Ed Gorman's Blog, page 269

Reviews and reviewers

The Alice Hoffman incident blazes on. I'm referring to literary novelist Alice Hoffman taking it to a reviewer via Twitter she felt had wronged her.

Lillith Saintcrow (a fantasy writer I've just started reading and enjoying) recently wrote a long response to the Hoffmann incident on her blog. She's obviously in sympathy with Hoffman. I should note that everybody from Publisher's Weekly to Romantic Times has praised her books. She's very, very good.


"Here's the thing: we are awash, on the Interne

The Killers Inside Him

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On Tom Piccirilli's great website The Big Adios there are some comments about a chapbook that Max Allan Collins and I put together way back in 1983 called Jim Thompson: The Killers Inside Him. Here's what (Max) Al had to say:

"This is a rare item that I have only a couple copies of. With the cooperation of Thompson's widow, Ed and I were trying to get the author some attention. I like to think we had something to do with his rediscovery or resurgence or whatever, but we were rarely if ever credit

Up, Up and Away!

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From Talking Points Memo:


Dem Congressional Candidate's Event Raided By San Diego Sheriffs
By Eric Kleefeld - June 29, 2009, 3:07PM

Now this is a truly bizarre story, about a Democratic Congressional candidate's fundraising event being raided by a whole squad from the San Diego Sheriff's Department -- including pepper-spray and a helicopter!

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a fundraiser for Francine Busby, who previously ran for the deeply-Republican Fiftieth District and came close to winni

Forgotten Books: A Fistful of Empty by Benjamin M. Schutz

When Ben Schutz died at fifty-eight of a heart attack, he was still enjoying the well-deserved praise he'd received for what was likely his finest novel, The Mongol Reply, a savage look at the human debris resulting from a custody battle. Ben had been a forensic psychologist by trade and knew all too well what he was writing about.

The Mongol Reply had been rejected by virtually if not literally every major house in New York. One day his agent called me and asked if I'd give it a read for our li

Bad Apple; Michael Jackson

BAD APPLE

You don't read many mystery novels where the protagonist is a combination livestock broker and private investigator but that's just what Cletus Parr happens to be. The title refers to the most celebrated cutting horse on the planet. The case starts with the murder of Bad Apple.

I suppose the closest equivalent here would be early Dick Francis. Wheeler takes us into a sub culture few of us are familiar with, that of the moneyed, ruthless world of cutting horses. If you think think this i

More sex tapes; more Michael jackson

From the Daily News:

Former presidential candidate John Edwards is out of luck if he hoped that the extramarital affairs of Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. John Ensign would take people's minds off his own cheating scandal.

Former Edwards aide Andrew Young says the ex-senator and his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, once made a sex tape, according to someone who has seen Young's book proposal.

St. Martin's Press just inked a deal with Young, who also says in his proposal that, contrary to his public stat

Men, Women, Writing, and Getting Laid; Correction

Writer Holly Lisle has one of the great websites. I check it out three or four times a week. Her subjects range from serious discussions of writing (she writers shrewdly and well both about the writing and the writing business) and apparently whatever else comes to mind on a given day. She also blogs.

Here's one of her more notable blog whimsies--or is it? If this is true we'll have to rewrite all the history books to serve this dictum:

Men, Women, Writing, and Getting Laid
by HOLLY LISLE on JUNE 2

Musical fanboys; Michael Jackson

I finally caught up with the Elvis Costello show on Sundance. The episode I caught featured guest Elton John. Now I'm not a fan of John's. I liked Tumbleweed Connection very much but after that it was a race to the bottom--the bottom being songs of interminable length and cringe-worthy lyrics.

But last night John and Costello spent the night talking about the music that had influenced them and it was like hearing Crider, Reasoner, Randisi and Gorman sitting around discussing vintage paperbacks.

Forgotten Books: The Lodger

The other night on his fine blog British novelist Martin Edwards wrote a piece about The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Among the book's admirers was Ernest Hemingway. The book was the basis for the the first "true Hitchcock" film as Hitch himself called it. I guess he looked at the previous ones as warm-up acts.

The set-up for the Lodger is standard stuff by now. In Victorian London a serial killer is loose. An impoverished couple takes in a lodger. Soon enough the wife begins to wonder i

NOW APPEARING...THE MIDNIGHT ROOM

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THE MIDNIGHT ROOM by Ed Gorman
Leisure Books

Cindy Baines is a cute girl. She is the daughter of less than accomplished parents—her mother is a drinker, and her dad is a fundamentalist whack. They live in a trailer on the wrong side of town, but despite everything she seems to have a bright future. She is intelligent, beautiful, and very well liked. Unfortunately she is also the target of a demented serial killer.

When Cindy disappears the community is in near panic; Cindy isn’t the first girl to d