Ed Gorman's Blog, page 27

Great new post from Max Allan Collins

I.
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I mentioned this in a reply to a comment last week, but for those of you who missed it: our grandson has a name – Samuel Allan Collins. Sam. Some of you may recall that Sam is Nate Heller’s son’s name, and of course there’s Samuel Dashiell Hammett and a man called Spade. So I like the resonance, although I didn’t come up with the moniker.
He’s a little guy – he was early – and he’s dealing with a few problems, but he’s a scrapper, and his parents are with him all the way.

                                                                          *****

I am prepping for the next Mike Hammer, which I intend to start very soon (by the time you read this, it’ll be under way). You might be curious as to my process.
Of course it varies every time, because I am generally dealing with manuscripts from Mickey in various states and shape. This time I have about thirty pages of his to start with, but I also have plot and character notes, and the roughed-out ending.
One problem I deal with every time is dating the manuscript. My policy has been to maintain continuity with the existing Hammer books as they were written and published. The idea is to capture Mickey and Mike in the right creative context, as opposed to me just writing my idea of a general Mike Hammer book. Sometimes it’s a snap, as with LADY, GO DIE!, which was clearly designed to be the second novel.
This time I had to search out clues in the manuscript. It feels like an early work, a ‘50s piece, but evidence in the narrative finally led me to realize it was written around 1967. The evidence, specifically, is that Hammer mentions three major New York newspapers that have recently died. Researching them, I found all three folded in 1966.
Next step is to read some Mickey and get in the mood and the swing. What I like to do is read material that was written around the same time as the manuscript I’m completing. In this case (as someone once said), “It was easy.” Mickey published THE BODY LOVERS in 1967. So I am currently reading that novel, which I have grown to like and respect more and more as I’ve read and re-read it over the years. I mark the copy up with a highlighter, as if it were a text book for school.
In addition, Barb and I listened to the fine Stacy Keach abridgment of KISS ME, DEADLY on a recent day trip to Galena, Illinois. That book obviously wasn’t written in the ‘60s, but it always help to get some genuine Spillane vitamins into my system. An upcoming trip to St. Louis, to visit the grandson and his parents, will have me going all the way to the start, listening to the new Mike Dennis-read unabridged I, THE JURY.
These thirty pages will be expanded into around sixty, at least. The plot outline (there are several, somewhat contradictory) will need some serious thought. But I am itching to start and will probably deal with Mickey’s existing material before I plot the rest of the novel (from his notes).
The book will be called DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU (a Mickey shout out to his favorite mystery writer, Fredric Brown) and the cover already exists, shared with you here.
* * *Rich Whitney Turner has written a lovely tribute to, uh, well…me.  Do please check this out.
M.A.C.Tags: Don't Look Behind You, Mike Hammer, Spillane
Posted in Message from M.A.C. |  

Smith's Monthly Issue #21 is Out!

Issue #21 is Out!August 6, 2015 Written by Dean Smith


Issue #21… June 2015This issue contains around 65,000 words of original fiction. A brand new full Thunder Mountain novel, plus four short stories.It also contains an ongoing a brand new serial thriller novel. (Don’t worry, there is a summary of the events previously in each serial.)If you want to read some of these stories and novels I have been talking about writing on my blog, dig into this issue. Or any of the first twenty issues. Subscription information under the tab above.This 21st issue actually didn’t ship until July because WMG Publishing took December off and it is going to take some time to catch up. If you are missing an issue in your subscription, contact me.Uncategorized

