Grimm Tales

"What? More?" You say, exhausted. Yes, more. Grimm Tales is here. This collection has been a long time coming and now it is finally live. The brainchild of John Kenyon, he of The Grift online zine, these tales are all inspired by the Brothers Grimm. Each author was told to pick a story and do a riff on it in the crime genre. The results are inspired. 


From the publisher: Grimm Tales is a collection of stories by some of the top names in online crime fiction, all based on classic fairy tales. As novelist Ken Bruen writes in his introduction, "Ever imagined what would have come down the dark pike if The Brothers Grimm were more Brothers Coen and wrote mystery?" The collection is edited by John Kenyon, editor of Grift magazine, and contains 17 stories by Patricia Abbott, Absolutely*Kate, Jack Bates, Eric Beetner, Nigel Bird, Loren Eaton, Kaye George, Blu Gilliand, Seana Graham, Eirik Gumeny, R.L. Kelstrom, John Kenyon, BV Lawson, Evan Lewis, B. Nagel, Sean Patrick Reardon and Sandra Seamans. 


And hey, look at the cover. Who's that there? Yep. Me. Now, while it is obvious this is an alphabetical list that only had space for three names I will take it as a badge of honor and delude myself into thinking that someone, somewhere thought my name could sell a few books.


You should know this - the publisher, Untreed reads is also the publisher behind Discount Noir. Several of the authors are featured in both collections and they have offered up a special: if you order both books from the Untreed reads website, you'll get 50% of Discount Noir! It's a great collection so get it now and get it cheap. 

And my story? It is inspired by a very familiar story, especially if you have young daughters like I do. My take on it is decidedly un-Disney however. What story did I choose? You'll have to read and find out.

Split Decision

And Split Decision is out! Don't know what it is about this December that has so many books of mine coming out but I'm not complaining. Well, I'm sure I'll think of something to complain about.


Split Decision is book #3 in the Fight Card series and I am so proud to be involved in this series. Each book is written by a different author and unified under the pseudonym of Jack Tunney. Books #1 and #2 are great reads, but there is no need to read them in order. Each is a throwback to the pulp fight novels of the 1930s and 40s. I know Felony Fists and The Cutman got it right and I only hope I did too. So far the response has been great.


Good news too is that in addition to the ebook there will be print versions with alternate covers featuring each author's own name, which is cool.

Dig Two Graves continues on with three 5-star reviews now on Amazon and an appearance on a best of 2011 list! British author Nick Quantrill (Broken Dreams and the upcoming The Late Greats) had some very nice things to say abut the book. Nick's work is one you should seek out. Get in on the start of his series because I'm sure it will be a long running one.


I was also thrilled to see One Too Many Blows To The Head still lives on and made Nigel Bird's Best of 2011 list. Sure the book is older but all that matters is that it is new to you and I'm glad Nigel enjoyed it so much.


I noticed that on the Dig Two Graves amazon page under the 'customer's also bought' (which I always love to see) that Borrowed Trouble and One Too Many were both in the mix. Hey, this is working the way it's supposed to. Someone reads a book, they like it, they seek out your other work. I'm thrilled to see the older books get a chance. I'm still so fond of them. And I know I'm speaking of them like they're in a retirement home but sometimes in the book world two years might as well be retirement age for a book.


Anyway, I'll be trying to blog around in guest spots and I'm enjoying my end of December not writing a thing (other than publicity stuff). I definitely like writing books better than sales pitches. Back to it soon.

Dig Two Graves trailer

So I made a little trailer for Dig Two Graves. I know book trailers don't do squat for sales, but I had fun and it keeps my filmmaking muscles flexed, even when I only have a half hour to make something like with this. It makes me laugh anyway. Pass it around if you like it, put it on your own site, send it to your grandma. The point is, get it out there.

Start digging

Today my novella Dig Two Graves hit the digital world courtesy of Snubnose Press. I'm proud and honored to have them on my side as this book makes its way in the world. We didn't do a special thanks page but if I had it would have thanked:

 Jennifer Busskohl for early reading and not being shocked.
Brian Lindenmuth for taking it on and giving great notes. Yes, I even changed the ending for him.
To Sean Doolittle and Scott Phillips for giving great blurbs that humble me.
And to Sean Doolittle again for giving some 11th hour notes that made the book that much better. Thanks for not holding your tongue.

Thanks also to everyone who helped spread the word today. I'll try not to be too obnoxious with the self-promo but if anyone is going to know about this book I need to start the ball rolling. Hopefully others keep it moving downhill from there.

