Ed Gorman's Blog, page 22

"This is a western written for grownups"-PW Gorman westerns $1.99

running through 10/21/2015.  Westerns $1.99


GUILD

"A disturbing and memorable western." The Roundup

"One of the best western writers of our time." Rocky Mountain News

"No one turns out a better western novel than Ed Gorman." Western Reviews

"Another terrific hardboiled Western from the master of the form. It is dark, moody, and real. As with all of Gorman's novels it is the little things that makes it shine: every day life in a mid-West town in the 19th century, the fears, anger, the joy and grief. It is a notch above most Westerns, and a superbly entertaining novel." Gravetapping




DEATH GROUND
"This is a western for grown-ups, written in a lean, hardboiled style that should appeal to readers who "don't read westerns." In the waning years of the frontier, in an unnamed territory, bounty-hunter Guild celebrates a joyless 54th birthday in a brothel. Guild is acting as bodyguard for Merle Rig, a very unpleasant man who is soon murdered, along with a teenager whom Guild had reluctantly hired as an assistant. Suspicion points to Kriker, a notoriously violent mountain man, bank robber and leader of a secluded settlement of former low-lifes. The laconic Guild, carrying his own personal guilt about a dead child, sets out to bring Kriker to justice, accompanied by the nasty Bruckner brothers, sheriff's deputies. Kriker, meanwhile, is nursing his adoptive daughter, using a "granny woman's" folk medicine that is useless against what turns out to be cholera. Gorman ( Guild and the Jack Dwyer mysteries) uses the period setting effectively and draws his characters with a deft hand."  Publisher's Weekly

Forgotten Books: The Luck of Ginger Coffey by Brian Moore

The Luck of Ginger Coffey by Brian Moore

When I was but a lad I read an interview with Graham Greene in which the master said that “Brian Moore is my favorite living novelist.” Who? I’m afraid that the “Who?” still pertains today. Despite accolades from every conceivable quarter Brian Moore never came close to getting the readership he deserved, this despite seeing at least three of his novels turn into well-received feature films and TV movies.

He is a literary dazzler of the highest order. After I’ve pistol-whipped somebody into agreeing to read one of his books, I generally hand them a copy of The Luck of Ginger Coffey, a novel I’ve read at least ten times in forty-some years.

The situation is this: as long as he was in the Army, Irisher James Francis Coffey was all right. His life was laid out for him. But when Coffey (much like Moore himself) takes his wife Veronica and their daughter and moves to Montreal he fails at a series of jobs he considers beneath him (John D. MacDonald did the same thing—he said bosses resented him telling them how to run their businesses after he’d been there two days). His various failures have taken their toll on his marriage. Veronica can’t take any more of his daydreams. (He will be Somebody by God.)

A man named Gerry Grosvenor befriends him and gets him a job as a proofreader. Coffey promises Veronica that he’ll take this only until his “break” comes along. In other words he’ll quit or get fired soon as he usually does. She leaves him, taking her daughter and the little money Coffey has, and flees to Gerry Grosvenor.

We then follow the disintegration of James Francis Coffey in a country not his own wandering lost in the pipe dreams he’s had since childhood. Hilarious, brutal, sad, loving, we watch Coffey try to face reality while winning back his wife. We’ve all known Coffeys; a fair share of us WERE Coffeys in our twenties. But, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, if you use a type then your burden is to turn him or her into a true person. And what a person Coffey is, so vividly alive that half the book you want to get your hands around his throat and squeeze real real tight; and the other half buy him a beer and say for God’s sake, man, and start talking to him as if you were his father. Now cut out the bullshit, Coffey. For your sake and for your poor little daughter’s.

This book is so elegantly written, so perfectly conceived and rendered that I hold it as a marvel of novel writing. If you’ll give it a chance, I think you’ll agree with me.