Two great websites remember Black Gate & Gravetapping Remembering Robert Bloch

Vintage Treasures: Midnight Pleasures by Robert BlochThursday, July 23rd, 2015 | Posted by John ONeill Ed here: John right. We sure have forgotten Robert Bloch. He was a huge influence on my generation especially.Robert Bloch isn’t a name that gets tossed around much these days. Even before his death in 1994, he was primarily known as the author of Psycho, and this one fact overshadowed most of his other accomplishments.But Bloch was also the author of hundreds of short stories, and over 30 novels, virtually all of which are out of print today. He was one of the most gifted and prolific short story writers in the horror field, and his best short stories are compact treasures. He won a Hugo Award for his 1958 story “That Hell-Bound Train,” and multiple Bram Stoker awards (for the 1993 collection The Early Fears, the novelette “The Scent of Vinegar,” and his 1993 memoir Once Around the Bloch.)He received a World Fantasy Award in 1975 for Lifetime Achievement, and a Lifetime Achievement Bram Stoker Award in 1990.Bloch was also one of the youngest members of The Lovecraft Circle, those writers who corresponded with and often consciously emulated H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft was one of the first to encourage Bloch’s writing, and a lot of Bloch’s early work for the pulps was Cthulhu Mythos fiction (most of which was gathered in his 1981 collection Mysteries of the Worm.)Midnight Pleasures is one of Bloch’s last fiction collections (two more appeared before his death: Fear and Trembling in 1989, and The Early Fears in 1994). It’s a fine sample of late horror fiction from one of the best short story writers the genre has seen.It was nominated for a 1987 Bram Stoker Award for Fiction Collection (it lost out to The Essential Ellison). It contains chiefly later short work, dating from 1977-1985, published in anthologies like New Terrors 2, Shadows, Masques, Analog Yearbook, Dark Forces, Chrysalis 3, and others.It also includes one pulp story (from the August 1939 issue of Weird Tales), and two stories that appear here for the first time: “Comeback” and “Die–Nasty.”Here’s the complete table of contents:

“The Rubber Room” (New Terrors 2, 1980)
“The Night Before Christmas” (Dark Forces, 1980)
“Pumpkin” (Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, November-December 1984)
“The Spoiled Wife” (Chrysalis 3, 1978)
“Oh Say Can You See–” (Analog Yearbook, 1978)
“But First These Words—” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May 1977)
“Picture” (Shadows, 1978)
“The Undead” (The Undead: The Book Sail, 16th Anniversary Catalogue, 1984)
“Comeback”
“Nocturne” (The First Chronicles of Greystone Bay, 1985)
“Die–Nasty”
“Pranks” (Halloween Horrors, 1986)
“Everybody Needs a Little Love” (Masques, 1984)
“The Totem-Pole” (Weird Tales, August 1939)
About the Author

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Gravetapping from Ben Boulden
Posted: 09 Aug 2015 08:00 AM PDT“Baker feared his boss, Klotscher feared God, Mrs. Annixter feared cancer, which was a polite term for syphilis, which was a polite term for intercourse, which was a polite term for the Sin Against the Holy Ghost, which was a polite term for the fact that she really enjoyed it. By a strange coincidence, Mr. Annixter was a patient too, and he feared—Mrs. Annixter.”
—Robert Bloch, Spiderweb. Hard Case Crime paperback, 2008 (© 1954); page 85. First person narrative of the protagonist, Eddie Haines.
[No Comment is a series of posts featuring passages from both fiction and non-fiction that caught my attention. It may be the idea, the texture, or the presence that grabbed my eye. There is no analysis provided, and it invariably is out of context—since the paragraph before and after are never included. ]

Purchase a copy of the Hard Case Crime edition of Shooting Star / Spiderweb at Amazon.

Vigilantes

Vigilantes from 2007

On Slate today Eric Lichtenfeld writes a memorable piece on vigilante movies. He gives space to Brian Garfield's dissastisfaction with the original Death Wish movie and then goes on to consider the form as a whole. For me the most interesting point is what he says about the way modern day westerns look at vigilantes. Ambiguously at best.

Eric Lichtenfeld

The seminal vigilante film of the era—or any era—is Michael Winner's Death Wish (1974), based on Brian Garfield's novel. The movie immortalized Charles Bronson as Paul Kersey, an everyman who responds to the brutalization of his wife and daughter by obsessively smiting muggers and other "freaks" (as the credits bill his family's attackers). This is far from where Kersey began: a progressive raised to hate guns, and a wartime conscientious objector. Of course, Kersey's liberalism exists only so it can be corrected later. Liberals are similarly "reformed" in the new Jodie Foster movie, The Brave One, as well as in Vigilante, Death Wish 3, and The Enforcer, in which a cop's widow makes the point, "It's a war, isn't it? I guess I never really understood that."

(more)

This war is between the civilized and the savage—a conflict drawn from the Western. The period's vigilante films actually uphold the Western mythos more reliably than its Westerns do. The Wild Bunch, Ulzana's Raid, and others depict the Western as morally confused, even bankrupt. Meanwhile, Dirty Harry, Death Wish, and similar action yarns ultimately embrace the gunfighter's moral clarity.

