drifter on the search for his foster sister, who showed up for the first time in ten years with a knife in her side, then vanished without a trace. Grey winds up in Los Angeles dealing with manipulative actresses and scummy agents, hoping to find some clue as to what happened to her after she dropped out of a porn career he didn't know about.

Ask Me Wednesday

2009-04-08T11:20:00.003-06:00

Ask Me Wednesday - if you've got a question about my work, writing process, voice, style, reading habits, emotional ambivalence and indifference to just about everything these days, or anything else within reason (ah ha, there's the codicil), fire away and I'll answer right here within a day or two.

Blue April Updates

2009-04-05T11:09:00.004-06:00

I'm not sure why but I always seem to get a little blue in April. Bluer than usual. Maybe it's the shift in the weather. Here in Colorado we never know what to expect. One day will be like summer, the next we'll have a blizzard. It's hard to get your feet under you emotionally when you wake up and can't figure out if you can go for a walk with the dogs or if you need to lock all the storm windows. Plus, it's tax season, which nobody likes, especially self-employed writers who make peanuts and still have to pay through the whazoo. I'm in the middle of several different projects but can't seem to settle my head into any one of them for any great length of time. I feel anxious and a touch claustrophobic. Looks like the major snowstorm we were expecting has skirted us, so maybe I'll get out of the house later and burn off some of this edge.

Started a new "noirella" for Tasmaniac Publications, the same fine folks who brought you THE NOBODY and the forthcoming CRUEL SUMMER by my good pal, the uber-talented Matt Venne. This one will be entitled THE LAST DEEP BREATH.

Another sweet blurb has come in for SHADOW SEASON, this one from the most excellent suspense writer Robert Ferrigno. If you're not already reading his Assassin series, get moving. His latest SINS OF THE ASSASSIN is out now in paperback.

"SHADOW SEASON is a beautifully written thriller filled with heart and wit, sharp dialogue and characters you utterly believe in. A great ride."--Robert Ferrigno, author of Sins of the Assassin and The Horse Latitudes.

Also, remember, you've got until April 15th to join in on the SHADOW SEASON - THE COLDEST MILE Contest.

For National Poetry Month it looks like FAIRWOOD PRESS is having a sale on my poetry collection WAITING MY TURN TO GO UNDER THE KNIFE. Normally $27, now on sale for $20. Signed & limited to 250 copies.

Here's what JACK KETCHUM had to say about it: "I find this book remarkable on a number of levels. First, the poems themselves are tight and packed with on-target imagery — in the service of narrative. They are decidedly not obscure and read like wicked, funny, sometimes deeply troubling short stories. Then, together, they form a kind of autobiography-of-the-soul. I've never said it before about a book of poetry—but it's a real page-turner."

ITW Award nomination for "Between the Dark..."

2009-03-30T15:44:00.002-06:00

While I'm honored beyond saying at being a finalist for the International Thriller Writers Award for my short story "Between the Dark and the Daylight," I am SO not looking forward to the inevitable beatdown I'm going to get from my esteemed and kickass fellow nominees.

Thriller Awards Nominees
The International Thriller Writers proudly announces its nominees for the 2009 Thriller Awards.

BEST THRILLER OF THE YEAR
Hold Tight by Harlan Coben
The Bodies Left Behind by Jeffrey Deaver
The Broken Window by Jeffrey Deaver
The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross
The Last Patriot by Brad Thor

BEST FIRST NOVEL
Calumet City by Charlie Newton
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Criminal Paradise by Steven Thomas
Sacrifice by S. J. Bolton
The Killer's Wife by Bill Floyd

BEST SHORT STORY
Between the Dark and the Daylight (Ellery Queen Magazine) by Tom Piccirilli
Last Island South (Ellery Queen Magazine) by John C. Boland
The Edge of Seventeen (The Darker Mask) by Alexandra Sokoloff
The Point Guard (Killer Year Anthology) by Jason Pinter
Time of the Green (Killer Year Anthology) by Ken Bruen

THRILLERMASTER AWARD
David Morrell honoring his influential body of work

SILVER BULLET AWARD
Brad Meltzer for his outstanding charitable contributions

The Thriller Awards Banquet & Presentation is an event you don't want to miss. Register now for ThrillerFest 2009!Recipients will be recognized and winners announced at ThrillerFest 2009, July 8-11, Grand Hyatt, NYC. The Thriller Awards Banquet will be held Saturday July 11. For more information, registration and tickets, visit www.thrillerwriters.org.