By the way, this became a fine motion picture with Robert Shaw as Coffey (a bit older than Coffey in the novel but excellent casting nonetheless) and the wonderfully wistful Mary Ure.

By The Way #2 Brian Moore wrote two at least two Gold Medal novels and one Dell in his hungriest days. Somewhere between them he published The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne which won a number of notable European literary prizes. He got the awards but no money to speak of so he went back to paperbacking.

Wreath for a Redhead (1951) (U.S. title: Sailor's Leave)
The Executioners (1951)
French for Murder (1954) (as Bernard Mara) GM
A Bullet for My Lady (1955) (as Bernard Mara) [3] GM
This Gun for Gloria (1957) (as Bernard Mara) GM
Intent to Kill (1957) (as Michael Bryan)

Gravetapping: Publicity Push The Robert Payne Novels

Gravetapping




Posted: 16 Sep 2015 06:00 AM PDTEd Gorman is the definition of a professional writer. He has written dozens of novels in several genres—mystery, western, science fiction. His work has earned him The Eye for lifetime achievement from the Private Eye Writer’s Association, an Anthony, a Spur, and the International Writers Award.
I n 1994 Mr. Gorman introduced a series character named Robert Payne—former FBI psychological profiler turned consultant—in Blood Moon . The series ran four books; each set in Iowa. Click the title of each book to be taken to its Amazon page .
“Crime writing veteran Gorman…evokes the closed-in atmosphere of small towns in this promising series launch that features modern psychological crime fighting by a winning detective.” – Publishers Weekly on Blood Moon
“Payne belongs to the hard-boiled detective school, but Gorman gives him an appealing softer side by detailing his loving relationship with live-in girlfriend Felice, by showing his attention to a young girl with cerebral palsy and by examining his ambivalent feelings for his dying stepfather. The prolific Gorman delivers another smooth page-turner with top-notch mystery production values.” – Publishers Weekly on Harlot’s Moon
Blood Moon  .
Publisher’s description . Former FBI agent and psychological profiler Robert Payne is on the trail of a serial killer. A 12 year old girl has been murdered and mutilated, and the detective assigned to the case wound up dead. Now Nora Conners, the girl's wealthy mother, has hired Payne to solve the murder and bring closure. After narrowing his search to three men, a televangelist, a honey salesman, and an art teacher, all living in the small Iowa town of New Hope, Payne begins to narrow the field, posing as a journalist. That's just the start. As the daughter of one of the suspects joins the list of victims, and the woman who hired him is murdered, Payne finds himself on a race to solve the case before he himself is implicated. 
First paragraph . First day of incarceration, there’s a killing.
Hawk Moon  . 

Publisher’s description . Two beautiful Indian women are found dead with their noses cut off—an old Indian practice to punish infidelity—in this suspenseful second mystery by best-selling author Ed Gorman. The mutilation murders stun the quiet Iowa town of Cedar Rapids and call for the special skills of criminal psychologist Robert Payne, who uses clues from the crime scene to piece together a psychological portrait of the killer. The prime suspect is another Indian, David Rhodes, who is estranged from his wife, police detective Cindy Rhodes—and the woman with whom Payne is starting to fall in love.
First paragraph . Anna Tolan was helping her father shear sheep when she heard the woman’s cry on the wind across the cornfield.  



