Check 'em out, Folks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.