Thomas Pluck's Blog, page 63

Two Books for the Price of One

I have a few trade paperbacks of Lost Children: A Charity Anthology to Benefit PROTECT and Children 1st I'd like to sell. They are for sale at Watchung Booksellers, and cost $9.99



It contains 30 flash fiction tales by myself, Paul D. Brazill, Chad Rohrbacher, David Barber, Fiona "McDroll" Johnson,
Ron Earl Phillips, Lynn Beighley, Susan Tepper, Nicolette
Wong, Benoit Lelievre, Seamus Bellamy, J.F. Juzwik, Nancy Hansen, JP
Reese, Luca Veste, Sam Rasnake, Sif Dal, Veronica Lewis-Marie Shaw,
David Ackley, James Lloyd Davis, Roberto C. Garcia, MaryAnne Kolton,
Vinod Narayan,  Paula Pahnke, Susan Gibb, Ingrid K.V. Hardy, Gil Hoffs
and Erin Zulkoski.



If you buy one from the above link, or go into the store (map below) and buy a copy, send me the email receipt via the Kontactr form to the right, and I will give you one of the following free gifts, first come first served. $5 of the sale goes to PROTECT and Children 1st, and $5 goes to support a great local independent bookstore, Watchung Booksellers. They've agreed to sell the book for us, so for a limited time I'm giving out freebies if you buy from them:





Dark Horse Presents #10, with "Dead Reliable" by Andrew Vachss, and illustrated by Geoff Darrow



D*CKED: Dark Fiction Inspired by Dick Cheney (Ken Bruen, Scott Phillips, Hilary Davidson, Harry Hunsicker, Tony Black, more)



Noir at the Bar: Short Fiction by Frank Bill, Matthew McBride, Pinckney Benedict, Dennis Tafoya and many more



Angel's Tip, by Alafair Burke



My beat to hell copy of STEAL THIS BOOK! by Abbie Hoffman



Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption,  by Laura Hillenbrand (hardcover)



The Blasted Heath Boxset: 5 ebooks on a classy USB key with a steely collector box. All The Young Warriors by Anthony Neil Smith, Dead Money by Ray Banks, The Man in the Seventh Row by Brian Pendreich, Phase Four by Gary Carson, and The Long Night of Barney Thomson, by Douglas Lindsay.



Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Winter 2010 (Ray Banks, Sophie Littlefield, Anthony Neil Smith, Matthew McBride)



Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Spring 2011 (Ray Banks, Tom Piccirilli, Patti Abbott)



Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Fall 2011 (Ray Banks, Gil Brewer,  Alan Leverone)



Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Spring 2010 (Hilary Davidson, Dave Zeltserman, Paul D. Brazill)



Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Summer 2010 (Ray Banks, Chris F. Holm, Frank Bill, Stephen Blackmoore)



Out of the Gutter #4 (Ray Banks, Anthony Neil Smith, Sandra Seamans, Chris Pimental)



Pulp Modern #2 (Patti Abbott, Michael Moreci, Matt Funk, more)



Three magazine bundle:

Crimespree Magazine #45, (Hilary Davidson cover)

Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Nov 2011

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Nov 2011



The above books vary in condition but all are readable, though the Abbie Hoffman book will fall apart on you, rather like the yippie movement in the '70s. I offer it for nostalgic value only.







View Larger Map


© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

Song Stuck in my head: Lonely Boy

I've been a Black Keys fan for some time, but their newest albums took some time to grow on me. Now, I can't get enough of them. I love the rambunctious energy of this song, and how the hard bass line and retro organ lend it to a '70s muscle car chase, like in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.



© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

When You Were a Young Adult...

The more hear the marketing term "young adult" the more it bothers me, but that's not what I wanted to write about. I wanted to ask what books you enjoyed as a teenager, or a tween. My wife was reading Stephen King at age 12, and to this day if we see a clown in a sewer, she trembles with fear. I didn't read Mr King until I was in high school, if I recall. My favorite "young adult" books were surprisingly tame, but I still have great memories of reading them. My mother thought I was weird for reading nonfiction books voraciously as a little nerd kid, but I slowly warmed to fiction after reading books that put forth supernatural horror legends as truth (kind of like "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark meets In Search Of"), and from there Stephen King's real horror tales were but a stepping stone away.



The Tripods series, by John Christopher








I read these out of order. The first one I read was The City of Gold and Lead, which occurs after an alien invasion and takeover of Earth. The aliens are tall fleshy bipeds not unlike the critters in Independence Day or "Hammerhead" from the Star Wars cantina:





Or at least they did in my imagination. These books were great fun, and reading of their flight and rebellion against the aliens fueled playtime adventures in the woods and decrepit railyards we romped in. They'd hold up today, and my kid is going to read them. Unless we're ruled by aliens, then. I still remember how the enslaved kid beat his alien captor's nose in with a back brush. John Christopher also wrote The Lotus Caves, about kids who explore a moon and find a lost astronaut living it up on hallucinogenic mushrooms. As you can guess from the title, it is a lot like the Lotus-Eaters section of The Odyssey.