On the Edge of The Underneath or Pumice to the Pink

2009-03-21T16:21:00.001-06:00

I read a lot of writers' blogs, and I'm surprised at how many of them talk abut always meeting their deadlines, always smoothly plotting out the work, always working non-stop for hours on end. Me, I'm here to tell you that, at least for this writer, I hit wall after wall. I fight with doubt and insecurity just about every day. I look at the work and my head spins, my heart sinks, my nerves itch. It probably happens for all of us stuck in front of the computer even on a beautiful day like today, but I'm amused by how few authors admit to it. If I didn't admit to it, I'm not sure what the hell else I'd have to blog about.

Case in point: my latest novel THE UNDERNEATH. This is the story of a young former thief named Terry who returns home to his family of professional card sharps, burglars, and grifters on the eve of his brother's execution. Five years earlier, Terry's brother, Collie, went on a night-long killing spree, murdering seven people for no reason. After leaving his family and the bent life behind, Terry returns when Collie asks him to visit him in prison. Collie admits to six of the killings, including a seven-year-old girl, but claims he's innocent of one of the murders. Why he bothers or even cares at this late date is a mystery, but Collie begs Terry to look into that single killing.

Loaded with his own baggage, Terry returns to his family and must face cops and criminals from the past. He must deal with a younger sister who runs with the wrong crowd, his feeble grandfather dying from Alzheimers, his card sharp uncles who have just cheated a local mobster.

Now, anyone who's read any of my fiction knows that the "ghosts from the past" is a major theme of my work. It's not because my own history is any more dramatic or haunting than yours or anybody else's. But the job of the writer is to constantly scratch at himself and dig up his own feelings, to pick at his scabs and sores and keep them bleeding. And it's in that running blood that he finds his conflicts and tensions and characters.

It takes a toll, this kind of self-rending. It gets me thinking about my older sister, who's mentally handicapped (or mentally disabled, or learning challenged, or whatever the new PC term is nowadays). When I was a kid I recall her growing very angry and frustrated over minor incidents. On occasion she'd lash out with incredible strength, but more often she'd wind up biting the backs of her hands. I remember my mother rubbing lotion on my sister's hands to soften the scars and calluses, and then she'd lovingly scrub them with pumice stone. Afterwards her hands would be pink and raw and shining, the outer layer of dead skin wiped away.

Maybe it's a strained metaphor, but that's how I'm feeling lately. Raw and pink and shiny, missing a few extra layers of hardshell. Some of it has to do with our current economic situation. Like many of you, I'm beating my brains out for a buck. I'm getting shanked everywhere I turn. But more than that, I think it's because each time out of the gate I try to stretch and strain myself to take my old themes and move them someplace new. To expand and expound upon them, to explore them further as my worldview and perspective shift with each passing year.

It's digging the well deeper and diverting the water. The deeper you go, the more stone you have to cut into. I'm starting to notice it more than ever before. Maybe because the last one, SHADOW SEASON, took a real toll. I had to face head-on my own terror of blindness. Not only face it, but put it to use. Laugh if you want, but I wrote most of the book with my eyes closed, imagining moment to moment, page to page, what it would be like to be blind, how frightened and enraged it would make me. It was like being frightened of heights but writing a book while sitting on the roof. The fear and anger became me, the way I became the book.

With THE UNDERNEATH there are some new pains and aches and unresolved issues to discuss. Some of them will be obvious to my readers, some won't be. Some I'll see clearly and some I won't notice until I'm nearly finished with the novel, or well after. Right now though, there's a couple of things that keep catching in my craw, putting me on edge. It makes me resist the story. The scenes meant to build tension in the reader build tension in me, and who needs that kind of shit on a sunny glorious spring day? I don't. But I still need to keep to my deadlines. I still need to face down the empty page. I still need to face my doubt and fear. I still need to punch through my own hindrance and defense. Once again I need to bring pumice to the pink and scuff another layer off.

And how was your day?

Shadow Season - The Coldest Mile CONTEST

2009-03-13T11:57:00.002-06:00

In the neverending effort to hawk wares and win vainglorious emotional validation, I'm holding my first blog contest.

THE PRIZE: From today, lucky Friday, March 13th until your favorite day of the year April 15th, you'll have a chance to win a SIGNED, PRE-ADVANCE READING COPY of my next novel SHADOW SEASON, due out October 27th. This is a printed out copy of the final edited manuscript placed in one of those cheapo binders with the cover art attached. Publishers occasionally send these out extra-early to start some buzz and bring in a few early blurbs. Only about 20 of these have been done, and this is the only one that is signed by me.