(more)

It's easy to imagine that in a post-9/11 America, vengeance occupies more of our national imagination than before. Maybe it does. But today's vigilante movies channel many of the same frustrations that their predecessors did. Today, as in the '70s, America faces economic, environmental, and energy-related crises. In both generations, Americans wrestle with political powerlessness, on fronts ranging from their own health care to the country's role on the global stage. (America's invasion of Iraq, unsanctioned by the U.N. and launched by a president happy to be seen as a "cowboy"—or more accurately, a gunfighter—could be seen as a vigilante war.) And both generations of Americans watch as the executive branch flouts its accountability to the public and to the law, proves unable to "win" an increasingly unpopular war, and refuses to acknowledge the reality of the war's downward spiral.POSTED BY ED GORMAN AT 1:50 PM  

Albert Zugsmith Talking working with Welles on Touch of Evil

Ed here: In the late fifties and early sixties Albert Zugsmith produced such films as Sex Kittens Go To College, Platinum High School, High School Confidential, and The Beat Generation. Nothing that would make Fellini insecure about his place in motion picture history. But Zugsmith had previously produced some excellent film such as The Tarnished Angels (Faulkner's Pylon), Written on The Wind and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Oh--and one other--Touch of Evil. Here's an excerpt from a long excerpt (one well worth reading) with Zugsmith discussing his work with Welles.

Producer Albert Zugsmith on making TOUCH OF EVIL with Orson Welles
Orson is primarily an artist — a great one.

—Albert Zugsmith

******************************************

One of the great unsung heroes behind the making of Touch of Evil has to be Universal staff producer Albert Zugsmith. As can be seen in Zugsmith’s comments below, he and Welles had a wonderful working relationship on the two pictures they made together and it was most probably due to Zugsmith that Welles got to shoot Touch of Evil with so little studio interference.

Unfortunately, Zugsmith had left Universal and moved over to MGM by the time Welles began editing Touch of Evil, so Zugsmith was no longer around to protect Welles from the meddling of studio executives. In fact, given Welles own comments about how much he looked forward to continue making films at Universal, one wonders if he may have been thinking about his talks with Zugsmith, who probably represented Universal to him. For his own part, Zugsmith was eager to continue making films with Welles.

The following interview with Zugsmith is taken from Todd McCarthy and Charles Flynn’s wonderful 1975 book King of the Bs.

******************************************

ALBERT ZUGSMITH: The story on Orson is: I became sort of a troubleshooter and a script doctor at Universal. They’d throw me all the properties they were having difficulties with. There were also certain people I could handle, and work with. Jeff Chandler was becoming a bit difficult and he was their second biggest star at that time. I guess one of the reasons he was difficult was that he was the biggest, and then Rock Hudson came along! So they had me make some pictures with Jeff. They also had me make Westerns, which I’d kind of duck and avoid; they even made Ross Hunter make a Western, which was a terrible flop! It was the last picture Ann Sheridan ever made!


Anyway, I was assigned to a picture called Man in the Shadow. Jeff Chandler was in it and we had $600,000. to make it with. With studio overhead, that means you get about $375,000 on the screen. Jeff Chandler played the sheriff, and we had a new girl under contract, Colleen Miller, a beautiful girl, as the female lead. We were trying to cast the heavy, the girl’s father, the rich rancher who oppresses the Mexicans, and so forth. We were pretty much sold on Robert Middleton who did such a great job for me before (in The Tarnished Angels.) So then I got a call from the William Morris office. Evidently they knew this part was open, and Jack Baur (Universal’s casting director) asked me, “How would you like Orson Welles to play the heavy?” “You’re kidding,” I said. He had been out of this country for some time. He was back, and he needed $60,000 very badly for taxes, and he’d play the heavy. “Has he read the script?” I said. “I don’t think so. But he’s got to pay his taxes or he’ll be in big trouble.”

