Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 10

Boogie on into the MysteryPeople Top Ten!

If you don’t follow me on Facebook or Twitter, I’m currently touring Germany, Luxembourg, Salzburg, Belgium, and the Netherlands (and yes, there will be a novel or two inspired by this trip). Firecracker and I are having a great time, but was topped by finding that Scott Montgomery not only gave Bad Boy Boogie a stellar review which you can you read here, but also put it among his top ten books of 2017  with The Force by Don Winslow, She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper, and Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman!

Peruse his list for some great reading. The Force is amazing, and Shotgun kicks off with a blast… Paper Moon meets Pulp Fiction.

Scott’s Top Ten of 2017 (So Far)

I may celebrate with a beer… Prost, Scott!

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Buried Under Books reviews Bad Boy Boogie

Buried Under Books reviewed my Jay Desmarteaux crime thriller BAD BOY BOOGIE:

“Jay is a complex man and the author truly brings him to life, this ex-con with a hard outer shell that’s slightly penetrated by the life he finds on the outside after 25 years on the inside. There’s a considerable amount of graphic violence, including sexual, here but it’s understandable although this man’s sense of justice is often very different from yours and mine. This is a book that could have resided in the old black & white, hardboiled days just as well as today and I suspect I’ll remember Jay and his story for a long, long time.”

Read the full review at Buried Under Books.

Tagged: Bad Boy Boogie

Joey Ramone on my Atari!

When I was thirteen, me and my friends Jeff and Lonnie started a software company. Not Apple, Microsoft… we were Eclipse Software Productions, and we wrote software for Atari personal computers (not the game consoles, the 800, 800XL, ST, etc). We started by creating images for Broderbund Software’s The Print Shop, which let you print greeting cards, flyers, and so on, on your noisy dot matrix printer. By the end we were writing primitive Word Processing and Check Balancing programs for cheap, selling them all on a floppy disk for $10 when the professional versions cost $49.99 each.

We made a few hundred bucks over a year or so, but we didn’t stick with it, and went our separate ways. As I dive into ’80s nostalgia for a book project, this all came back to me, and one of my favorite memories as a computer nerd in that time was when my hero Joey Ramone appeared in K-Power magazine, a rag for Apple, Atari, TRS-80, and Commodore 64 users and programmers. He gave them an unrecorded demo called “S.L.U.G.” and the staff wrote a BASIC program that would play the tune in all its 8-bit glory, while the lyrics blinked in time to the music. I keyed it in and was overjoyed! The Ramones! on my Atari 800XL! Totally awesome! (that’s ’80s speak for “OMG”). The song is hilariously silly, a love song about a slug, in the ’50s doo-wop vein. It would go really well with a viewing of Slither.

Here are the pages from the magazine with an interview with Joey. If you want the programs to try out on an emulator, the whole issue of K-Power is archived here. Click to embiggen:

Listen to the 8-bit version. But what did it sound like, really? When the Ramones released their “All the Stuff, and More” collections in the late ’90s, the original demo of “S.L.U.G.” was included:

And here’s a video of Joey singing it live in 1998, a few years before he died.

Joey was a hero of mine, a gangly goof who became a legendary rock star by being true to himself and singing about what he wanted, not what was expected of him. And he’s buried in the same cemetery as my grandmother:

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Tagged: 80s, Atari, Nerds, Ramones

Writer Types Podcast: Summer Reads

While I was in California, Eric Beetner and S.W. Lauden, the crime fiction duo behind the Writer Types podcast, were kind enough to interview me. If you’re not into podcasts, Eric and Steve are both professional editors, so they know how to cut the chaff. They do a great interview, and we had lots of fun. Also in this episode are Meg Gardiner, John Rector, Jordan Harper, and Angel Luis Colón. Listen to it here.

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Tagged: podcasts

A Sense of Wonder: Wonder Woman and Sincerity

Over at Do Some Damage, I talk about Wonder Woman, and director Patty Jenkins on sincerity. I loved the movie, let me tell you why.

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Tagged: Wonder Woman

Panel at the New York Public Library, 6/8

What are you doing next Thursday? I’ll be on a panel with one of my favorite writers, Laura K. Curtis, discussing the Decision to Self-Publish, at the New York Public Library’s Ottendorfer Branch, at 5:30pm.

I know, I lost you when I said “Ottendorfer.”  The Ottendorfer Branch isn’t a secretive government agency, despite how it sounds. It’s the original branch of the New York Public Library, donated in 1884 by Oswald Ottendorfer, who ran a German-American newspaper. And holy cats, look at those muttonchops. They’re practically full-grown sheep:

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The panel is titled Self-Publishing: Is it Right for You? and Curtis and I will be discussing that decision and answering questions, as we have both had our books published traditionally and self-published them:

Have you considered self-publishing as an outlet for your work? Can’t decide whether to do it yourself or wait for an agent or a publisher to help you? Laura K. Curtis and Thomas Pluck, who have written short stories and novels in multiple genres, and who have both published independently and with traditional presses, discuss the pros and cons of self-publishing. What questions should you ask yourself before deciding to send your work out into the world yourself? What strategies will give it the best shot at success? They’ll answer all your questions about the brave new world of publishing!

As these debates get “lively,” it should be a good time. I’ll have copies of my traditionally published crime thriller Bad Boy Boogie, and my self-published adventure novel Blade of Dishonor on hand for taste tests.

Where:

The Ottendorfer Library, 135 Second Avenue, Manhattan

When: Thursday June 8th, 5:30pm

 

 

 

Tagged: Laura K. Curtis, New York City

That time I killed Dan Malmon…

 

Dan and Kate Malmon are two of the best people in the crime fiction community, a superhero duo who write for Crimespree, bike for charity, and make the world on and offline, a better place. So I was thrilled when Kate asked me to kill Dan.