HOW TO PLAY: Simple. Buy, read, and promote the hell out of my latest novel THE COLDEST MILE, the follow-up to my Edgar Award-nominated THE COLD SPOT. (Now here is where you get to say, "Well hellooo Mr. Fancypants!") Blog about it, review it on Amazon.com or B&N.com or elsewhere, sing my well-earned praises, and then send me the link. Anybody who makes an honest effort (And I'll spot you lazy lollygaggers, oh yes I will) goes into the drawing.

If you don't already have a copy of THE COLDEST MILE you can click the handy dandy link just to the right there. I know how much it hurts that the other children keep pointing and laughing at you while holding up their copies of TCM and frolicking all about the playground. It hurts me as well. But in this case, it's okay to give in to peer pressure. Seriously. Join the cool kids.

You also might want to consider becoming a follower of this blog (i.e., A Minion in Pic's Dark Legions) so you won't miss out on other promotions, giveaways, news, and writing advice.

Now off you go--

Some Kind Words

2009-03-11T13:19:00.007-06:00

Awesome editor & writer Jeff Vandermeer recently wrote an article for Amazon.com over on Omnivoracious, where he was kind enough to inform folks that "modern noir master Tom Piccirilli brings the heat with THE COLDEST MILE." Check it out when you get the chance, and make sure you also read through Jeff's other incredibly informative posts.

Also, the great crime/thriller writer Sean Doolittle, author of THE CLEANUP and the spanking new hardcover release SAFER, was kind enough to grace me with a blurb: "Tom Piccirilli is fast becoming one of the most notable names among today’s top suspense writers. Join the growing club of Piccirilli fans and you’ll see exactly what everybody’s been talking about. . . "

Bruce Grossman over at Bookgasm gave a spanking fine review of TCM, saying that "the book fires on all cylinders, like a souped-up GTO on straightaway." Sweet.

And thanks to my wife & webmistress Michelle, there's a big update and new look to my official website.

The photo of Mitchum is because, of course, you cannot use the word noir without posting a photo of Mitchum. You know it's true. So tell me, which is your favorite Mitchum noir? OUT OF THE PAST? HIS KIND OF WOMAN? WHERE DANGER LIVES? CROSSFIRE? MACAO? THE BIG STEAL?

The Gift & the Disappointment

2009-03-09T22:04:00.003-06:00

The eight-year-old daughter that I don't have rushes into my office, leaps onto my lap, and asks me to help her with her homework. We spend a few minutes doing basic math and practicing her spelling. She's got her d's and b's switched around. She's bright and precocious and she's missing an upper tooth. She's got curly brown hair, like me, and when she zips out of the room she turns her head and her corkscrew curls bounce wildly and she says, "Thank you, Daddy." My dog, Edgar, who is real, runs after her.

I look down at my computer monitor and there's a line about a man who is fighting his friend, trying to stop him from killing someone. I fiddle with the line. I add to it. It becomes two sentences, then a paragraph. Then a page.

I head downstairs. My father, who's been dead for 35 years, is standing on my patio with a spatula in hand, occasionally flipping burgers on the grill. He looks the same as he did when he died at 46. I'm nearly as old as he is now. I have more gray in my hair than he does. I sit at the picnic table and start reading the paper and we talk about...something. I don't know what. I can't really hear him. I don't remember the sound of his voice. I remember his smile though. He's smiling now.

My mother, whose been gone 7 years, is in the kitchen making salad. She calls out to my father and asks him what kind of dressing he'd like. He doesn't respond because he's feeding Edgar one of the hotdogs he's overcooked. My daughter is beside me. She's laughing and her laughter fires through my chest and fills me so much joy that I feel like my heart will explode.

I look down at my computer monitor and there's a line about a woman turning over in bed and asking someone to kill her husband.

Edgar lies down at my feet and nestles his chin on top of my foot. I glance out the window at the back yard. The grill is cold. The patio furniture has been put away in the shed.

My daughter stands in the doorway crying. She bumped her knee. I hold her, shushing her, until she quiets. She goes to sleep in my arms. I press my nose to her hair and breathe in her scent deeply.

I'm chewing on a pen. My hands are a blur on the keypad. The next page is about a Hollywood agent trying to rip off a client.

This is how my workday goes.