And Off The Record continues out there with every sale providing money to children's reading charities. Don't be a tightwad. What, you don't want kids to read? If they don't start now, who is going to buy my books about prison blowjobs when they grow up? Come on! (the new 5-star Amazon review singles out my story, California Dreamin' as "fabulous")

As a bonus, Keith Rawson has foolishly offered to give away a copy of him amazing short story collection, The Chaos We Know (also from Snubnose) with proof of purchase for Dig Two Graves. Take the fool for all he's worth! And damn, that collection is worth it.

Cavalcade of covers!

With so much work coming out in the next month (not sure how that happened) I have been seeing and also creating covers for the books and now they are almost all done.

First up is my own design for Dig Two Graves, my novella with Snubnose Press that be will out very, very shortly. See the post below for that one.
The cover for my entry into the Fight Card series is in. Check this baby out! and then check out the first two books in the series, Felony Fists and Cutman. (yes they are all written by "Jack Tunney", but using that pen name are some fantastic writers like Paul Bishop, Mel Odom and soon Gary Phillips and more!)

Next up are two antholgies that are going to be great. First is Grimm Tales out from Untreed Reads (who also put out Discount Noir) Then there is Off The Record, a collection of song-themed short stories to benefit charity. It's a great collection of authors and I can't wait to read all the stories.

I need to get approval to post those covers but they both look great.

Of course I'll let you know when they are all available for purchase. In time for Christmas, that much I know!

Final Drafts and more Final Drafts

Whew! I know I have been absent from any short story sites, or much of anything lately. I do have work to show for my head-down work ethic. Just handed in my second final draft in a week. Two different project each coming out by the end of the year.
Now to turn back to the novel I finished but need to clean up/rewrite/polish.
For a little fun break I have the Men of Mystery one day conference this weekend. Should be a fun time. Lawrence Block is the keynote speaker so I am looking forward to that for sure.

One of the drafts I handed in is for my entry in the Fight Card series that has just launched with two great novellas by Paul Bishop and Mel Odam, writing as Jack Tunney, as I will be soon. These are short, fast throwbacks to 40s and 50s boxing pulps and I have been lucky enough to read both books in advance and they are great. So up my alley I am incredibly pleased to have been invited along for the ride. I really hope my entry, Split Decision, holds up the standard. I will say that Paul Bishop (who invited me to play) said in his feedback on my first draft gave me the best compliment I bet I'll ever get when he said, "Made me feel like I was reading a vintage Gold Medal original." Yeah, so I'm happy with it.


The other project is my Novella for Snubnose press, Dig Two Graves. Below is a sneak peek at the cover. I'm 3 for 3 in designing my own covers after designing but not painting One Too Many Blows To The Head and doing all of Borrowed Trouble. (Split Decision will be someone else). Once it comes out I'll post my other design ideas and you can tell me if we chose the right one. Maybe time to hang out my shingle for cover design work. Like I need another job to do at night...

On a hot streak

I'll dispense with the usual apology for not posting more and get right to the reasons.
Finishing drafts of a number of projects. The novella Dig Two Graves comes out soon on Snubnose Press. By the end of November if all proceeds as planned.
My other novella, Split Decision is set for December. More on that later.
Almost done with this novel that I love. Jennifer and I have finished our new collaboration and are waiting to hear the response.
But really, I've been reading. Damn, have I been reading. Flush from Bouchercon with a stack of new books I dug in and got lucky enough to get a few advances thrown my way. I'm here to tell you, some hot stuff coming your way soon.
First off, one that is out now is Already Gone by John Rector. I completely adored Rector's last book The Cold Kiss and Already Gone did not disappoint as a follow up. A white knuckle ride, all the cliches. Anyone who knows me knows that the quality I most admire in a book is not knowing what is coming next and Already Gone spun out of control so fast I could not keep up let alone try to predict what was coming next. Fantastic.

The there is Abide With Me from Ian Ayris. Ian is British and I've been a fan of his shorts for a while now. Ian stood out to me as having a very distinct voice. Very British and one I could always hear in my head as I read, you know? I was thrilled to hear he had a novel coming out and I was so keen to have one I ended up slipping through the Amazon cracks and ended up accidentally with a copy of the book a full five months (I think) before it comes out. Since I told Ian I got one in the mail they have stopped the presses and no more will be let loose in the wild until the actual release date.

Well, keep your eyes out for that because Abide With Me is one you will want to add to your list. I guess technically it is a novella. It's short anyway, but it reads very deeply. It is a crime story of sorts, but really it is quite a bit more and the crime tag will do it a disservice. It is a finely drawn character study of two young men in a working class British neighborhood growing up in the turbulent 70s and 80s.