for the rest go here:
http://www.wellesnet.com/?p=288

Jeffery Deaver's Manhattan Is My Beat

Jeffery Deaver is a celebrated bestselling novelist. He's also a versatile and cunning short story writer. But you probably know all this.
Whenever somebody brings him up I ask if they've read the Rune novels. Many people say they haven't. They're my favorite among all his books. Here's what his website has to say about the first Rune book Manhattan is My Beat:
Manhattan Is My Beat (1988)
"Five feet two inches of slick repartee, near-purple hair, and poetic imagination, twenty-year-old Rune hasn't been in Manhattan for very long. But she's crafty enough to have found a squatter's paradise in an empty TriBeCa loft, and a video store job that feeds her passion for old movies. It's a passion she shares with her favorite customer, Mr. Kelly, a lonely old man who rents the same video over and over. The flick is a noir classic based on a real-life unsolved bank heist and a million missing dollars. It's called Manhattan Is My Beat.
"That's the tape Rune is picking up from Mr. Kelly's shabby apartment when she finds him shot to death. The police suspect a robbery gone wrong, but Rune is certain the key to solving the murder is hidden somewhere in the hazy, black-and-white frames of Mr. Kelly's beloved movie. But as Rune hits the mean streets of New York to find answers, she gets caught up in a dangerous adventure more chilling than anything Hollywood could dream up. As her story draws to its terrifying conclusion, Rune's final close-up may include the killer of a co-star."
Clever as the plots are (and you'd expect nothing less from Deaver), it's Rune herself who carries the three novels-- the other two are Death of A Blue Movie Star and Hard News--in her pursuit to a) find out Who She Really Is in an amusing faux Existential Sense b) keep recreating herself until Something More Appealing Comes along. She's genuinely tough, too, in a wryly belligerent sort of way. One way or the other she does what she wants to. 
One other feature of the novels is the view of late-80s early-90s Manhattan as seen through the eyes of a punk rocker who also channels the 60s on occasion. She makes a great sardonic reporter from the war zone.
These are early Deaver books but the skills that have taken him to the bestseller lists are already in place. He is a sleek gifted storyteller and the Rune books are among the best of his tales.

Forgotten Books--The Long Saturday Night by Charles Williams

Over what was essentially a quarter century career Charles Williams worked in various sub-genres of the suspense field. He came to prominence writing the small-town Southern crime novel and I always had the feeling that that was his favorite form. But he did adventure novels, sea novels, comic novels and his version of caper novels as well.

The Long Saturday Night rarely gets mentioned when the discussion turns to Williams and I've never understood why. This is a sleek and fevered man on the run novel that also incorporates another Williams acidic take on small town society.

John Warren is typical of the Williams Man. He is angry, even sullen much of the time because of a wandering wife he loves far too much. Also like the typical Williams protagonist he laments the past. He was a college football player whose career was stopped by an accident. He's atypical Williams in that he is a successful businessman, not a car salesman bored with life and up for anything if the sex is good.

Warren is a hunter. As the book opens he is returning to his office from an early morning session in a duck blind. A useless session. Though he heard two shots coming from another blind, he just assumed somebody had had better luck than his own. Turns out though that the shots were cover for a murder--and the dead man was a guy who would soon be identified as a man who rented office space from Warren--and who also had an affair with Warren's wife.

Couple problems here. Warren is an outsider and people don't like outsiders so when the sheriff and especially his deputy start questioning Warren it's clear that he's in a lot of trouble. And when his wife finally wanders home he's even in more trouble.

This could almost be considered a companion novel to another Williams Gold Medal, that one called, conveniently enough, Man on The Run. What sets them apart from the usual chase novel is the intelligence of the narrator. He doesn't just run, he fights back. In this case he hires a private detective of note to help him find the real killer. And he keeps company with one of those bruised tentative women Williams likes so much--in this case his thirtyish secretary who is smart and decent without being treacly. Finding a sentimental note in Williams is tough unless it's buried in a revery about a woman who has betrayed him.

Triffault filmed this. I saw it a few years ago and didn't like it. Maybe it was my mood. There's a sadness at the heart of the best Williams novels and Triffault, at least for me, didn't get to it. He relied more on the cleverness of the story than the disappointing lives led by Warren and the secretary he comes to love.

This is a short book, a one sitting read, two at most, and an intense, brooding folk tale (as John D. MacDonald described the kind of book he and Williams wrote) that will stay with you for awhile.