The Pinballs, by Betsy Byars







The closest to a stereotypical "Y/A" book that I enjoyed was The Pinballs, from the spinner shelf of my 6th grade teacher, Mr. Murray. It was written by Betsy Byars, about three children in foster care, who feel like they are bounced around like pinballs, without any control. Many children have this feeling, and my parents had divorced, so it resonated with me. I don't remember too much except the children were realistic, and learned to take control of their lives by the end, without it being too happy of an ending.



Blubber, by Judy Blume








I can't remember how many Judy Blume books I read back then. Blubber sticks in my mind most, but I also read Iggie's House and Tiger Eyes, I think. I read almost everything on Mr. Murray's shelf, but I had no problem reading books that were supposedly "for girls." Blubber is a great book about bullying and schoolbus dynamics. It shows how easily kids go from friends to enemies and how adults' treatment of a peer will change their position in the kid pecking order. Maybe I'll read it again after I tackle Moby Dick.





Strange Companion






This one also lured me into fiction because it was about animals. I was reading all the nonfiction books about wildlife that the library had to offer, and this is about a boy who is lost in the woods when the ranger who is taking him to his father's remote cabin is kicked to death by a moose. I was into woods survival then, and with the Cold War raging under Reagan, we thought we'd be eating slugs and living like Lord of the Flies any day now. The boy sort of befriends an injured crane, and they survive together somehow. Then when he is an adult, the bird shits on his car and their friendship is ruined. Maybe I'm making up that last part.



So, what were your favorite books in the sixth grade?





 © 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

Review: The Beasts of Valhalla

An enjoyable novel that goes from murder mystery to James Bond film. The lead character is interesting, an ex-circus dwarf turned criminologist, karate expert, and private investigator. He has little trouble with anything a dwarf deals with on a daily basis. I can suspend my disbelief for mad scientist shenanigans, but can a dwarf drive an unmodified car? Petty, I know, but this is the main character we're talking about. I forgot he was a dwarf, and it felt like the author did, too. It's a good rollicking story, but left me feeling rushed and like much had been forgotten. The first act is excellent, but once the huge conspiracy unfolds, it becomes a very different story, more plot driven than character driven, and while we meet some very interesting characters, they are mere kindling for to keep the steam boiler running. One major helper simply disappears.



I'll admit, I read this as I am tying my own novel together and digging out problems at the root, so I was quite critical with this one. For a quick fun read, it works. I was expecting a lot more, and left disappointed. I am told this book was a turning point for the series, and I will go back to see if it had a more emotional foundation in the earlier books.










© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

Guest Spot: Mr. Glamour, by Richard Godwin

This is the first of my Hump Day Guest Spot series. Hopefully it will be weekly, every Wednesday I will offer up the reins of the Pluck You, Too chariot to someone whose work I admire, whether they be a blogger, writer, artist, musician, designer, circus acrobat, actor, etc... This week we begin with Richard Godwin, who runs the best interview series of crime authors on the web: Chin Wag at the Slaughterhouse. He is also quite the accomplished writer, penning crime, horror and dark fiction. His latest is Mr. Glamour, a twist on the twisted serial killer novel. 

And now, I give you... Mr. Richard Godwin:














Designer goods,
beautiful women, wealthy men, a lifestyle preyed on by a serial killer.

A killer who is
watching everyone, including the police.

Latest
headlines?

No, an outline
of my second novel, Mr. Glamour.

My debut novel
Apostle Rising was published in paperback by Black Jackal Books last year. It
was about a serial killer crucifying politicians, and sold extremely well,
received excellent reviews, and sold foreign rights to the largest publisher in
Hungary.

Now Black Jackal
Books have published Mr. Glamour, and I’d like to tell you a bit about it. The
settings are exotic, and the pages drip with wealth. The story’s told in my
usual style, and my readers will know what that means. I have been told I write
with a blend of lyricism and graphic description. I like to explore what
motivates people and I certainly do so with the leading characters in Mr.
Glamour.

The two central
cops, DCI Jackson Flare and Inspector Steele, are unusual and strong in their
own ways, as reviewers are already picking up. At the beginning of the novel
Steele hates working with Flare for personal reasons. She doesn’t by the end,
and the investigation takes them both on a journey which changes them and their
opinions of one another.

Let me give you
the setting if you are tempted to read Mr. Glamour.







