Is This Thing Still On?

*Taps microphone* Okay good, so let’s get on with this, I’ve got to be back in Marrakesh by midnight. Actually I don’t, but having to go wash the car and do all those other Sunday chores doesn’t sound nearly as exciting so I’m going to stick with the Marrakesh thing.  

The first three months of this year have seen me—or rather they haven’t seen me—taking a step back from the virtual world of blogs and social media. Delmore Schwartz once said, “Time is a fire in which we burn”, and that’s certainly part of it. But maybe Charles Bukowski put it more succinctly when he said, “I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.” Either way, I have been using the extra 10 or 12 hours a week I gained when I stopped scrolling through the cat pictures on Facebook to write a novel, and in between the usual moments of anxiety and crippling self doubt it’s been going pretty good. I have also managed to pen a short story for the next Zemler Pulp issue, but more on that nearer the time.

In other news I have got the rights back to my long awaited (at least by me) crime novella, Nevada Thunder. In the end things just didn’t work out with the publisher. No harm, no foul, just one of those things. I am currently talking with a new publisher and I’m pretty excited about what might result from this.

I don’t plan on putting out many short stories this year and I have turned down a fair number of offers to contribute to anthologies etc. so that I might concentrate on the work in progress, having said that I do have a few pieces out right now. As I previously mentioned I’m in DINER STORIES: OFF THE MENU recently released by Mountain State Press, with a new piece entitled Mary’s Place. This story is one of my personal favorites and is my own little love letter to all those great mom & pop diners that are sadly no more.   

Next up is ‘Last Exit’, which has just gone live at David Cranmer’s excellent BEAT TO A PULP webzine. This is my take on old school Noir, a story of rain swept streets and lost love out for revenge. Last Exit first appeared in Zelmer Pulp's, MAYBE I SHOULD JUST SHOOT YOU IN THE FACE, which has been our most popular issue to date and is still available for the princely sum of 99c (hint, hint).

Finally, I’m delighted to have ‘Long Time Gone’, a brand new crime story about a father trying to do right by his daughter in the latest edition of DARK CORNERS. Editor-in-chief, Craig McNeely has once again proved beyond any doubt that we are living in a new golden era of pulp fiction. He has put together another fantastic issue with a wide variety of stories in different genres. The one common theme being they are all from outstanding writers, including one by my brother-from-another-mother, Ryan Sayles.

 
So there you have it. That’s my 2015 so far in a nutshell; well the writerly part of it anyway. I’d love to stick around and shoot the shit some more, but you know how it is, Marrakesh awaits. Stay classy people, I’ll see you further on up the road.

                                                                                                                                   

Roadkill Review: The Axeman of Storyville by Heath Lowrance

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The Year is 1921 and Gideon Miles has left the badlands of Wyoming for a new life in New Orleans. The retired US Marshall is now running a swinging nightclub in the heart of the city, where the jazz is always hot and the beer served ice cold. Miles may be on the wrong side of sixty, but when the town’s prostitutes are targeted by a vicious axe murderer, he once again finds himself on the trail of killer.

Heath Lowrance is the man in charge of Edward A. Grainger’s character in this taught and exciting thriller. His evocative rendering of The Big Easy in the roaring twenties provides a wonderful backdrop to the grizzly murders being investigated by Miles.

Many will be familiar with the real life and still unsolved axe murders that took place in New Orleans during 1918. Lowrence has taken these events and skillfully woven his fictional narrative around them. The end result is a tightly written novella, which is never found wanting for either pace or plot. Highly Recommended.

Roadkill Review: Manhunter's Mountain by Wayne Dundee

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Manhunter’s Mountain is a novel or perhaps more accurately a novella, featuring Edward A. Grainger’s outlaw marshal, Cash Laramie. This time Wayne Dundee is the word slinger holding the reins.

Cash Laramie is in the small mining town of Silver Gulch, hot on the trail of the fugitive Lobo Ames. It’s a race against time to get Ames and get off the mountain before snow closes the pass. The Marshall gets his man alright, but that’s only part of the problem. Winter is hard in Silver Gulch and Cash isn’t the only one desperate to get out. Faye and Little Red are the town’s only entertainment and by agreeing to take them with him, Cash doesn’t exactly endear himself to the locals.

This is a strong, gritty story with plenty of action. While I’ll admit to preferring Edward Grainger’s own take on Cash, Wayne Dundee delivers a solid narrative. The pace never lets up and there are some great set piece showdowns.

Cash Laramie and his sometimes partner Gideon Miles are inspired creations. They are exactly the kind of hard, edgy characters I love to read and to write. For me, their brand of rough justice always makes for a fine hard-boiled western.