Ed Gorman's Blog, page 47

THE ACTION AT REDSTONE CREEK by Merle Constiner

Mark Townsend is a gladly out of work tracker, but as the novel opens he is sitting at an ax-cut table in his rustic home staring at his final three silver quarters. He isn’t overly worried, but he is realistic—he doesn’t care for money, but he knows there are necessities only coin money can buy. His money problems only last a page or two until a dandy walks into his home and offers him a job.
The dandy, a man named Joe Teague, wants him to find his son who disappeared on his way to an engineering job at a mine in Idaho. The pay: one hundred dollars. Townsend takes the job, but quickly realizes Teague was less than honest with him, and the job is much more dangerous and involved than simply tracking a man. In fact, it isn’t too far into the story that he runs into a pair of toughs who have ill intentions towards Teague directly and Townsend indirectly.
The Action at Redstone Creek is vintage ACE. It starts with a bang and hurriedly moves from one scene to the next. There are gunfights, intrigues, cattle rustling, dueling ranchers, and lonely frontier dwelling men. The difference, or what separates it from most of the other ACE westerns, is the writing. It is fresh with a witty sense of humor. The prose and dialogue—not to mention a few of the situations and character relationships—is sharp, realistic and, at times, damn funny:

“It was midafternoon. He was staring at the quarters, trying to think of them in terms of cornmeal and fat pork, but thinking mainly what nice conchos they’d make, when the man stooped down and came through the door. 

“‘No offense meant,’ said the stranger, ‘but for a white man’s shack, this place has a sort of stink, a little like Indian smell.’ 

“‘Thank you,’ said Townsend. ‘Maybe some kindhearted Indian sometime will say as much for you.’”

The story doesn’t do the expected, and the characters are never typical; they dress and walk like the typical western character, but their actions, language, and responses tend to shy away from genre norms. An example is Townsend. He is far from the archetypal hero in both appearance and form. He is described as: “thirty-four, short, a little humped, big nosed, almost lizard eyed, and pretty ragged for the gaze of any white man.”
The Action at Redstone Creek is different, but its unusualness separates it from the herd. It is a story that will appeal to readers of traditional westerns, but its quirky nature will also appeal to others who are less inclined to read a western.
When I read Redstone Creek I did a little research on the author and I was saddened by what I learned. He died broke (the plight of many pulp writers) and alone. His life reminded me of Townsend's, particularly the opening scene when Townsend is staring at his final three quarters.
There is a detailed article at Pulp Rack about the life and work of Merle Constiner. It is titled “TheHunt for Merle Constiner” and written by Peter Ruber. Read the article, and then find one of Constiner's novels.
This is another repeat. It originally went live November 14, 2009. Since I wrote this post I have read several more Merle Constiner novels, and he has become one of my favorite writers of western pulp. I few years ago I reviewed his fine novelDeath Waits at Dakins Station.
I will have some original content soon. I have a few posts started, but nothing finished, but with a little luck things will settle down at work and home and I will soon have a little more time for blogging. 

(Guest Post) Our Man Clint: The Gunsmith Continues - Robert J. Randisi

OUR MAN CLINTThe Gunsmith ContinuesBy Robert J. Randisi, aka J.R. Roberts
It was a bloodbath, probably fitting, given how long adult westerns and mens adventure paperbacks have been spilling blood within their pages.  But in one fell swoop publishers, with seeming disregard for the readers—or the readers that were left, anyway—cancelled all the Adult Western series—notably the long running Longarm and Gunsmith series—and mens adventure series—most notably, the Mack Bolan series.  This move, as of April of 2015, will not only rob loyal readers of the adventures of Custis Longarm and Mack Bolan, but will also put entire stables of writers out of work. Both series, along with many others, were written by multiple writers, having supplied work for many working writers for a good 40 years.  In fact, the Adult Western genre not only invigorated the western genre and kept it alive,but provided income for dozens of writers over the years. And now it’s the end of an era for all of them . . .
. . . except The Gunsmith.
Why?