Writers slip in and out of identities. We can be cops or gunmen or high-paid assassins. We can be heroes or badasses. That's where the work takes us, into our own fantasies, into romanticized notions of ourselves.

And then drops us back into our real selves. And at least one element of that fantasy is comprised of daydreams–the common and average daydreams that fill out my common and average life. The people I miss are returned to me. The ones who were never born are there for me to cuddle and protect. It's what happens when my mind wanders. I drift. I dive into the page. I call back to memory. I get swept away. Sometimes it goes so far that when I'm snapped back into myself it's something of a shock and I feel like someone's thrown cold water in my face. I suck air through my teeth like I've been holding my breath for minutes. Maybe I have. That's the power, the pain, the gift and the disappointment of trying on someone else's skin. Even if that someone else looks exactly like me.

My daughter asks if I'm busy. I tell her no. She giggles and asks me to read her a story.

My hands flash. I shut my eyes and the writing continues.

Neo-Noir, Baby

2009-03-05T17:59:00.001-07:00

The Cold books are heavily influenced by the 50s Gold Medal classic authors such as David Goodis, Charles Williams, Jim Thompson, Harry Whittington, Peter Rabe, Bruno Fischer, Gil Brewer, and Donald Westlake (Richard Stark). For those of you who don't know, Gold Medal was a paperback publisher noted especially for its crime fiction. Unless you live and breathe this kind of writing (and even if you don't, you should keep your eyes open when hanging around the secondhand shops), you've probably only heard of one or two of those names in passing.

But they were all something special back in the day–many of them massive bestsellers--and even if they're mostly forgotten now, they remain special in their own right. You've seen a lot of movies based on their books, even if you didn't know it. Their influence is felt throughout the entire mystery genre. And there's been a recent resurgence in this specific kind of noir/hardboiled material. Current authors like Charlie Huston, Duane Swierczynski, Sean Doolittle, and Ken Bruen (check The Big Adios for interviews with all these guys) have run with noirish tropes and taken them to new heights...or, more accurately put, new depths.

When I started work on THE COLD SPOT and THE COLDEST MILE I went in with the hopes of distilling just about everything I loved about the form, the themes, the action, and the humor, and pouring all of that into my own work. Creating my protagonist, Chase, who lived in the underworld of crime but still had his own code of honor, and finding out what might push his buttons. What might bring out the best in him, and the worst. And what might force him to consider breaking that code and becoming the person that he most hated in the world...his own grandfather, Jonah.

If it's one thing those classic writers knew about, it was how to keep a story moving at full-speed. I also wanted to stomp the pedal and let the engine scream. I wanted to write hardboiled but with some real heart and soul. Moments of grace and reflection. I thought it was important to have more thoughtful elements in the books to help balance the story out. It's a part of who I am and what my worldview is. Action is terrific but you need a greater context. The work has to actually be ABOUT something. I've got things I want to examine and scrutinize. Things that genuinely matter to me. The hardboiled and noir elements are there to underscore and dramatize all the other stuff. The Cold books are as much about family, loss, love, and heartache as they are about guns and scores and wheelmen. And sometimes the bloody action scenes and the emotionally-charged ones are the same.

That's one of the things I like best about the crime genre. You never know when someone is going to shake hands or pull a S&W .38. Or betray a friend or save a life. Or fall in love or dive into lifelong hatred. The whole human condition from best to worst can crop up at any second.

Fuck Outlining

2009-02-28T18:18:00.002-07:00

For all you folks on Facebook who've got me friended, you might want to check my latest UPDATE STATUS and the gentleman's discussion that's arisen from it. I'm not sure if that link will work, but if not, just head over to my page anyhow and read up on the discussion about whether to outline a novel or not. Somehow noted authors Ray Garton and John Passarella have been roped into it, with some further comments by the one and only Trey R. Barker too.

I hate outlining (in case you didn't get that from the FUCK OUTLINING title of this post). I find the process of writing to be more organic. I need to dive in and find the story as I actually make my way through the material. I've never quite understood folks who outline beforehand--whether it's a two page or ten page or, as in one case I recall when I was a first reader at an SF publishing house, a 180 page outline. I don't fully understand how you can know what the story is about before you actually write it. How do you know what your characters will do when you don't really know who the characters are? Where does the emotional context come in? Where is your personal surprise and discovery?

What do the rest of you kids think?

