It's Almost Here!

Bitter Water Blues returns to print in just one month. Monday, March 19 is BWB Day (according to me, anyway). To celebrate, Down & Out Books is offering a couple of deals:

Pre-order the e-book, and get it for just $3.99. The regular price is $7.99.

If you pre-order the paperback ($17.95), you get the e-book free.

This is the DEFINITIVE edition of Bitter Water Blues, with past errors corrected. Don't miss out on the change to get it at a special price.

Covered

Though I like the new one best, all three editions of Bitter Water Blues have benefited from having cool covers.

This is the cover of the Snubnose Press e-book, the first time Joey Kotex made it into print. Cover by the mighty Eric Beetner.

Then there was the 280 Steps paperback and e-book.

And, of course...

Braaaiiinnnsss!

I love Peter Muise's New England Folklore blog. Here's a link to his most recent post. If you're into folklore, history, and weirdness, you should pay him a visit.

New Cover Reveal: BITTER WATER BLUES.

Here it is: the new cover for the reissue of Bitter Water Blues. My thanks to Eric Campbell and Lance Wright at Down and Out Books for designing such a cool and classic-feeling cover. You can almost smell the bourbon and blood.

Bitter Water Blues returns to print in paperback and e-book editions on March 19, 2018.

Hey. How've you been?

Three years since I added anything new to this blog. A lot happened in that seemingly short amount of time.

In January 2015, at a time when I was absolutely out of my head, Bitter Water Blues was published as an e-book by Snubnose Press. It spent more than 22 consecutive weeks on Amazon's "Top 100 Noir Books for Kindle" list, peaking at #13. Not bad. Snubnose was unable to release a paperback, so we parted ways amicably, and I hooked up with another publisher, who shall remain nameless (he's currently serving a lengthy prison sentence, and may he rot there).

My wife and I decided to split up after 25 years of marriage. We divorced last May, but remain close friends. She'll always been an important part of my life. I moved twice. I started putting my head back together. My kids got older. I now have one daughter in her sophomore year of college, and the other is in 8th grade. They both possess writing and artistic talent that makes me proud and envious at the same time. My youngest is also becoming a fine pianist and composer.

In October 2016, 280 Steps published a reprint of Bitter Water Blues in e-book and the first-ever paperback edition. And, in March 2017, 280 Steps went out of business and Bitter Water Blues went out of print, along with their entire catalog.

Now, thanks to the perspicacious bad-asses at Down and Out Books, Bitter Water Blues is coming back in a big way. The paperback and e-book reissue will be released on March 19, 2018. I'm beyond excited about this. Down and Out publishes some of the best crime fiction you'll find anywhere.

Check back here tomorrow (11/02/17) to see the new cover. It's fucking beautiful.

The AJ Hayes Memorial Writing Contest at Do Some Damage

http://dosomedamage.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-aj-hayes-memorial-writing-contest.html?spref=fb&m=1

Mid-Coast Halloween Reading: Jen Blood, Katherine Silva and Patrick Shawn Bagley

This is going to be an excellent reading with two talented writers, plus...um, me! Two out of three ain't bad, and they're not even charging admission. So if you're in the mid-coast Maine area on October 24, I hope to see you there.

Breath & Shadow

Ability Maine is a nonprofit organization which advocates for the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities. They also produce a blogzine called Breath & Shadow, which spotlights writing by many of the people they support. Each issue brings some excellent poetry, nonfiction, flash fiction, short stories, essays and reviews. The Spring 2013 issue features hard-hitting piece of flash fiction by William Ward called "The Jungle." Check it out today. You won't be disappointed. You might even see things from a new perspective.

It's Almost Reapin' Time

As the release date for his third novel (The Big Reap) draws closer, Chris F. Holm reflects on the writing life.

WWEAPD (What Would Edgar Allan Poe Do)?

 

The Mystery Writers of America have announced the winners of the 2013 Edgar Awards.

 

 

 

BEST NOVEL

 

 

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane (HarperCollins Publishers – William Morrow)

 

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR

The Expats by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishers)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL

The Last Policeman: A Novel by Ben H. Winters (Quirk Books)

BEST FACT CRIME

Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted

the Last Days of Old China by Paul French (Penguin Group USA – Penguin Books)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL

The Scientific Sherlock Holmes: Cracking the Case with Science and Forensics

 

by James O’Brien (Oxford University Press)

BEST SHORT STORY

"The Unremarkable Heart" – Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance

by Karin Slaughter (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company – Mulholland Books)

1

BEST JUVENILE

The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishing Worldwide - Hyperion)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY

“A Scandal in Belgravia” – Sherlock, Teleplay by Steven Moffat (BBC/Masterpiece)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD

"When They Are Done With Us" – Staten Island Noir

by Patricia Smith (Akashic Books)

GRAND MASTER

Ken Follett

Margaret Maron

RAVEN AWARDS

Oline Cogdill

Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore, San Diego & Redondo Beach, CA

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD

Akashic Books

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD

(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, May 1, 2013)

The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan (Forge Books)

A Start (Maybe)

Here's something I wrote last night, trying to set a mood. I don't where this piece might go, but it feels like an okay start.