Very simple answer. For the most part, the Gunsmith was created and written by one man. When Charter Books contacted me in 1981 and asked me if I could create an Adult Western series for them, I jumped at the chance.  I created a bible and, when it was approved, signed a two book contract.  Then a contract for a third.  And then they called me and said they wanted to go into the genre whole-heartedly, and could I write a book a month.  I was 30 years old, had no idea if I could write a book a month, but I said “Yes!”

I started writing under the pseudonym J.R. Roberts.  When I attended my first Western convention I discovered what anomaly the Gunsmith and I were. There were several other monthly adult westerns running at the time, and they were being written by three or four writers under a single house name. A “house name” is a name used by many authors on one series.  My “J.R. Roberts” nom de-plume was a pseudonym used by one person, not a house name. (It was only after Berkley Books purchased Charter Books and wanted to keep the Gunsmith going that they asked if they could hire two more writers, just to build up an inventory. The writers were to be approved by me, and I was to own even those books which I did not write, and receive a royalty. It made me even more of an anomaly in the genre. Once we had built up a one year inventory, I went back to writing all the books.)


And I have done so since then, for over 32 years.  Gunsmith #1: Macklin’s Women came out in January of 1982, and there has been a Gunsmith every month since then.  Berkley Books decided to end the run in April of 2015 with #399, and I was given enough warning so that I was able to place the series elsewhere and assure that Gunsmith #400 would appear in May of 2015, with no break in the action.  They will appear with a new cover design in ebook for from Piccadilly Publishing, and in paperback from Western Trailblazers.  And Our Man Clint will go on appearing in a book a month for as long as my flying fingers can flex.
So to those loyal Gunsmith readers who pick up up each and every month, you may continue to do so, with heartfelt thanks from me, and from Our Man Clint Adams.

I should also thank Charter Books, where it all started, and then Berkley Books, which has kept the series going all these years, as we all move on to the next bend in the road. 

Len Levinson on writing THE CAMP

this is from the great website Glorious Trash http://glorioustrash.blogspot.com/
Lev Levinson: 
The Camp wasn't my idea. Peter McCurtin, editor at Belmont-Tower, wrote the first 30 pages or so, and hired me to finish it. I really don't know why Peter didn't finish it, or what happened. Perhaps he had more commitments than he could handle, because in addition to being an editor, he also wrote novels. 
I seem to recall that he left BT around that time, and was replaced by Milburn Smith. I don't know why Peter left, but he embarked on a career of writing novels full time. Occasionally I ran into him on the street, because he also lived in Hell's Kitchen. One day he asked if I knew of inexpensive office space he could rent, because his apartment was too noisy. I told him that if I knew about inexpensive, quiet office space, I'd rent it myself. 
I was very fond of Peter's warm, affable personality, especially his sardonic sense of humor. He influenced my writing tremendously, and I'm very sorry he's no longer with us. I hope he's in a quiet corner of heaven now, with a good working typewriter. 
I don't remember much about writing The Camp. I just picked up where Peter left off and kept going, creating scenes, situations and characters out of my lurid imagination. Sometimes I wonder what would've become of me if I didn't have a lurid imagination. I might've been a doctor, lawyer or engineer, and led a decent middle class life, instead of low rent paperback commando. But I've never been a very decent person, so I probably ended up where I belonged.
Ed Gorman: I would note here that Len is need of the Ed Gorman Home School Self-Esteem Course. It sure didn't work for me but maybe it will for Len. 

Posted by Joe Kenney at 6:30 AM 7 comments: 