Harlot’s Moon  .
Publisher’s description . Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Catholic priest has been found half-naked and dead in a seedy motel room, with his tongue cut out. Ex-FBI profiler Robert Payne has been called in to investigate by his childhood friend Steve Gray, now a monsignor. With a fund-raising drive coming up, Steve wants to squelch a scandal. But all the signs point to unholy doings in the tightly knit parish. 
Why did the pugnacious president of the Parish Board remove a gold earring from the scene of the crime? Was his beautiful blonde wife doing more than confessing to the profligate priest? And why was the dead priest hoarding newspaper stories about two other brutal murders? As Payne examines the evidence and pieces together the profile of a subtle and devious killer, it's clear that there will be hell to pay—with no end in sight...
First paragraph . So one night when she’s thirteen, Tawanna decides to give it a try for herself. She waits till after eight, till her mother’s done some dope and is sleeping in the bedroom.
Voodoo Moon  .
Publisher’s description . Twenty-five years ago, in a small Iowa town, an asylum for the criminally insane burned to the ground, killing inmates and employees. The fire was set by Paul Renard, a sexual psychopath who escaped the blaze and disappeared. Today young Ricky Hennessey faces murder charges in the death of his girlfriend. His defense: Paul Renard did it. Legal investigator Robert Payne joins the case at the request of Tandy West, a cable TV psychic and Payne's former lover. She’s doing a piece on the Hennessey case for her show but has begun to question her gift and feels the need for Payne’s reality-based investigatory skills. With the assistance of the local police chief, Susan Charles, Payne learns that the past has invaded the future in a most unexpected way.

First paragraph . Way up here, at certain times of year, you can sometimes hear them screaming, more than twenty people who died in the asylum fire over thirty years ago.

My review of Lawrence Block’s forthcoming novel The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is available at Ed Gorman’s blog. The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is nicely plotted, very erotic (not for the sexually squeamish) noir novel with a twist to the recipe.
Read the review, and the read the book.
Purchase a copy of The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes at Amazon. As of this moment Amazon has the hardcover available for $12.64,

Dean Wesley Smith writes a short story a day!

USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith decided to take his love for short fiction a step forward. In July of 2015, he wrote thirty-two short stories, one per day and one extra. Then, every day, he also wrote a short article about the writing of the story.
Now the articles and stories combine into this major collection that also works as a master class on the art of storytelling.
Follow a professional writer through a month of creation and enjoy some wonderful fiction at the same time.

We've also shipped Smith's Monthly #22. Here's the synopsis on that one:

Over one hundred thousand words of original fiction from USA Today bestselling writer Dean Wesley Smith. 
In this twenty-second monthly volume the full and complete novel, Dead Money: A Doc Hill Thriller. Dead Money is a poker thriller, plus four short stories, an ongoing serial novel, and other features.
Short StoriesNonexistent No More: A Poker Boy StoryIn the Shade of the Slowboat ManStanding in Line at the IntersectionIt’s a Story About a Guy Who…
Full NovelDead Money: A Doc Hill Thriller
Serial NovelAn Easy Shot: A Golf Thriller (Part 5 of 8)
NonfictionIntroduction: Bringing Back a Novel


  2 Attached Images

New Books: The Girl With The Deep Blue Eyes

From Ben Boulden: Gravetapping
Jay Walker “Doak” Miller is a retired NYPD detective. He left the job for sunny small town Florida supplementing his pension as a part-time private investigator; performing background checks, routine insurance inquiries, and every so often undercover work for the local Sheriff’s office, which is where the story begins. 
The wife of a wealthy businessman, looking to hire her husband killed, was fingered by a small time crook. The Sheriff wants Doak to revive his Jersey accent and play the part of hitman; get it on tape, and accept a $1,000 down payment. Doak readily agrees until he sees the woman, and calls everything off. The problem, he doesn’t tell the Sheriff, and he coaches the woman exactly what to say for the tape.
The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes is challenging. It is short, written with Mr. Block’s usual literate, stark flair, and remarkably complicated. It is third person from Doak’s perspective, but has the feel of first. It is Doak Miller’s story, and intimately told. There is some cheating—the girl’s (the one with the deep blue eyes) backstory is told in narrative disguised as dialogue, but it works. 
The challenge is the novel’s lack of morality, or more precisely, Doak’s lack of morality. He is devious, criminal, selfish, and, as the novel develops and Doak’s character is revealed, it is clear he is a man fallen, rather than falling. His destruction is self-inflicted, and the woman is the tool he chooses to use. It is a cock-eyed version of the film Double Indemnity; here the man is predator and the woman his willing playmate. 
The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes admirably plays off the old black and white film noir without losing its own identity and interest. Its plotting is disturbingly good. Nothing is out of place or unresolved. There is a heavy dose of erotica, and not a single likable character. It is both familiar, and new—

“‘That’s the movies,’ she said. ‘This is life.’”