Two years working on Elman Luce’s farm and Doyle had never once set foot in the old man’s house.  Now here he was, sitting at the kitchen table across from his boss while Mrs. Luce busied herself with fixing supper.  Doyle took in the cross-stitched Bible verses hung between the windows, the linen calendar, the electric range sitting next to the old wood-fired cook stove, the handmade oven mitts and the linoleum floor—spotless except for small black burns where someone had been careless when emptying the stove of coals and ashes.  It was house so unlike his own; even though he’d been asked in, he felt like an intruder.

Luce stared at the table, rubbing with his thumb at a worn spot in the Formica top.  The old man blew through his nose and pushed himself up from the table, lumbered over to a cupboard from which he took a bottle of whiskey that sat on a high shelf.  The bottle was mostly full.  With his wife scowling at him, Luce poured some into two tumblers and handed one to Doyle.

A cold feeling seeped through Doyle’s guts.  Elman Luce’s stinginess with liquor was just as legendary as Mrs. Luce’s hatred of the stuff. Whatever the old man had to tell Doyle, it wasn’t going to be a joke.

Taking Attendance

Twenty-four people visited this blog today.



Weird.

The Insubordinate Melissa Falcon

Take a look at this blog post by my friend Melissa Falcon.

Been a Long Time Since I Rock and Rolled...

A quick glance at the sidebar will show you I haven't published a story since 2009. That's not much of a hiatus by Charles Portis's standards, sure, but it's one hell of long time for a writer who was considered to be up-and-coming.

So what happened?

Stuff. Stuff happened. I fired my agent. Then I stopped writing for a while.

No, that's not quite true. I've been writing every day, often for hours at a stretch. But that's part of my day job. See, I supervise two homes for adults with cognitive disabilities. My work entails writing behavior plans, support plans, reports, protocols, etc. There are meetings, budgetary considerations, staff to train and manage. I teach Mandt. I work as an agency investigator for Adult Protective Services, which also requires mucho writing. I love my job and plan to stick with it for a long, long time.

So what about fiction, all the short stories I wanted to write? What about novels? What about Bitter Water Blues?

I'm working on a couple of short stories set in Wesserunsett, though I'm not sure where they're going. I've started a new novel that is, well...pretty fucking weird. And I'm having a blast writing it (hat tip to Chris F. Holm; he knows why).

As for Bitter Water Blues, that one has become my "trunk novel." Sort of. I'm currently rewriting sections of it as a novella called The Ballad of Hag & Earl. It is some of the nastiest, grittiest country noir you'll ever see. And you will see it. The rest of it is probably best left buried and forgotten.

I've learned a lot about making time for the writing I want to do, as opposed to using my day job as an excuse for avoiding it. Will I regain that up-and-comer status of just a few years back? I sure as hell hope so. I want to get back there and then hit the next level. And I hope you're all still interested enough to read my new stuff when it comes out.

Thanks for being cool and hanging around.

My Favorite Reads of 2011

Over at Pulp Pusher, I named Frank Bill's Crimes in Southern Indiana as my favorite book of 2011.  Now, I'd like to mention a few other books that I think were among last year's best.

The Adjustment by Scott Phillips.  Post-war America as experienced by a jaded veteran with a penchant for hookers, booze and putting the hammer down on anyone who crosses his boss...until the boss fucks with him. 

Choke Hold by Christa Faust.  Angel Dare is back.  'Nuff said.  Read it.

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock.  This one made me feel the same as when I first read William Gay.  Violent.  Sad.  Gut-wrenching.  I read it twice.

Road Rules by Jim Winter.  I'm not much of an e-book guy, but Road Rules was worth a bit of eye-strain.  Winter has served up a tasty slice of gonzo noir.

El Gavilan by Craig McDonald. This might be 2011's most relevant crime novel.  The battle over immigration rages through a small Ohio city.  I don't know of any other writer who had tackled the issue in such a clear-eyed, compelling manner. 

As Noir As It Gets

Poets are sick.

Sick.

Every fucking one of them, going all the way back to Homer—and still countless generations before that blind old fart set the standard for Western literature, some Cro-Mag with a rancid animal hide swaddling his junk stood up beside a campfire and wove stories about a great hunt or the cruelty of gods or the downright fun of slamming a handaxe into your enemy’s face.