"Texas Wind" by James Reasoner from Pulp Serenade

Ed here: As I've told James many times his private eye writing is among the
finest, the very finest, of his generation.  Many many people agree with me.
James has a number of short fine p.i. stories on Kindle. Read those, too. 
Cullen Gallagher:
James Reasoner may open Texas Wind (Manor Books, 1980) with the Private Eye’s iconic visit to a potential client, the initial gestation to many a detective narrative (shades of Marlowe in The Big Sleep), but this is 1980, and just as the world is a different place than it was in Chandler’s time, the private detective is also a different person. Midway through Cody’s investigation into the disappearance of college student Mandy Traft, he is given a telling warning that immediately separates his character from the classic milieu of Marlowe, Spade, Hammer, Scott, or any of their veteran pulp colleagues. “I’d hate to have to file a report listing you as the victim. This isn’t the wild days anymore. Take it easy, okay?” Reprehensible, vulnerable, fallible, imperfect – perhaps the best word to describe Cody is the simplest of all: human.
As Ross Macdonald notes in his On Crime Writing , “Throughout its history, from Poe to Chandler and beyond, the detective has represented his creator and carried his values into action in society.” This is one of the unique appeals of the genre: the detective figure is pliable enough to be at once distinct and yet firmly part of a larger tradition. It is a difficult feat to balance a sense of history and remain independent, but Reasoner does it marvelously.
Like the great detectives, Cody is an anachronism. His perceptive cynicism marks him a realist in a fantasy world, and his values give him a sense of grounding while those around him flounder in meaninglessness. He immediately recognizes the phoniness in Mandy’s stepmother (who claims to be “friends” with her) and her friend Lisa (who pretends there is no sexual tension between them and Jeff, the third member of their musical group). He also empathizes with their need to cling to these facades when Mandy’s disappearance brought one glaring, unpleasant truth to the surface: no one was as intimate or close as they once thought. This was the closest thing they had to family and friends, and with Mandy gone, the charade can’t support itself, nor can it give meaning to their lives.

As for Cody, he may be a hero for trying, but even he realizes he’s a fool for thinking he could enact change in a world that is irreversibly changing. He makes mistakes, and he pays for them – and so do others. His few attempts at gung-ho heroism go terribly wrong. And when he ignores gut instinct to inform the police about the kidnapping and ransom request, you begin to wonder whether the attributes of detectives of yesteryear (bullheaded independence, reckless egoism, total disregard for law and order) are as admirable as we once thought. As readers we want to believe in Cody’s decisions, and believe that everything will turn out for the best in the end. We want the myth of the Private Detective and his personal agency to win out against an increasingly oppressive world. By the end of the book, however, even Cody isn’t convinced of this anymore. The weight of reality is just too hard to ignore.
In the midst of all of this despair is a life-affirming sense of humor. (A favorite observation is: “When we were back in the car, I noticed that Janice wasn’t sitting as close to me as she had before. The price you pay for carrying a human finger in your pocket, I guess.”) There’s real warmth to his characters’ interactions, and just as much fire when they’re fighting. For his first book, James Reasoner created a Private Eye novel as classic as it is modern, and fans of the genre are sure to enjoy the deft storytelling and rich characters it has to offer.
Here are just a few more of my favorite lines:
“I woke up to sunshine coming in the window and the smell of bacon cooking. I understood what people meant when they talked about waking up and thinking they were in heaven.”
“Her guilt on top of mine was like thick dust in the air, making it hard to breathe.”
“Maybe the problems of youth didn’t seem quite so important as you got older, but that didn’t mean they were less than earth-shaking for the people going through them. Everybody’s problems are important at the time.”

Ed here: I wish Cullen Gallagher was blogging on h...

Ed here: I wish Cullen Gallagher was blogging on his great site Pulp Serenade everyday, too.In the meantime Cullen's given my permission to reprint pieces from the past.
Yellowleg is in my top ten western favorites. As A.S. Fleischman Sid Fleischman (yes one of the beset selling children's writers of all-time) he wrote suspense for the Likes of Ace and Gold Medal.It shows in the book. The power of the characters and the storyline was turned into a first class western movie as Cullen indicates below.


Wednesday, December 8, 2010"Yellowleg" by A.S. Fleischman (Gold Medal, 1960)

The Civil War has been over for many years, and a prospective bank robbery has forged a bond between former enemies. There are the two Rebels – the anxious gunhand Billy and his older mentor Turk – and the Yankee, a mysterious man named Yellowleg who is short on words and quick on the draw. As they enter Gila City, it is clear the group has divergent motives: Turk has his eye on the money, while Billy is keen on the dance hall girl Kit, and Yellowleg has his sights on revenge for someone who nearly scalped him during the war.
Like the best of A.S. Fleischman’s Gold Medal novels (such as the South Seas thrillers Malay Woman and Danger in Paradise), Yellowleg’s driving plot quickly veers off the conventional path and goes in unexpected directions, repeatedly adding new twists to the story and its characters. What begins as a heist story morphs into a revenge quest, and Fleischman takes the narrative on yet another detour with Kit and her son, Mead. Such surprises keep the story fresh and engaging, but most importantly they come off as natural evolutions and never seem forced or contrived.