A TREMENDOUS INTERVIEW WITH BILL CRIDER

Gravetapping  Ben Boulden



Bill Crider is the author of more than 50 novels. His first was an unassuming 
entry in the Nick Carter Kill Master series—The Coyote Connection—
debuting in 1981, and he has steadily increased his canon since. He has worked in 
several genres, including horror, western, and juvenile, but he is primarily a 
mystery writer.
 His mystery novels have introduced several memorable series characters—
Sheriff Dan Rhodes, Truman Smith, Sally Good, Carl Burns.His longest running series is The Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels set in rural-Texas 
Blacklin County. The first, Too Late to Die, appeared in 1986, and the latest
,  Between the Living and the Dead , is scheduled for release on August 11. 
Mr. Crider has won two Anthony Awards, a Golden Duck Award for best 
juvenile science fiction novel, and he was inducted in the Texas Literary 
Hall of Fame in 2010.Mr. Crider was kind enough, and showed an amazing amount of 
patience, to answer a few questions. The questions are italicized.  I have read you were inspired to write by readiof the 1950s—John D. MacDonald, Harry Whittington, Charles Williams, etc. 
Do you have a favorite writer, or writers, from that era whose work 
continues to inspire you?Those remain my favorites, along with Day Keene, Gil Brewer, William 
Campbell Gault, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane, and a host of others. 
I reread all of them now and then, and I’m always amazed at their compact s
torytelling, their pacing, their ability to sketch convincing characters i
n a few words.  
I wanted to be those guys.Early in your writing career you wrote a handful of novels under house names,
 including a Nick Carter title—The Coyote Connection (1981)—and three titles 
in the Stone: M. I. A. Hunter series. Do you think any of these titles are 
particularly good, or do any of them have any special meaning to you? I have to admit that The Coyote Connection isn’t a great novel, but there a
re a few things about it that I remember fondly. I had a swell time writing for 
Steve Mertz in the MIA Hunter series. He gave me pretty much free rein to do 
what I wanted to, so I read a couple of the novels and took off. I picked up 
several lines from one of Joe Lansdale’s books in the series (a line that he 
repeats in his brand new Paradise Sky, by the way), and used them as tags 
for characters. I never thought of these books as slumming or as anything 
less than my other work, and I did the best job I could with them. I haven’t 
read them in years, and I don’t know how much revision Steve did on them, 
but I suspect I’d still be happy with them.