John, our narrator, is a fully realized character with flesh on his bones and blood in his veins. The details and finely drawn characters let me immerse myself in a world I don't know at all but completely understood through the writing.
And then that voice! Ayris creates a world of language that transported me. And isn't that what fiction is all about? John's simple street language isn't fancy but it fits the character. Whenever I would dig into Abide With Me, I left Southern California and was dropped into a rain-soaked neighborhood of row houses and school yards, prisons and football pitches. I didn't always know what John was saying, though the slang became more clear as I went along and I feel like I could hold my own if I was dropped in a London suburb tomorrow. Sure, there's too much soccer...I mean football. But that is the world of Abide With Me and I wouldn't change a thing.
It really isn't until the last third that it becomes a true crime novel and by that point you have such an investment in the characters that what they go through in the finale is that much more heartbreaking.
It's literary, it's crime, it uses the word 'fuck' more than anything I've ever seen in my life. It is so much more than what the 150 page count will make you expect. Expect to be moved and taken to a whole different world that is as real as your own.

Then is Hell On Church Street by Jake Hinkson. I won't spoil my upcoming review in Criminal Element but suffice to say this book was one I'd been looking forward to and that is usually a set up for a big fall. Hell On Church Street was not a disappointment by any stretch. It may well be my favorite book of the year. This one is a keeper for a long time. I'll re-read it for sure and this one is going to be getting a lot of copies given out as gifts by me. It deserves to be a blockbuster and next time anyone asks what is a book that is exactly what I love about crime fiction, this is the one I'll tell them about. I could go on, and I will at Criminal Element. It comes out in December. Get it.

Yikes. Been a while.

The trouble with having multiple places on the web to say things, share things and write things is that my own site gets neglected. Its hard enough for me to talk about myself at all so I tend not to do it in more than one place at a time.
But I do have more and more stuff out there.

First, I'm blogging officially for Criminal Element.

So all the lost posts that would go here have gone there where way more people will see them. I've done pieces on Breaking Bad, Mickey Spillane, Tom Waits and even my Boucheron recap. Swing by and leave a comment. I love comments.
I have a new story up at The Flash Fiction Offensive. It's been a while since I've had a short story out there so I'm grateful to David for accepting this one. I quite like the way it turned out.
I just turned in another story for a new anthology. That will be out later this year. Grimm Tales is still coming soon and until then John Kenyon can tide you over with his all-new Grift magazine.

D*cked is out, Pulp Ink is still going strong. Dig Two Graves is coming soon. Sheesh. Sick of me yet?
The Crime Factory:  The First Shift anthology is stellar. And hey, I'm not in it. Read without risk of overexposure. Seriously though, some great, great stuff inside.

And this coming Sunday October 9th is the second Noir at the Bar L.A. featuring Pamila Payne, Jimmy Callaway, Matthew C. Funk, Lisa Brackmann and Christ Faust! What a lineup.
So come one, come all and bring a friend.

Sign here

It was only a matter of time before someone figure it out, and thankfully the guy who did decided to put it out there for free. I signed up for Kindlegraph so if anyone out there wants a digital "signature" of a Kindle edition of anything I've written, just look me up. I apologize for my sloppy digital signature but my mouse skills are not the greatest, then again if anyone has my real signature, you might not be able to tell the difference. Legibility is not my strong suit.

Shockingly to me, as soon as I signed in I had a request waiting. It may be the only Kindlegraph I ever sign but it was nice to get one so quickly.

More stuff to sell

That's right, on the heels of the amazing Pulp Ink collection comes D*CKED, the most twisted idea for an anthology I have ever heard of, let alone been a part of.

Yep, dark fiction inspired by ex-VP Dick Cheney. And that's me in there alongside PATRICIA ABBOTT, CAMERON ASHLEY, JEDIDIAH AYRES, GREG BARDSLEY, TONY BLACK, KEN BRUEN, JIMMY CALLAWAY, RACHEL CANON, HILARY DAVIDSON, JASON DUKE, BILL FITZHUGH, MATTHEW C. FUNK, HARRY HUNSICKER, SCOTT PHILLIPS ,KEITH RAWSON ,MARK RICHARDSON, AL RISKE, MARCUS SAKEY, KIERAN SHEA, OWEN SMITH, STEVE WEDDLE


Can you believe that? I'm in the midst of all that talent.  Mssrs. Bardsley, Ayres and Shea are the masterminds behind it and I am grateful to them for inviting me to the table. It was a difficult assignment. I started three different stories. I quite like the one I ended up with. A very unexpected narrator. A first for me, that's for sure.


D*CKED is out as a real book and now has both Kindle and Nook versions. As with Pulp Ink, this is a collection well worth your time and a few dollars. Just when you think you've recovered from the scorching Pulp Ink gave you, get some seriously dark fiction and a few laughs from D*CKED.