Fleischman takes a similar approach to his characters, putting distinctive spins on Western archetypes. Kit seems particularly modern. She’s a single mother who began working in a dance hall after her husband was killed during an Indian attack. Despite the lurid rumors spread by the townsfolk, Kit is not, and never was, a “parlor girl.” Strong and self-reliant, she never pities herself or expresses any shame about the life she was forced to take. And unlike “Mike,” the gun-toting female from W.R. Burnett’s Stretch Dawson, Kit doesn’t throw away her independence once a man forcefully takes her into his arms. It was refreshing to see a feminine character that couldn’t be won over by masculine strength or sexuality.
In 1961, the year after Yellowleg was published, Fleischman adapted his own book to the screen as The Deadly Companions. It was the first film by a young man who would go on to become a luminary in film history: Sam Peckinpah. Maureen O'Hara and Brian Keith played the lead roles, and I thought it was a terrific adaptation that really captured the spirit of the book. I've posted the video below, or you can watch it for free on Archive.org.


As always, a few of my favorite quotes from the book:
“Maybe the trouble with revenge was the day you caught up with it.”
“Her beauty struck him as a fragile, hopeless thing; out of place and unexpected in a dried-up little New Mexico town. It reminded him of the bloom of mountain cactus which opened its petals for a brief display in the night and then withered and browned in the next day’s heat.”
“Their shadows traveled close underfoot, like timid reflections.”
“There was no pain, only the memory of it, and the fear of it, but it kept him from squeezing the trigger.”
“But a man needs something to live for, even if it’s just to kill another man.”

Forgotten Books: Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 09, 2009Forgotten Books: Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise SaganBonjour Tristesse - Francoise Sagan

In the summer of 1958 I was sixteen years old and going through my first real heartbreak. My only solace was in books and movies. Seeing people was too painful. I mention this because my state of mind had a good deal to do with my reaction to a slender Dell paperback I'd been hearing about.

Bonjour Tristesse had been written by a seventeen-year-old French schoolgirl and it had the good fortune to become a scandal in both Europe and the United States. The story concerned seventeen-year-old Cecile whose wealthy and handsome father is what one might call, in crude Yankee tongue, an ass-bandit. His latest young thing is Elsa whom Cecile likes because she's the kind of trivial beauty her father will dump after a few months. But then Anne appears and Cecile must plot to get rid of her. Anne is serious competition to Cecile. She will take Cecile's father from her, at least mentally and spiritually. From here the story deals with Cecile's attempt to destroy a fine woman--and one of her deceased mother's best friends--before her father falls in love with her. The end is tragic.

The novel is about pain and betrayal and loneliness and is told so simply and directly it has the effect of a stage monologue. It was condemned by most of the old farts--the French Catholic novelist Francois Mauriac reviewed it and sounded as if he was making the case for Sagan's execution--while the more charitable critics found it earnest and compelling if not quite as important as all the fuss would have it.

There was an Iowa angle, too. Otto Preminger discovered eighteen-year-old Jean Seberg from Marshalltown, Iowa and starred her in his catastrophic production of St. Joan. The critics loved her melancholy beauty (who wouldn't?) but she certainly wasn't up to a role this difficult. This could have ended her career but she was quickly cast in Bonjour Tristesse--which wasn't much of a movie--and did a fine job. Later she would become a French film icon when she did Breathless with Jean Paul Belmondo.

But Seberg had a troubled life very much like that of a Sagan heroine. At least one of her husbands beat her and J. Edgar Hoover had his creeps stalk her here and in France. He tried to destroy her by feeding tales to the press of how she just might be seeing a black man and showing a definite interest in left-wing politics. She died at forty-one in circumstances that the authorities believed pointed to suicide. She had long struggled with depression.