In a story! ha. ha.

See, they’ve put together an anthology where every writer has to kill Dan. Because he’s such a nice guy. Mine’s called “Russian Roulette” and is based on Dan’s grandfather Irving Malmon, who owned a deli back in the day, plus Dan’s favorite sandwich, my memories of living in the Twin Cities, and a funny story that happened to me at the airport involving a ’70s-style mobster jacket and an errant feminine hygiene product…

I’m in good company, with stories by Josh Stallings (I was there when he wrote the funny as hell thing), Hilary Davidson, Holly West, Hector Acosta, Danny Gardner… well, just read the announcement for the full list.

It comes out in October, from Down & Out Books. Here’s a cover tease. All sales benefit the MS Society.

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Tagged: Anthologies, Crimespree Magazine, Killing Malmon

The Protectors Anthology Sale

If you haven’t bought the Anthony finalist for best anthology, Protectors 2: Heroes, have I got a deal for you. I happen to have several of them here taking up space and not making any money for The National Association to Protect Children’s HERO Corps, to which 100% of the proceeds are donated. If you don’t know the HERO Corps, they train wounded veterans to assist law enforcement in hunting online predators. So it’s time to move some books.

It’s got original, exclusive stories by Laird Barron, Graham Wynd, Rios de la Luz, Gary Phillips, Richard Prosch, Hilary Davidson, Joelle Charbonneau, Josh Stallings, Scott Adlerberg, Neliza Drew, and myself, as well as “Silvia Reyes” by P.J. Ward, which was longlisted for the year’s best horror, by Ellen Datlow. You also get stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Joe Lansdale, Reed Farrel Coleman, Harlan Ellison, Wayne Dundee, and Holly West’s “Don’t Fear the Ripper,” which was chosen for inclusion in Otto Penzler’s new Jack the Ripper anthology.

Cover price is $26.95, but I’ll let them go for $19 shipped (media mail, US only) and I’ll sign or inscribe them to your liking.

And I’ll do one better: I also have copies of the 500 page trade paperback of Protectors, the first anthology, with original, exclusive stories by Ken Bruen, Jen Conley, Todd Robinson, Ray Banks, Patti Abbott, Les Edgerton, James Reasoner, Johnny Shaw, Josh Stallings, Dave White, and Charlie Stella, plus hard to find classics by Chet Williamson, George Pelecanos, Roxane Gay, and Bill Cameron. It’s $18.95 cover, but I if you want it and Protectors 2: Heroes, I will sell them for $30 shipped in the US. And of course I’ll sign and inscribe them.

Want them? Just shoot me an email via the Contact Form, I can take Paypal or check. That’s cheaper than Amazon, and the HERO Corps will get a nice boost. And it lasts until they’re gone.

(That’s the deadly Hilary Davidson holding Protectors 2: Heroes, which is hefty enough to use as a murder weapon)

Tagged: Protectors Anthology

Noir at the Bar Queens Lit Fest 5/28

With barely time to take a breath after my lovely tour of the bookstores, taco stands, and bars of Los Angeles, I’m off to Long Island City in Queens this Memorial Day weekend to read with a delightful bevy of crime writers. So if you’re in town this weekend, Sunday you can get your book fix in Queens, and when night falls on the City, you can join us for libations and larceny at LIC Landing, by the Coffeed. It’s also just a few blocks from The Creek & the Cave, a comedy club and CaliMex eatery that I frequented when Katie East and crew used to tear the place up. I can vouch for the eats and the brews there.

Reading with Sarah Weinman, Jen Conley, Cathi Stoler, Scott Adlerberg, Alex Segura, SJ Rozan, SA Solomon, and Nick Kolakowski will be a good time. It’s a quick hop off the E train from the PATH, that’s how I plan on getting my Jersey ass across two rivers. The festivities begin at noon, and the reading kicks off at 5pm.

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Tagged: New York City

The California Triple Lindy with the Dirty (Half) Dozen

People of California:

Mr Goombah Gumbo is coming to the city of angels and its immediate environs. I love the posters Eric Beetner came up with, though to my enduring shame I often mix this classic up with Kelly’s Heroes, because Donald Sutherland and Ernest Borgnine are in both (I was only thinkin’ positive thoughts about that goddamn bridge!)

Come join us for what’s sure to be a fun time. I’ll have Bad Boy Boogie and Blade of Dishonor on hand, and if you don’t know the crew I’m rolling with, they are great crime writers. From pulp and noir maestros Duane Swierczynski and Eric Beetner, the bad-ass noir poet of L.A. Josh Stallings, to up and comers like the acclaimed Joe Ide, SW Lauden, and Nolan Knight, Gotham writer Jordan Harper, and Stoker-winning author Maria Alexander.

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May 20, West Hollywood, CA, 4:00PM: Reading at Book Soup with Josh Stallings, Eric Beetner, S.W. Lauden, Duane Swierczynski, and Nolan Knight. Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood.

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May 21, Orange, CA: Reading at Book Carnival with Josh Stallings, Eric Beetner, S.W. Lauden, Duane Swierczynski, and Nolan Knight. Location: 348 S. Tustin Street, Orange.

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May 21, Culver City, CA: 6:00PM: Reading at Noir at the Bar L.A. at Mandrake Bar in Culver City, with Joe Ide, Eric Beetner, S.W. Lauden, Duane Swierczynski, Maria Alexander, and Jordan Harper.

Tagged: Bad Boy Boogie, California, Duane Swierczynski, Josh Stallings, Los Angeles