New Books Slaughter by John Lutz

"Lutz knows how to make you shiver.”—Harlan Coben
“One of the masters.”—Ridley Pearson“Among the best.”—San Diego Union“An enormous talent.”—Publishers Weekly


Snippets and thoughts on and in  SLAUGHTER.
 " I tried to give SLAUGHTER a unique kind of slant for a serial killer novel. The experts seem never able to explain why they've killed. Often their motive seems to hinge on family, and some horrible childhood experience. But 'family' seems to be involved. And 'curiosity', perhaps in their own struggles to understand their motivations. In short, they often are committing murder because they are curious about their curiosity. How else to learn? And they do want to learn about themselves, as well as learn about whoever is tracking them. Their nemeses. Together they can put together the puzzle -- or take it apart." 

P.25   “If God doesn’t want me to do this, why is he letting me? Why is He urging me? Why is He my accomplice?”                  “It’s a kind of sickness that can overcome even the best of us.”                  “So this kind of killer is a mental case, silently screaming for help?”                  “Usually.”                  “Lie on.”                  Quinn imagined the killer someplace comfortable, with his feet propped up, watching television.                  “You’ll be sorry.”                  Two people plus one secret equaled no secret. As characters in SLAUGHTER discover, life is more than anything else about questions.                   And family.


SLAUGHTER reviews:                  Great Read!! Can be read as a stand alone novel. I have not read any of Det Quinn's previous stories and still enjoyed this book and I enjoyed it so much I will read previous Det Frank Quinn stories as he is character that makes you root for the good guys. Det Frank Quinn has been called in on a case where the killer seems to be taking things apart just to see how they work including people. As the detective draws closer to the serial killer his killing spree escalates and more and more people a Great Read!! Can be read as a stand alone novel. I have not read any of Det Quinn's previous stories and still enjoyed this book and I enjoyed it so much I will read previous Det Frank Quinn stories as he is character that makes you root for the good guys. Det Frank Quinn has been called in on a case where the killer seems to be taking things apart just to see how they work including people. As the detective draws closer to the serial killer his killing spree escalates and more and more people are dying. First individuals, then an elevator collapse, a crane falls from the side of a building and now they may have their first lead to finding the Gremlin. His deformed right ear which makes him look like a leprechaun or gremlin by eye witnesses accounts. Can Det Quinn catch him before he loses that which is most dear to him. ...moref Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another editionShelves: mystery-thriller, netgalleyI would like to thank Kensington Books and NetGalley for providing me with an electronic copy to review.

SLAUGHTER:

When a psychopath starts to terrorize the city, Frank Quinn and his investigative agency are hired by the NYPD Police Commissioner Harley Renz to help catch the killer. With many tricks up his sleeves, it appears that the killer has the upper hand. This is the first Frank Quinn novel that I have read, but it could have easily been a standalone book. With a fast paced, well written plot, Local readers will find a lot of color, as the plot moves back and forth between St. Louis and New York, in time as well as geography. On a sunny day in 1999, for example, “they disappeared into downtown St. Louis, where Cardinals fans, and Cubs fans from Chicago, would soon be roaming the city streets, looking for new places to eat lunch, or find that bar or restaurant they’d been to during their last trip to St. Louis.”Indeed, Quinn has to correct New York’s police commissioner after the official says that the St. Louis Crime Scene Unit “is a capable bunch, here in St. Louie.” The rest of the conversation:“ ‘Notice that nobody here says “St. Louie?” ’ ”“ ‘I say it,’ Renz said. ‘But then, I’m not one of the Millennials.”
                                                                                                                                                