I followed Sagan's career to the end because Bonjour had given me so much comfort that terrible summer. In France she was seen, at least early on, as a kind of J.D. Salinger, though I always thought her take on this vale of tears was far richer than his. And by the time she wrote Those Without Shadows a few years later she was far out of his league. And she certainly never disappointed the media. Here, from Wikipedia, just a bit of her life story:

Personal life

Sagan was married twice; to Guy Schoeller ( married 13 March 1958, an editor with Hachette, 20 years older than Sagan, divorced June 1960), and to Bob Westhof ( a young American playboy and would-be ceramist, married 10 January 1962, divorced 1963.

Their son Denis was born in June 1963.)[3] She took a lesbian longer term lover in fashion stylist Peggy Roche; and had a male lover Bernard Frank, a married essayist obsessed with reading and eating. She added to her self-styled "family" by beginning a long-term lesbian affair with the French Playboy magazine editor Annick Geille, after she approached Sagan for an article for her magazine.[1]

Fond of travellng in the United States, she was often seen with Truman Capote and Ava Gardner. She was once involved in a car accident in her Aston Martin sports car - (14 April 1957) - which left her in a coma for some time. She also loved driving her Jaguar automobile to Monte Carlo for gambling sessions.

Also, in the 1990s, Sagan was charged with and convicted of possession of cocaine.

Sagan was, at various times of her life, addicted to a number of drugs. She was a long-term user of prescription pills, amphetamines, cocaine, morphine, and alcohol.When police came for inspection in her house her dog called Banko showed cocaine to them and also licks cocaine. Sagan told police " Look! he likes it too."
POSTED BY ED GORMAN AT 2:09 PM  

The Autumn Dead / The Night Remembers reviewed by Kevin Burton Smith

Books

from Mystery Scene
from Stark House Press

by Ed GormanStark House Press, $19.95 BUY AT AMAZON SHOP AT INDIE BOUND
 Kevin Burton Smith
If Ed Gorman were a different type of writer, I’d call this a two-fisted collection, but Gorman’s not that kinda guy. Oh, he’ll sock it to you, all right, but you’ll never see it coming. Let’s face it. 
Any lout in a bar can spit in your face, punch you in the gut, or kick you in the, uh, guts, but it takes a real master to look you straight in the eye and KO you before you even know you’re in a fight.
This collection rounds up two of Gorman’s better novels, both of which aptly demonstrate the author’s long-recognized ability to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.
The Autumn Dead (1987) was Gorman’s fourth novel to feature Jack Dwyer, a private eye in a thinly disguised version of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A former cop who developed a taste for acting, he quit the force, figuring being a gumshoe would give him more time to pursue his passion.
But Marlowe he’s not, and he soon takes a job with a security firm to keep the wolf from the door. And then Karen Lane, a high school sweetheart, waltzes back into his life, asking him to recover a suitcase she’d left with a previous lover, figuring the now middle-aged Jack—despite being in a solid relationship—won’t be able to resist her still considerable charms. And he can’t. At least at first. But the suitcase isn’t where it’s supposed to be, and Karen hasn’t exactly been telling him the whole truth.
There’s a solid mystery here, full of murder, rape, blackmail and old secrets, but the real mysteries lie within the complicated relationships between men and women, between past and present, between what we want and what we have. Through it all, Jack displays considerable empathy and a gentle humor as he plies his trade, and brings things to a emotionally satisfying ending.
But as satisfying as that one is, it’s  The Night Remembers that’s the real treasure here, a cold and bloody hallelujah tempered by Gorman’s warmth and compassion. 
Sixty-four years old, recently retired from the sheriff’s office, Jack Walsh is an apartment house manager who does a little private eyeing on the side, while pursuing a relationship with Faith, a much younger woman who claims her young son is his. Yet one more case of the past calling dibs on the present—a frequent theme of Gorman’s.
But the big call from the past comes in the form of a visit from the wife of George Pennyfeather, a man Jack helped send to prison on a murder rap years ago. Lisa Pennyfeather still believes her husband is innocent, and now that he’s been released, wants Walsh to clear his name. 
Not surprisingly, Walsh is hesitant, but when a woman is killed behind the Pennyfeather’s house and all fingers point to George as the culprit, Jack begins to have doubts and starts to poke around. It does not go well.
Gorman’s work has always had a deep and heartfelt sense of tenderness and abiding humanity in it, and if you ask me, this is his masterpiece, a quietly powerful gem of a novel, full of real people living real lives, trying desperately to hang on to the little they have, and living with real hurt. 
Like much of Gorman’s work, it’s drenched in nostalgia and tinged with noir, a brooding contemplation of this train wreck of existence. But the delicate fragility of life is beautifully woven into a brooding, almost Leonard Cohen-esque song of lust, violence, regret, and redemption, all minor chords and major lifts.
If this one doesn’t move you, I’m sorry, but you just ain’t human.