Something dark
is preying on the glitz of the glamour set. There is a lot about designer goods
and lifestyles in Mr. Glamour. The killer knows all about design, he knows what
brands mean to his victims. He is branding their skins. And he has the police
stumped.

As
Flare and Steele investigate the killings they enter an exclusive world with
its own rules and quickly realise the man they are looking for is playing a
game with them, a game they cannot interpret. The killer is targeting an
exclusive group of people he seems to know a lot about.

The police
investigation isn’t helped by the fact that Flare and Steele have troubled
lives. Harlan White, a pimp who got on the wrong side of Flare, is planning to
have him killed. And Steele has secrets. She leads a double life. She is an
interesting woman who pushes her sexual boundaries in private. She travels a
journey into her own past and rescues herself. And in a strange way she is
helped by the killer she is looking for. And Flare has some revelations in
store.

As
they try to catch a predator who has climbed inside their heads, they find
themselves up

against a wall
of secrecy. The investigation drives Flare and Steele to acts of darkness. And
the killer is watching everyone.

Then there is
the sub plot.

Contrasting this
lifestyle is the suburban existence of Gertrude Miller, who acts out strange
rituals, trapped in a sterile marriage to husband Ben. She cleans compulsively
and seems to be hiding something from him, obsessed that she is being followed.
As she slips into a




psychosis,
characters from the glamorous set stray into Gertrude’s world, so the two plots
dovetail neatly with one another.

And
when Flare and Steele make an arrest they discover there is far more to this
glamorous world than they realised. There is a series of shocks at the end of
the novel as a set of fireworks go off. Watch out for the highly dramatic
ending.

It
is already picking up some great reviews.

Advance praise for Mr. Glamour:

“Richard Godwin knows how his characters dress,
what they drink and what they drive. He knows how they live--- and how they
die. Here's hoping no one recognized themselves in Godwin's cold canvas.
Combines the fun of a good story with the joy of witty, vivid writing.”

Heywood Gould, author of The Serial Killer's Daughter.




“Smart,
scary, suspenseful enough for me to keep the light on until 3AM on a Sunday
night, Richard Godwin once more proves to fans of crime fiction the world over
with Mr. Glamour, that he is not only one of the best contemporary
writers of the procedural cop thriller around today, he is a master
storyteller.”  

Vincent
Zandri, author of Scream Catcher.




“Richard Godwin’s top-of-the-line psychological police procedural driven
by its heady pace, steely dialogue, and unsparing vision transfixes the reader
from page one.”




Ed Lynskey, author of Skin In The
Game.

 “Mr. Glamour is a striking effort
from one of the most daring crime writers in the business. It is the noirest of
noir...and hellishly addictive.”

Mike Stafford, BookGeeks Magazine.







“This first rate detective thriller will have you gripped from the
start. Richard Godwin is an author not to be missed.”

Sheila Quigley Author of Thorn In My Side.

“Mr Glamour is, in every
sense of the word, the real McCoy: genuine hard boiled detective fiction.  Lean,
gritty, and tough, it’s a journey into the heart of darkness ... you won’t soon
forget. Connoisseurs of Nouveau Noir will have to add Richard Godwin to the
list of writers to watch!”

C E Lawrence,
author of Silent Kills.

“Involving and
compellingly sinister, Richard Godwin’s Mr. Glamour portrays cops and
criminals, the mad and the driven in a novel of psychological noir. Read it
while snuggling with your stuffed teddy bear for comfort.”

                           
-- Gary Phillips, author of Treacherous: Grifters, Ruffians and Killers


“Read this
outstanding dark novel and learn more about what happens when you enter the
hall of mirrors and find a reflection that just might do more than frighten you.
Outstanding, spell binding and keeps the reader guessing until the very end. This
is one outstanding novel written by one amazing author.”

Fran Lewis,
Reviewer.

I
think Mr. Glamour will appeal to mystery and crime aficionados, to readers
interested in psychological profiling and designer lifestyles, to thriller and
noir fans, and to anyone who enjoys a fast paced narrative with strong
characters.

Mr. Glamour can be bought now at Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

at all good retailers online and in stores in April.
If you Google it you should see a range of options come up.

And
you can find out more about me at my website

and my stories here
















© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

"Come Home," by Chappo

And the song stuck in my head this week is... "Come Home," by Chappo:

 




Full disclosure: Sarah went to high school with Alex Chappo in Baton Rouge, and we met him and Caitlynn at a wedding on Saturday, but I really dig this song. And I think you will too. They have a new album coming out May 14th. The songs on this LP remind me of Psychic TV, Spiritualized, and MGMT, all bands I really enjoy, but they have their own wistful and mysterious cheer.