Gravetapping No Comment: "Nowhere to Run"

Gravetapping“He had spent most of that evening in the lounge of the Hotel El Presidente, drinking and playing liar’s poker with a couple of his pals. They had gambled with one-hundred-peso notes and Harry had lost about forty dollars. Not much money, but enough to sour his mood a little; he had never learned how to accept losing, hated it, regarded it as a little death—every time you lost, whether a dime or an argument or what the Asians call face, a chip was taken out of your self-esteem and you entered the next contest with that much less confidence. Losing was an accumulative poison like lead or arsenic; small doses did not appear to cause much harm, but they collected and in time…”
—Ron Faust, Nowhere to Run. Turner Publishing Company TPB, 2013 (© 1981). Page 161. “He” is Harry Rudd, a wealthy former automobile broker. The protagonist, David Rhodes, finds Harry at his Mexican estate. A gun in one hand, a drink in the other.
Read the Gravetapping review of Nowhere to Run.
Purchase a copy of Nowhere to Run at Amazon.com

Donald Westlake on Jim Thompson

I don't know if Bob Randisi remembers the day we met and had lunch with Patrick McGilligan up there in the wilds of Wisconsin--twenty-some years now I suspect--but Patrick has gone on to become a major writer on the subject of Hollywood. His collections of interviews with screenwriters called Backstory are now staples in film schools. I was reading #4 today and ran across an extraordinary interview with Donald Westlake who not only articulated my feelings about Jim Thompson but also made me think about all of us who started in the 60s, 70s and early 80s writing for downmarket men's magazines and long ago forgotten paperback lines. Sure I can get it you by Monday--it's only Friday afternoon isn't it?

Donald Westlake on adapting Jim Thompson to the screen (The Grifters):

"(Thompson) always wrote from his guts--too fast but from his guts. He was usually doing stuff for too little money in secondary markets. Every one of his books was published one draft too soon...

"I did some of that in my early days of writing, so I know how it happens. You're going along until you get to a point in the story where you say -`Oh my gosh, this story isn't going to work unless she was married before...' You can solve it two ways: you can go back and put the marriage in where you should have put in the first place, or you can just stick right in: "She was married before' and keep going. That's what Thompson does."

Ed here:

Long before there were computers we only had White Out!

Lee Goldberg's books about television

Ed here: Last Friday I had one of those cancer cocktails  that knocked me out for the entire Labor Day weekend so I got no work done at all. I did however have the pleasure of reading through each of Lee Goldberg's TV books (which he was nice enough to send me.) These are classics and keepers because by turning to just about any page you'll find something to make you laugh or wonder how TV has lasted as long as it has. This is in addition to some superior analysis of certain trends and shows.
    UNSOLD TV PILOTS delivers exactly what it promises, a look at a myriad of of pilots some of which sound pretty darned good actually. Many however sound as if the creators were doing a lot of acid.

    Here we have (for instance) "The Orson Welles Show"(1950s) in which Welles could have probably done whatever he chose--written, directed, acted--in adaptations of classic tales by writers such as Kipling and H.G. Wells. This would have been a prestigious show. But to quote Lee: "Before the pilot was even completed, the proposed series was doomed. Welles went over budget, took four weeks instead of the allotted ten days to shoot it, and threw an expensive wrap party that he billed to Desilu." The finished pilot was so good it was honored with a Peabody Award of Excellence.

On the other hand we have a pilot from the 1970s called "The Three Wives of David Wheeler" which a commercial artist's new marriage is complicated by his two ex-wives--one a business partner the other his resident model (he has a graphics design business). A lot of these in the era of the "Me Generation," ala "Three's Company." One of many strengths of these books is the sociological information about the country, obsessions and fantasies particularly.  What Lee does so well is mix tart commentary with serious and detailed observation.