Fiction River edited by international bestseller Kevin J. Anderson

Pulse Pounders
Edited by Kevin J. AndersonStarts with a bang.
Ends with a bang.
And a lot of bang in between.Pulse Pounders. Ranging from straight thriller to science fiction, fantasy to pulp adventure, these stories make your heart race. Share the excitement as a woman held hostage in a chair has only a few minutes to escape, and a man trapped in a time loop revisits a crisis point in the past. Including an original never-before-published Frank Herbert story, these page-turners show why Adventures Fantastic says Fiction River “is one of the best and most exciting publications in the field today.” Fiction River
“[Fiction River] is one of the best and most exciting publications in the field today. Check out an issue and see why I say that.”—Keith West, Adventures Fantastic
“If you haven’t checked out Fiction River yet, you should. There’s something for everyone.”—Keith West, Adventures Fantastic
“Fiction River is off to an auspicious start. It's a worthy heir to the original anthology series of the 60s and 70s. ... It’s certainly the top anthology of the year to date.”—Amazing Stories on Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds
“Editor Dean Wesley Smith has compiled an outstanding volume of time travel stories, no two alike. I highly recommend it.”—Adventures Fantastic onFiction River: Time Streams
“A sugary Christmas treat for those who love romance.” —Publishers Weekly on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“The beloved Victorian Christmas ghost storytelling tradition continues to thrive in modern day, and this multi-genre anthology of short stories is proof. Cuddle up next to a crackling fire with some holiday music playing softly in the background, and lose yourself in eight amazing Christmas stories by a gang of super-talented, cross-genre authors. Not only are they heartwarming, but they incorporate mystery, science fiction, romance and ghosts! A few tend to be more animated than others, but each one is special, and guaranteed to jingle someone’s bells.”—RT Book Reviews on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“In this latest volume of an anthology series from WMG’s Fiction River imprint, best-selling authors (Mary Jo Putney and Carole Nelson Douglas) and rising stars (M.L. Buchman, Anthea Lawson, and others) present a wide selection of romantic stories, from Regency to romantic suspense to paranormal, all set during the Christmas season and featuring some form of a ghost. VERDICT This title offers eight original love stories that will give romance readers several satisfying happy endings.”—Library Journal on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“Christmas Ghosts was a fun read.”—Astroguyz on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“Christmas Ghosts has plenty to offer by way of cross-genre literary intrigue.”—Astroguyz on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“In A Ghost of Time by Dean Wesley Smith, the author weaves a tale of time travel intrigue. This is no mean feat to pull off on top of a romance paranormal Christmas tale!”—Astroguyz on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“We thoroughly enjoyed every tale in Christmas Ghosts. The collection offers a unique cross-genre take all within one solid tome of tales. Enjoy it with a glass of your favorite eggnog by a roaring, crackling fire this holiday season… and hey, it goes great with Halloween … as well!”—Astroguyz on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“Each tale will take you on an eerie love adventure and all end up with a warm and loving conclusion gearing you up into the Christmas spirit. Kristine Grayson has chosen some of the best to be included in this anthology, guaranteed to give the reader thrills as well as an abundance of romance and love. Settle yourself down with a hot drink and entertain yourself with this wonderful book that will fulfill your desire for love sought during the amazing magical time of Christmas. This is a must read for anyone enjoying a little mystical adventure at this great time of the year.”—Fresh Fiction on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“…a nice, enjoyable collection of ghost stories that are a perfect fit for the season.”—Adventures Fantastic on Fiction River: Christmas Ghosts
“Fiction River: Crime edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch leads off with strong new tales by three familiar EQMMcontributors: Doug Allyn with a gangster whodunnit, Steve Hockensmith with a con game story, and Brendan DuBois with a fresh variation on the old brothers-who-took-different-paths ploy. A sampling of other contents, including experimental short-shorts by Melissa Yi and M. Elizabeth Castle and a clever turn on the greedy-relatives-want-inheritance by Kate Wilhelm, suggest high quality throughout."—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine on Fiction River Special Edition: Crime
“Among the volume’s better entries are Doug Allyn’s “Hitler’s Dogs,” in which narrator Doc Bannan seeks the truth about his gang mentor’s death, and Steve Hockensmith’s “Wheel of Fortune,” which relates the schemes of a pair of con artists.”—Publishers Weekly on Fiction River Special Edition: Crime