[Editor’s Note. The three novels Mr. Crider wrote for the
 Stone: M. I. A. Hunter series are: Miami War Zone(1988),
 Desert Death Raid (1989), and Back to ‘Nam (1990). The series 
was created by Stephen Mertz, and published as by Jack Buchanan.]Too Late to Die   (1986), which introduced Sheriff Dan Rhodes, was the 
first book you published under your own name. There are now 22 entries 
in the series. When you devised Sheriff Rhodes did you intend it to be a series, or was it an “accidental” series?When Ruth Cavin, then an editor at Walker, bought the first Dan Rhodes 
novel, I received a letter (some of your younger readers might have to google 
that term) from her saying how much she liked the book and that she was 
buying it. She concluded with, “You are working on a sequel, aren’t you?” 
While I hadn’t planned on doing a series because I didn’t know that anyone 
would ever buy the first book, I wrote her back and told her that of course 
I was working on a sequel and that I’d send it to her as soon as it was done. 
I never dreamed that I’d still be writing about the sheriff 30 years later, though.
Have you been surprised by the length and success of the Sheriff Dan 
Rhodes series? Absolutely surprised. As I mentioned above, I had no expectation 
that there would be a second book, much less more than 20. I don’t know 
how much success the series has had. It sneaked into paperback a few times, 
but it never made any bestseller lists. Ebooks have given it a real boost, though, 
and now that Crossroad Press has made all the early books available, 
the series is doing very well, indeed.Are there any specific rewards or pitfalls that come from writing a long 
term series? There’s a considerable reward in being able to write about characters you 
enjoy. Writing about Blacklin County is like visiting a real place for me, and 
I enjoy every trip I take there. I suppose the pitfalls are that there’s a risk of 
getting bored, but so far that hasn’t happened. I don’t know if the series 
remains fresh for the readers, but it does for me. In writing about a small county,
 there’s the danger of the Cabot Cove Syndrome, but what can you do? 
I’ve joked about it even in the books. Nobody would ever move to 
Blacklin County. It has a higher murder rate than Chicago.The rural setting for your Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels is, for me,
 key to the quality of the series. Is Blacklin County, Texas based 
on a specific place, or is it entirely imagined?I’ve lived in three small towns in Texas, in three different counties that 
are distant from each other in geography and populations, but people in all 
three counties have told me that they recognize people and places that 
I write about. I suspect that little bits of all three of them get into the work, 
but mostly it’s an imaginary place, just as all the characters are imaginary.  
I have been impressed with the continuity in the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series.
 As an example, there is a brief mention of a boy who went missing in the
 Big Woods during a family barbecue in Too Late to Die, which becomes 
a significant plot element in A Mammoth Murder (2006). How do you keep 
track of what has happened in prior novels, and then incorporate it in later novels?If I were smart, which I’m not, I would have created a “bible” for the series.
 But as I’ve mentioned, I didn’t know it would be a series at all, 
much less that it would last for so long.  Add to that the fact that I didn’t 
know what a series bible was back when I started. So I have to rely on my 
increasingly unreliable memory. I know that there are a good many 
inconsistencies in the books, but most readers are kind enough to 
ignore them. I don’t ignore them; I just don’t realize they’re there. 
Most of the time, anyway.Your Sheriff Dan Rhodes novels are character driven with a significant 
amount of wry humor. Two of my favorite characters are Hack, the 
dispatcher, and Lawton, the jailer. They give Rhodes grief, and make
 him work for every piece of information. Their roles have increased over the 
life of the series. Was their increased role deliberate on your part, or did the 
characters demand more attention?I introduced Hack and Lawton into the books because one of the things 
I wanted to do was have someone talk about all the petty crimes that occur 
in small counties, and they seemed like the ones to do it. They seemed to be 
having a good time, and so was I. When they demanded more space in the books,
 I was glad to give it to them. They amused me, and writing about them amused me. 
Since I write for my own amusement as much as anything else, it worked out very 
well for all of us.Do you have a favorite supporting character in the series?Hack and Lawton are a lot of fun, but I’m also very fond of Rapper. 
He hasn’t appeared in a while, and he might never come back, if he’s smart.
 Every time he’s showed up in Blacklin County, he’s lost another little piece of
 himself. He might have realized by now that he doesn’t stand a chance 
against Sheriff Rhodes. At the top of the list of supporting characters,
 however, is the inimitable Seepy Benton. I introduced him in another series,
 and when the publisher dropped that one, I couldn’t resist moving him to 
Blacklin County so I could continue to write about him.Seepy Benton first appeared in the Sally Good series?You’re right. 