Get it now?

Poets are bat-shit crazy because more than anyone else, they feel the power of words.

And poetry is the world’s oldest form of storytelling.

Embrace these simple concepts and we'll get along just fine.

Which brings me to volume four of The Lineup: Poems on Crime.

As someone who had a small hand in shaping the first two anthologies, I’m proud to say The Lineup gets better every year. This time around, we see a man haunted by war crimes (Reed Farrel Coleman’s “Slider, Part 7”), a woman getting revenge on her dead lover’s ex-wife (Germaine Welch’s “Houston Oil Man Missing”), the cold lives of prostitutes (“Street Girls: Selected Memories” by Stephen Jay Schwartz) and the beginning of a rape victim’s endless nightmare (J.D. Smith’s “From a Deposition”). Kieran Shea (“In Oaxaca, 2006”) and Keith Rawson (“A Story to Tell Our Daughter”) deliver the goods, too. From Ken Bruen, whose novels are epic noir poetry disguised as prose, we get “Funeral: Of the Wino”:

For far too long
I’d lived
a lithium above despair.

Which brings me back around to my point about poets being sick.

These poems are as noir as it gets, buddy. Each one is a distillation of pain, greed, loss, false hope, betrayal, desperation and death. The poets themselves are hard men and dangerous women. The difference between them and the rest of the tribe? The poets don’t turn away from the darkness. Poets don’t flinch.

Crime poetry seeks an understanding of what drives us to rob, cheat, torture and kill each other. Some of the stories in The Lineup are true. Others are made up. But every one of them is real. Editors Gerald So, Reed Farrel Coleman, Sarah Cortez and Richie Narvaez have put together a crew of poets who aren't fucking around. Charles Bukowski would have felt right at home in these pages. Not to mention Johnny Cash and Bon Scott.

Poets are sick.

And it's a good fucking thing for all of us.

The Obligatory Top Ten List

I actually got a request for this, which means at least one person is still following the blog. So, it's time to list my favorite down-and-dirty crime reads of 2010. Most of these were new releases, but a couple of the books came out in 2009. Hey, my list = my rules. Ya gotsa problem widdat?

These are in no particlar order, but I will say that Benjamin Whitmer's Pike was my absolute favorite novel of the year. To paraphrase the great Nigel Tufnel: "It's like how much more noir could it be? And the answer is none. None...more noir." If you haven't read Pike yet, do yourself a favor and snag a copy right away. Rural noir at its hardscrabble finest.

Okay, now for the rest of the list:
The Ghosts of Belfast (aka The Twelve) by Stuart Neville
Kings of the Earth by John Clinch
Young Junius by Seth Harwood
Criminal Volume 5: The Sinners by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
A Bad Day for Pretty by Sophie Littlefield
Thunder Beach by Michael Lister
The Deputy by Victor Gischler
The Devil by Ken Bruen (even though the supernatural aspect felt out of place)
Nobody's Angel by Jack Clark

Discuss...

In Which the Errant Writer Returns, However Briefly

Eight months without a blog post. And yet--somehow--the world keeps on doing its collective thing. So just for the record, I'm not dead and I didn't go off to walk the Earth like Cain in Kung Fu.

Or is it Kane? I dunno.

Even though it's been quiet here, I've had plenty to keep me busy: promotions at work, trips to camp, parting ways with my agent and getting turned down by another, revisions and even some new writing.

New writing?

Oh, yeah. I've been working on nasty little bit of country noir that's almost ready to rear its ugly head. Ever seen road-kill used as a boxing glove? Yep, I went there.

And I'm reading.

Lots of reading.

Always reading.

If there was one thing guaranteed to piss off my old man, it was the sight of me sitting down with a book. But he was a prick and I hardly spoke a word to him during the last ten years of his life. So there you go. To this day, I just can't bring myself to trust anyone who dislikes books.

So read something.

I'll be back later.

Chris Holm Springs into Action

I'm not a regular reader of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, but I do pick it up whenever it featured work by writers whose work I admire. Like Chris F. Holm. He writes memorable short fiction and it's only a matter of time before some publisher snaps the two novels he's completed so far.


The May 2010 issue of AHMM kicks off with Chris' latest story, "Action." If you enjoy Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder* series of novels and short stories, then "Action" is your bag, baby. It's a funny, fast-paced heist story. The May AHMM is on the newsstands now, so rush on out and buy a copy.


*Bonus points if you can spot Chris' little tip o' the hat to the late MWA Grand Master.

Deep Thoughts from Tough Guys: The Blacklin County Leads the Way Edition

The saddest words of all were "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
--from Of All Sad Words, copyright 2008 by Bill Crider