“… [this] fabulous collection runs the genre gamut and more.”—Genre Go Round Reviews on Fiction River Special Edition: Crime
“Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives is a great choice for anyone who loves it when genres are swirled together. It’s nominally more heavily influenced by mystery conventions and tropes, but the science fiction and fantasy elements in it are almost as strong.”—Long and Short Reviews on Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives
“Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives is a great read if you like to blend mystery with your fantasy. Check it out.” —Keith West, Amazing Stories
“This fantastic Fiction River anthology runs the gamut of fantasy-detective subgenres.”—Harriet Klausner, Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine on Fiction River: Fantastic Detectives
“Rusch’s strong anthology contains a dozen stories of ‘crimes that aren’t crimes any longer,’ as she states in her introduction, stories that move from as far back as ancient Egypt to as recently as the 1970s. … Readers will find many impressive voices, both familiar and new.—Publishers Weekly on Fiction River: Past Crime
“Meeting the exceptional quality of previous anthologies, this collection contains excellent past crimes short stories.”—Harriet Klausner, Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine on Fiction River: Past Crime
“… fans of the unconventional will be well satisfied.”—Publishers Weekly on Fiction River: Pulse Pounders

New Books Tracy Knight Trace Elements and The Astonished Eye

REOPENING THE ASTONISHED EYEAND FINDING TRACE ELEMENTSbyTracy KnightSince its birth, I’ve regarded my novel The Astonished Eye as a beloved offspring who left home with an eloquent wave, disappeared quietly into the world, and made a few good and lasting friends wherever it traveled. A good life, all in all. Originally published in 2001 as a signed limited edition by Peter Crowther and PS Publishing, later as a US hardback from Five Star, The Astonished Eye may never have made the cultural or economic splash that a few predicted, but has remained a kind and valuable descendent. And it again has found life.When Stark House Press recently republished The Astonished Eye as a “Stark House Fantasy Classic,” it not only allowed the novel another opportunity to trundle the world and make friends, it also permitted me a nice period of reexamination and appreciation, even of the little things: How a chance visit by a movie Munchkin to the area where I live (to attend an autograph session at a tire store, remarkably enough) transfigured into Almo Parrish, one of the primary characters; how, unaccountably, the Firesign Theatre’s David Ossman gave voice and physical form to inveterate inventor Chandler Quinn; how my childhood—both real and imagined—informed every paragraph, every page. If nothing else, I produced a story that represented me to me.  Happily, others found meaning in the tale; perhaps it tickled memories of their own childhoods, for several reviewers referenced the sense of childhood wonder we all experienced, and which suffuses the novel.
Stark House’s publication of The Astonished Eye also allowed me to appreciate what I’ve learned about life in the ten years since its original publication. Mercifully, as one ages, one’s insights about life and all it includes become simpler rather than more elaborate. A primary facet of life I appreciate—primarily through my work as a psychotherapist, but also from writing fiction—is that human beings are not collections of neurons and sparkling synapses, or clusters of knotted conflicts, or bouquets of irrational beliefs. As I wrote in the Introduction to the new edition:“Human beings are, above all else, embodied stories. We spend every conscious moment (not to mention our dream states) engaged in the creation, enactment, and exchange of stories, each of which serves to clarify fragments of our lives, simultaneously uniting us with our fellow travelers. The stories we tell—especially those we tell ourselves—are the legacies we live and we leave. Beyond our presence on Earth—when we transform from subject to object—we continue existing as stories, as incarnate insights we uncovered about what it’s like to be alive, even as years pass and our names secede from the stories, like autumn leaves from their mother tree.