[Editor’s Note. The Sally Good novels are Murder is an Art (1999), 
A Knife in the Back (2002), and A Bond with Death (2004).]Seepy, at least the name, is based on one of your living and breathing
 friends. Are there any similarities between the real Seepy Benton, 
and the character?A friend of mine named C. P. Benton (check out docbenton.com) 
asked me to put him in a book, so I did. He turned out to be such 
an interesting character that I couldn't let him die with the series. 
Seepy, the real guy, claims that the Rhodes series is now the Seepy 
Benton series.  He's somewhat like the character in the book. 
They both teach math, and the songs credited to Seepy in the book are 
all real songs by the real Seepy. They're on YouTube.A major theme in the Dan Rhodes novels are feral hogs. 
He was attacked and nearly killed in Too Late to Die, to
hey have a central role in The Wild Hog Murders (2011), etc. 
I have read Texas has a plague of wild hogs. Have you had real experiences 
with wild hogs, or is it a nifty device you pulled from the news? I used the feral hogs in the very first book, long ago, and for 
whatever reason (I can’t explain it), they’ve crept into just 
about every single book since. They finally got a starring role in 
The Wild Hog Murders, and they’ve been back in minor roles 
in the succeeding books. I own some land in Central Texas 
(inherited from my father), and my brother manages it. It’s
 inhabited by many roving bands of feral hogs. My brother 
traps and hunts them now and then, but mostly they just do 
whatever they want to.
Dan Rhodes is a fan of “old and bizarre movies like The Alligator People
, or I Married a Monster from Outer Space.” Is this a predilection you share 
with Sheriff Rhodes? If so, what are a few of your favorites?Just about every movie Sheriff Rhodes mentions is a movie I’ve seen.  
I have a special fondness for The Alligator People, but Plan Nine from Outer Space 
is another favorite.  I’ve watched more times than I care to admit.While we’re talking about author-character similarities, do you enjoy 
Dr. Pepper and Dairy Queen Blizzards as much as Dan Rhodes?I’m a big fan of Blizzards, although I seldom have one. I’ve been drinking 
Dr Pepper since as far back as I can remember, and while I might drink 
some other soft drink on occasion, I’m faithful to Dr Pepper.The most recent Sheriff Dan Rhodes novel, Between the Living and the Dead, 
is scheduled for release in August. Would you tell us a little about it?In Between the Living and the Dead (the title is based on couple of lines 
from a Wordsworth poem; classy, huh?) Seepy Benton decides to go into 
the ghost-hunting business. There’s a haunted house, and of course a murder, 
and things do get a little woo-woo.Can we look forward to more novels featuring Dan Rhodes?A couple of weeks ago I turned in Survivors Will Be Shot Again, which
 is the next Sheriff Rhodes novel.  It should be out in 2016. I
 have a contract for one more book, tentatively titled Dead, to Begin With. 
If all works out it should appear in 2017. After that, who knows?You wrote five novels featuring reluctant P. I. Truman Smith. These novels, 
and the character, have been positively compared with Robert B. Parker’s
 Spenser novels; specifically the humor, dialogue, and plotting. 
Was Robert B. Parker, and the Spenser novels, an influence on the Truman 
Smith novels?             I became a big fan of private-eye novels when I read Hammett, Chandler, 
Ross Macdonald, and Mickey Spillane long, long ago, so those are the 
main influences on Truman Smith. As it turned out, when I wrote a p.i.
 novel, it was nothing like any of theirs but that was okay. I really liked 
writing those books and hoped they’d be a big success.
 It didn’t work out like that, but I still think they’re some of my best work.Truman Smith has a nomadic cat he calls Nameless—a character 
I very much like. I
Does the cat’s name refer to Bill Pronzini’s Nameless detective? 
Or is there another reason for the name?I couldn’t think of a name for Nameless, so that’s where the name came 
from, but there’s no question that it’s a tip of the hat to Bill Pronzini and 
his p.i., in one of the best series of p.i. novels ever.

[Editor’s Note.. Truman Smith appeared in five novels: Dead on the Island 
(1991), Gator Kill (1992), When Old Men Die (1994), The Prairie Chicken Kill 
(1996), and Murder Takes a Break (1996).]
You wrote two mystery novels with television personality Willard Scott—
Murder under Blue Skies (1998) and Murder in the Mist (1999)—and 
two with former Houston private detective Clyde Wilson—Houston Homicide 
(2007) 
and Mississippi Vivian (2010). Do you enjoy collaborating, and are there any 
elements of collaboration that are specifically appealing, 
or any that are especially difficult?The collaborations were a good bit different. With Willard Scott, I was 
given a sheet of things that the book was to contain, one of which was a 
protagonist who was a retired weatherman. I decided to give the fictitious 
weatherman a background very much like that of Scott, and he was a help in 
that regard. Other than that, the book is all me. With Clyde Wilson, 
I was furnished a complete outline of the plot for the first book. 
Wilson was ailing by the time of the second book, and I got only a brief 
partial 
outline, but there was enough to work from. Things couldn’t have gone 
more smoothly either time. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with 
both those men.I heard this question in an interview on a BBC program a few years ago. I
f you were stranded on an island and you had only one book. What would it be?I’d have to cheat a little and pick The Complete Works of Shakespeare.
 I have a couple of these around the house, so it’s not as if I’m picking s
omething I don’t own. The infinite variety would be good for me in 
that situation. Do I at least get a volleyball to keep me company, too?The opposite side of the coin. If you were allowed only to recommend 
one of your novels, or stories, which one would you want people to read?That’s even tougher. The Sheriff Rhodes series has easily been the
 most popular thing I’ve ever done, and I like to think they’re pretty 
consistently entertaining. I’d say just read any one of them and see 
if you like it.  If not, no need to read the others. If so, by all means read 
the rest of them. I have some atypical standalones I like a lot, too, 
The Texas Capitol Murders being one of them. And I like the Truman 
Smith series a lot, not to mention . . . . Well, obviously I can’t answer this question.Finally, we share at least one favorite author, Harry Patterson who gained
 fame under the name Jack Higgins, and I can’t help but ask if you have 
a favorite title of his?     This one isn’t easy, either. The first book I read by Patterson under 
his most recognizable name was The Savage Day, and that’s still a favorite. 
I like A Prayer for the Dying equally well, maybe even a little better. 
I like a number of the books he wrote as James Graham. 
Again, I can’t stick to just one.Thanks for giving me the chance to answer your questions, Ben.