Here is the EP with this song:















 © 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

Yellow Mama and All Due Respect

When it rains, it pours.



I'm extremely proud, "chuffed," even, to have stories in both All Due Respect - the long form crime fiction webzine started by Alec Cizak and now run by Chris Rhatigan. Chris also reviews fiction at Death by Killing, co-edits the Pulp Ink anthologies with Nigel Bird, and is a fine writer himself. Alec has moved on to Pulp Modern, and has a few novels under his belt as well.



This story is my tribute to Elmore Leonard, and was originally written for a beach noir contest at Do Some Damage. I expanded and edited it, and I love the characters so much that they will appear in a novel sometime soon. A bit of pulp caper set in Antigua, where two honeymooners need help from Hazeldeen, a barmaid at their resort, and drag her into their "White People problems."



White People Problems, in All Due Respect



Yellow Mama, named after Alabama's electric chair, is a crime zine edited by author Cindy Rosmus, who had a cracking tale in last month's Hardboiled magazine. Yellow Mama caters to dark noir and horror, and my brutal revenge story shows the lengths one man will go to, to avenge his family. Sometimes revenge is a real bear.



Play Dead, in Yellow Mama



I hope you like them. If you do, please leave a comment here or at the source, and share the links with your friends. I'd really appreciate it!



Monday I'll announce the winner of the Uncle John's Bathroom Reader: Flush Fiction giveaway, so stay tuned. 



© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

The Lost Children Anthology - Free

For five days, I am giving away the Lost Children Anthology for free.



Now, this may seem idiotic, to give away a charity book for free. But by studying the benefits reaped by Amazon booksellers who have given away a book for free, I believe this will help jumpstart the now tepid sales. So, even if you already own the book in print or for other formats, I urge you to click the link below and get yourself a free Kindle edition to help push us up in the sales ranks.

The U.K. edition is doing quite well, at #23 in its category, but the U.S. one needs some help.



Please share this over the next 5 days, and if you can spare me thirty seconds, get yourself a free book, click the "Like" button on Amazon beside the price, and scroll down to the "Tags" section and click "I agree with these tags." It will help us sell books once the fire sale is over.



Once again, I appreciate your help, and thank you for your support. We've generated hundreds of dollars for Children 1st and PROTECT, and we can raise a lot more with a little work.



A second volume is in the works for this autumn, with some names you'll recognize. I'm keeping them a secret for now.



U.S. edition:








Link to the U.K. edition of LOST CHILDREN





© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page

Review: Vanilla Ride

Vanilla Ride by Joe R. Lansdale

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I really liked this one. It had more action and laughs than some of the previous Hap & Leonard novels, without going over the top. I burst out laughing several times, and we meet a cast of grotesques who could have novels of their own. To summarize; the duo helps an old friend save his granddaughter from a drug den, and their good intentions spiral into a tornado of death and destruction. Death is too close a comrade in this one, but Mr. Lansdale shows us just how discomforting it is to make him your buddy. A fine adventure from one of our best writers.




View all my reviews

Feeling Flushed- Uncle John's Book Giveaway!

The good folks at Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, one of the most consistently amusing and beloved book series, have given me a copy of their latest book to use in a giveaway:







Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction: 87 Short Short Stories You Can Read in a Single Sitting




 ( Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Watchung Booksellers )



My story "A Glutton for Punishment" appears in it, with stories by Darren Sant and 85 other people who want you to read their work with your underpants around your ankles. Now, you know I like a good poop joke. And so do you. Go ahead, wrinkle your nose, pretend to be above it. I know from the number of page views, retweets, Facebook likes and shares that CACA is KING. Everyone poops and everyone thinks it's funny.



I'd rather have a story in Uncle John's Reader than the New Yorker. You know why? Because I know a story in this publication is going to be read. I've got a captive audience, comfortably enthroned in the only room in the house a reader can get any quiet or privacy. A writer strives to share an intimate moment with a reader, and only Uncle John's ensures it.

Do you want a copy of this landmark publication in the realm of flash fiction? Of course you do. To get it, you need to:



a) live in the United States

b) have a butt you have pooped out of

c) Leave a comment with your favorite word, phrase or story involving bathroom humor.



Oh, and to kick it off, the first poop joke I remember was a fake book title. My mother loves wordplay and did not discourage potty humor, to say the least (as a kid, I watched Buddy Hackett, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and Dice Clay on HBO with my grandmother). My entry to the poopstravaganza is:



Brown Spots on the Wall, by Hu Flung Pu



Winners will be chosen randomly one week from today when I first visit the toilet. Let the game of thrones begin!






© 2012 Thomas Pluck


I post on Twitter as TommySalami ~ My Facebook Page