“Human beings as embodied stories—and stories as embodied humanness—also came clear when I opened Perfect Crime’s edition of Trace Elements, my first collection of short stories. Prior to John Boland of Perfect Crime expressing interest in a collection, I held few hopes of my stories being collected, since genre-wise they were all over the map: mysteries, suspense, science fiction, westerns, horror. Absent an orienting genre, I had difficulty picturing how the book would work. Nonetheless, I selected thirteen tales and assembled them into reasonable sections: The Human Mystery, Darkness & Light, and Beyond Human.  It wasn’t until I read the Introduction that Ed Gorman kindly provided for the collection that the invisible cord holding these stories together came clear. Ed observed that my stories tend to be examinations of outcasts, outsiders, no matter the genre. I stopped when I read that because, although it had never clearly occurred to me, it was absolutely true. And Ed’s observation was reinforced when Trace Elements was recently reviewed by David Pitt of Booklist, who wrote:“Genre author Knight, who has written both science fiction and westerns, offers 13 short stories that focus on people who are either damaged, marginalized, or both: a man who loses his mind every Father’s Day; a ‘cat lady’; a former stage star, now living in a nursing home; an elderly dementia sufferer; a war-veteranrecluse; a young woman with cerebral palsy. Knight, a clinical psychologist, takes us deep inside his characters, letting us get a good look at what makes them tick. These aren’t just character studies, though; they’re compelling pieces of short fiction, with gripping, often unsettling tales to tell.”It was enormously gratifying to encounter this overarching meaning that united my novels and short stories, since I believe that in fiction—whether or not by design—writers provide their readers glimpses into how to be human. Besides appreciating the narrative qualities of life, Trace Elements also offers one such glimpse.  In the end, despite our earnest, ongoing efforts to matter and to belong, we are—all of us—outsiders.
The Astonished Eye is available through Stark House Press (starkhousepress.com), and Trace Elements is available through Perfect Crime Books (perfectcrimebooks.com). Both are also available through amazon.com and through the underused process of politely bugging one’s local bookstore

nice girl gone bad Libby Fischer Hellmann

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Dear Ed,"Short stories are the poetry of prose. They are precise, cut to the bone, 
every word a necessity. Not many authors develop that control. Libby 
Fischer Hellmann has the hand of a master. Take it from a guy 
who knows her well: Libby is a nice girl. But she writes noir with a 
savvy edge honed on the hard, dark knowledge of the evil possible 
in us all." - William Kent KruegerWhile Kent's words are meant to be flattering, I do have to
 confess something: I love writing short stories. I often say t
hat a novel is like a marriage, but a short story is an affair: passionate, 
all-consuming, wonderful, and brief. So I've written lots of short stories, 
and continue to. I've collected fifteen of them in Nice Girl Does 
Noir. Volume I includes 
five Ellie Foreman and Georgia Davis stories; Volume II has
 ten stand-alone stories that span different territories, 
characters, and times. You'll find them all here.And if you'd like to know why I think writing short stories 
are critically important for a writer's career, take a look at this article.Reviews"I don't usually like short stories, but these are terrific! 
I roared through them. Hellmann had a good mix of Chicago 
historicals and contemporaries. My highest recommendation here."- Molly Weston, Meritorious Mysteries"When Hellmann explores the less sunlit areas of Chicago, 
 her canvas becomes not only more universal but has greater 
depth and emotional value. Aspiring short-story writers 
would do well to pay attention."- Naomi Johnson, The Drowning Machine