Fast Cars, Dark Bars, Me & Noir

2009-02-24T19:06:00.002-07:00

My latest novel THE COLDEST MILE, follow-up to my Edgar Award-nominated THE COLD SPOT, officially streets today. Amazon.com has been shipping for the past week or so. Most stores should have it in stock, but if not, you can always special order it.

I hope that everyone who gives it a go really enjoys it. Feel free to drop me a line and send me a link if you blog about it (good or bad) or do a review on Amazon.com or B&N.com. Nowadays, novels live or die by word of mouth as much as by anything else.

Some blurbs:

"[Tom Piccirilli’s] prose has the visceral punch of the best pulp writers of the past century…."—Eddie Muller, San Francisco Chronicle

"Hard-boiled crime writing ... It’s pedal to the metal for 352 pages. Don’t miss it."—Booklist

"Prepare for a journey as thrilling as it is provocative." —James Rollins, author of The Judas Strain

"Blackest noir, the most minimal kind of minimalism, and at the same time deeply emotional: this is not easy to do."—Peter Abrahams, bestselling author of Nerve Damage

"The book roars off the line with all the force and forward velocity of two tons of Detroit muscle car and never lets up on the pace. Crime novels don't get faster or grittier than this one, and in Chase, Tom has created a character who'll stick with you for years to come."–Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore

Several folks have asked merecently about what kind of process I use when writing. Whether I outline in detail or just dive in and sink or swim on my own.

For me, the process is very organic. It needs to be a journey of surprise and discovery, otherwise I don’t really see the point of writing at all. I’m here to discover something about myself, my values, what I do think, what I do mean, what I do understand of life. The only way for that to happen is to start the story and then see what new places it leads me. Once I’m on some different ground, I have a different perspective. If my perspective wasn’t always shifting, I’d just be telling the same story over and over.

I’m not sure where the need to write comes from except to say that the need to fantasize has always been with me. We all need a mixture of the world as it is and the world as metaphor, as art. A fundamental part of the human condition is to take what we know of reality and reshape it, rethink it, reimagine it. And then reapply it somehow to our own lives. When the process stalls, I get it going again by any means necessary. I have to. I pray to the great god mortgage and the only way I can pay my bills is off what I produce. The responsibilities of my life can only be attended to through my art. I can only take care of my family through my work.

Some people think that writing for money is selling out. But I’m here to tell you, kids, it’s the opposite. It means walking the wire without a net. You gamble your fate on the possibility that you can grind out another book or story no matter what. It means you have to go out and track your inspiration down and wrestle it to the floor every single day. That’s not selling out your work. That’s putting the greatest amount of faith in it. The roof over your head is at stake. The food in your mouth is at stake. Your very life is at stake.

In the Middle of My Funk

2009-02-10T11:29:00.004-07:00

A couple of nice things happened this morning while I was in the middle of a particularly cruel funk (and no, nothing really happened, I was just feeling funky). I received the first copy of THE COLDEST MILE hot off the presses. And yes, I realize how ironic it is to use "coldest" and "hot" in the same sentence, but hey, that's what writers get paid for. To use artistic license like that to make a point and call attention to ourselves.

Also got a mock-up of the cover for my next novel SHADOW SEASON, due out in October. It'll be tweaked some and have blurbs added, but as is I think it's wonderfully rendered and encompasses the same kind of atmosphere that the novel itself does. There's a bleakness to it but also a real moody beauty to it. You know you've got a good cover when you worry if the book will do the art fucking justice.

Okay, so--

Facebook has been sort of derailing me lately. I've been on there six or eight months, something like that, but it seems like everyone from my past has suddenly joined the site in the past few weeks. Old buddies, school chums, ex-girlfriends, you name it. I've got a natural inclination toward nostalgia, good and bad, and lately I can't quite keep as focused as I like to be because I'm dwelling on the past. I mean dwelling on the past even MORE than I usually do. A ton of memories have come surging in and, being the hyper-sensitive weenie that I am, I've been getting a little kicked around by it all. I've been lost in playing Let's Remember and thinking about the laughs, the heartaches, first loves, first lays, big fallouts over nothing, the wasted time, the damned and the dead, the initial call to be a writer.

So all you other funky people, does this shit happen to you? You ever hit a patch where you just can't pull yourself from the draw of the past? When your head is filled with the faces of people you haven't seen in ten or twenty or more years? Some of whom you can still reach out to and some who are long buried? What funky stuff have you been into lately?