    TELEVISION FAST FORWARD is where Lee profiles at some length dozens of the most popular shows of all time going all the way back to "Sea Hunt." While this commentary is serious for the most part Lee has fun with how the TV masters tried to spin off various shows. Thus we had:
                                                                           
                                                                 The Brady Bunch
                                                                 The Brady Bunch Variety Hour (God saves us all)
                                                                 The Brady Brides
                                                                 A Very Brady Christmas
                                                                 The Bradys

    But his profiles here of such shows as Gunsmoke, Star Trek, Kojak and in particular the various incarnations of Maverick I'd put up against Gary Giddins' analysis of popular movies (which I started reading after I finished Lee's book).

    THE BEST TV SHOWS THAT NEVER WERE is Lee's tribute to pilots. He instructs us how to KNOW it's a pilot--some samples:  . the hero is a robot created to be the perfect solider
                                                                 but he decides not to kill
                                                                . the detective is blind, electric or quadriplegic
                                                                .the show is a television adaptation of last year's hit
                                                                  movie
                                                                 .the hero is an alien or a ghost or was born in a petrie dish
                                                               . the hero is a robot created to be the perfect solider
                                                               
     Once again Lee has a lot of fun (and so do we) but his essay on the history of pilots is a fascinating and serious history of how the television medium works. You could teach a great class using this piece alone.

    For all the dopey pilots there are quite a few I would like to have seen. Steven Spielberg directed the pilot (creators: Richard Levinson and WilliamLink) of "Savage" in which Martin Landau abs his wife Barbara Bain play TV reporter and producer respectively as a team that goes after a scandal surrounding a Supreme Curt nominee.

   For me the strangest pilot of many many strange ones is "Yazoo" in which William Conrad (yes, Cannon not your average whimsical guy)goes fishing one day, falls asleep in the boat, and wakes up in the magical world called Yazoo, populated by the Peppercorn Puppets. I always liked Conrad but how did he ever end up in this? Once again dropping acid comes to mind. (I know--I'd use a more modern drug but I'm a geezer.)

  In all these are among the finest books I've ever read about television. And given Lee's track record as writer, producer, director and historian you're not going to find more accomplished guide or judge anywhere. These are rich and rewarding books to keep and read again.

Forgotten Books: The Collected Stories of Stephen Crane

As the prime creator of Realism Stephen Crane shocked the world of letters both in his writing and his personal life. His first book was Maggie: A Girl of The Streets and he spent a good share of his adult life (as much of it as there was--he died at twenty-eight) living with Cora Taylor, the madame of a brothel. He wrote dozens of short stories as well as his masterpiece The Red Badge of Courage.

While he was accepted and praised by the literary critics of the time, he was frequently derided for the pessimism and violence of his stories. He brought "the stink of the streets" into literature as one reviewer said. But his streets could be found all over America, not just in the cities.

The Open Boat, The Blue Hotel, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky, Shame and The Upturned Face give us portraits of different Americas. As I was rereading them lately I realized that they all have two things in common--their utter sense of social isolation and the intensity of their telling. Hemingway always put up The Blue Hotel as one of the most intense-"bedeviled"--stories in our language and man he was right. The fist fight in the blizzard on the blind side of the barn is one of those most hellish insane scenes I've ever read. And the ironic words at the last honestly gave me chills, even though I knew what was coming. His years as a journalist gave him a compassion for society's discards no matter where they lived or what color they happened to be.

His sense of place changed writing. Whether he was writing about the slums of Brooklyn or the endless ghostly plains of Nebraska in winter, his early years as a poet gave his images true clarity and  potency. One critic of the time said his stories were possessed of "a filthy beauty" and that nails it. 

Only a few of his stories are taught today; Red Badge is mandatory in schools. But in the many collections available of his stories you find a passion for life and language that few writers have ever equaled. Too many American masters get lost in the shuffle of eras. Crane is not only an artist he's one of the finest storytellers I've ever read.