Coen Brothers To Write, Possibly Direct Adaptation of Ross Macdonald’s ‘Black Money’

Ed here: Wowy wowy wow. The finest private detective writer of all time with two of the most
inrelligent and creative people in Hwood.


Coen Brothers To Write, Possibly Direct Adaptation of Ross Macdonald’s ‘Black Money’BY JASON BAILEY AUGUST 5, 2015 3:15 PM SHARE TWEET
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The Coen Brothers are among our most literary-minded modern filmmakers; their stylish dialogue and Swiss-watch plotting often feels as much of the printed page as the celluloid frame, and films like Blood Simple, Miller’s Crossing, and even The Big Lebowski wear their lit influences on their sleeves. But the Coens have done surprisingly few straight-up adaptations: there’s their Oscar-winning take on Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men, and 2010’s True Grit, and that’s about it. But Deadline is reporting they’ve been hired by Warner Brothers to write and possibly direct a film adaptation of Ross Macdonald’s 1966 crime novel Black Money, a match-up that sounds very promising indeed.Macdonald—the non de plume of writer Kenneth Millar—was a master of hardboiled California crime stories, best known for his series concerning Lew Archer, a tough but honorable private eye. Two of those novels were adapted into the Paul Newman vehicles Harper (1966) and The Drowning Pool (1975), but aside from those films and a couple other Millar adaptations, his work hasn’t made it to the big screen all that often.And while it’s certainly way too early to start casting, it’s worth noting that one of the few present-day actors with charisma and chops comparable to Newman is George Clooney, who just completed his third Coen Brothers movie, JUST SAYING.Tags:Black Money, George Clooney, Paul Newman, Ross Macdonald, The Coen Brothers

The New Dark Screams Only $2.99

TUESDAY, AUGUST 04, 2015Clive Barker, Heather Graham, Lisa Morton, Ray Garton, and Ed Gorman lead readers down a twisted labyrinth of terror, horror, and suspense in Dark Screams: Volume Four, from Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar of the revered Cemetery Dance Publications.

THE DEPARTED by Clive Barker
On All Hallows’ Eve, a dead and disembodied mother yearns to touch her young son one last time. But will making contact destroy them both?

CREATURE FEATURE by Heather Graham
What could be better publicity for a horror convention than an honest-to-goodness curse? It’s only after lights out that the hype—and the Jack the Ripper mannequin—starts to feel a little too real.

THE NEW WAR by Lisa Morton
Mike Carson is a war hero and a decorated vet. He doesn’t deserve to be trapped in a hospital with some black thing sitting on his chest as patients die all around him. His only hope is to take out the nurse—before it’s his turn.

SAMMY COMES HOME by Ray Garton
It’s what every family prays for: a lost pet returning home. But when Sammy, the Hale family sheepdog, appears on their doorstep, he brings back something no parent would ever wish upon his or her child.

THE BRASHER GIRL by Ed Gorman
Cindy Marie Brasher is the prettiest girl in the Valley, and Spence just has to have her. Unfortunately, Cindy has a “friend” . . . a friend who tells her to do things . . . bad things.

Praise for the Dark Screams series

“A wicked treat [featuring] some of the genre’s best . . . Dark Screams: Volume One is a strong start to what looks to be an outstanding series.”—Hellnotes

“The editors have set themselves a high bar to meet in future volumes. . . . It’s going to be a solid series.”—Adventures Fantastic

“Dark Screams: Volume Two [is] a worthwhile read and a great entry to this series. If this upward trend in quality continues, we are sure to see amazing things in the volumes to come.”—LitReactor

“Five fun-to-read stories by top-notch horror scribes. How can you lose? The answer: you can’t.”—Atomic FangirlPOSTED BY ED GORMAN AT 9:46 AM NO COMMENTS: LINKS TO THIS POST