New Interview up at THE BIG ADIOS

2009-02-07T15:23:00.003-07:00

For anyone interested, you can read a new interview with me over at THE BIG ADIOS conducted by founder/owner David T. Wilbanks. It focuses mostly on THE COLDEST MILE and the state of current affairs in the publishing biz. Hope you'll all check it out. And while you're there take time to peruse the forum a bit. It's a great place to learn about crime fiction and film from the noir/hardboiled classics to what's on the horizon.

Booklist review of THE COLDEST MILE

2009-02-02T14:17:00.002-07:00

The first review of THE COLDEST MILE is in, and it's a rave from Booklist (due out in the Feb. 15th issue, but here's a sneak peek). As a fan of classic noir Gold Medal noir fiction, the comparison to my personal literary heroes Jim Thompson and David Goodis is especially gratifying.

"Piccirilli’s latest book strips away the occult overtones associated with some of his earlier works (The Night Class won the 2002 Stoker Award) and jumps full bore into hard-boiled crime writing. This guy evokes Jim Thompson and David Goodis in the way he flays away at our illusions that there is comfort to be found in the human condition. Cranked by stolen cars and raw nerve, getaway driver Chase takes a violent cruise through the world of gangsters high and low, hoping to settle old scores with his con-man grandfather and avenge the murder of his wife. But first he needs some capital, which means a quick score. What Piccirilli’s masterfully realized protagonist gambles is his last remaining glimmer of dignity—a commodity he isn’t sure he needs or even wants. It’s pedal to the metal for 352 pages. Don’t miss it." — Elliott Swanson, Booklist

Living with Fear, Anger, Anxiety, and the Deep Need to Smack the Shit Out of Almost Everybody

2009-01-24T12:00:00.001-07:00

Okay, I admit it. I’m moody.

We all have days when we wake up edgy. Today was one of mine. Sometimes there’s a reason for it, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes you come up out of your dreams or nightmares already in the throes of an anxiety attack. I don’t get them much anymore, but when they hit they usually nail me as I’m falling asleep or just waking up. My heart is hammering and I can’t quite move yet, and my woes and worries and regrets are all melted together into one great iron anvil set down on my chest. It kind of sets the mood for the rest of the day.

So, besides being rattled off my pillows by a phone call at 7:30 am by some guy trying to sell me new windows ("But it’s not a sale, we DO NOT want your money, Tom! We want to GIVE YOU these windows! All we want you to pay for is...")...

And besides being shook out from under the covers at 7:45 by the same prick who clearly didn’t understand the implications of my saying, "FUCK YOU! DO NOT CALL BACK!" and slamming the phone down in his ear...

Besides being set on course by a panic attack about a half hour after that, no doubt due to the adrenaline already surging through my system...

Besides the fact that my wife’s credit card was hacked and maxed out by some online scammers who have the audacity to put their phone number and website right there on the cc bill...and if you hit the site you find a page that states: "If you want to know why you are being charged, put in your credit card number..."

Besides the fact that the shit economy, the closing of bookstores, and the loss of a literate culture is putting even more pressure on the publishing companies to only put out "commercial fiction" despite no one knowing what is commercial and just what might make for a major seller...

Despite my work being just about anything but commercial, and my hitting an oil slick of the spirit that has me rolling and tumbling along the open road, unsure of what direction the next book should go...

Besides the fact that after the Edgar Award nominations were announced a week or so ago I’ve seen at least three brouhahas burst out about how political awards are, how meaningless, how stupid, how discouraging, how empty, and how mercenary they are, all of which tends to overshadow my sixteen seconds in the sunshine and detract from my own Edgar nod...

Despite the fact that I just finished Sean Doolittle’s new novel SAFER and it’s brilliant and I’m green-eyed and slathering with jealousy...

Despite the fact that I just started Charlie Huston’s new bestselling novel THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH and it’s brilliant and I’m green-eyed and slathering with jealousy...

Despite today being the official start of our one-month countdown until THE COLDEST MILE hits bookstore shelves, and I’ve got that burning stomach pain of eagerness as I wait to see what fans will think of the novel...

Regardless of ALL that, I still plan to get my ass in gear, walk the dogs around the lake, smile and wave to the neighbors and strangers as well, then sit my fat ass back in the desk chair and stare at the empty page until the next part of the story slithers into my brain, creeps down through my nervous systems, fills my heart, and pumps power into my hands to type out the next word, the next sentence, the next paragraph, the next page...until the story is done and the next one begins...and the next...and the next...

So that’s where I am at the moment–

And how was your day?