Scooby Don't

Over at Ransom Notes I'm gettin jiggy widda new Josh Bazell follow up to Beat the Reaper - Wild Thing - which upon review looks like a mash-up of old TV shows (The Love Boat, MacGyver, Gilligan's Island and most of all Scooby-Doo) more than a crime novel. Not kidding. It's more than a bit like Fred and Velma's super-horny Great Lakes adventure, filled with the elements that made Reaper such a tangy treat - medical horror, sick and slick violence, shadow history - plus a few new ones - future-casting, speculative social theory, celebrity cameos - and while the book don't work everywhere (it's a little difficult to fawn over posturing on the deluded justifications and hypocritical shortcomings of people coming from a former killer for hire) it does succeed in the most important area - it keeps you turning pages. Dunno if the Beat the Reaper television project is gonna deliver, but I'm certainly interested. Last week at Ransom Notes, I ran off a bunch of my conspiracy favorites, sparked by Alan Glynn's Bloodland.

Speaking of wild things, I found a copy of Jonathan Demme's Something Wild at the library the other day. Been a long time since I'd seen it, and I'm happy to report it held up really well. One of those rare pictures that straddles genres and works well in all of them - romantic comedy, road trip, psycho-ex thriller - I remember it keeping me off balance as a teenaged viewer, I'm glad it turned out to be a good film. One thing I hadn't picked up on the first time around were all the cameos from The Feelies, John Waters, John Sayles and the like. 

While I'm on about Sayles and Demme, I'll mention catching up with Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control the other night, and while I can't cop to loving it, I can say that knowing it was Jarmusch going in, I was able to enjoy it well enough. Seems like he and Sayles, David Lynch and oh, Hal Hartley could do this kind of thing - take an idea, a question, a philosophy - and make a feature-length film solely about it, ponderous or playful and that was okay. I'd be up for watching them in the right mood. Dunno if I've lost patience or what, but nowadays when I sit down to watch or read a crime-inflected piece, I generally intend to get my genre rocks off but good, and I'll thank you not to distract me with mumbo-jumbo... Though it does strike me that it may make a compelling half of a double header with Stephen Frears' The Hit - another philosophical killer flick, though The Hit leaves most of the posturing to Terrence Stamp in the mark role than John Hurt or Tim Roth in the roles of the killers... 'Course, we could come full circle and view Robert Siodmak's The Killers.

Don Siegel's The Killers is my preferred adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway short piece and bears little resemblance to either the story or the previous film. If you've not seen it, by gawd seek it out. Features Lee Marvin, Clu Gulager, John Cassavetes, Angie Dickinson and Ronald Reagan in his only onscreen turn as the heavy. It was originally shot to be the first made for television feature film, but the network passed on it - too violent. And man if you think noir on film should stay in black and white, you got another thing coming. This one is garishly technicolor - just splashed with blood and bright sunshine to contrast with the dark themes (James Foley's adaptation of Jim Thompson's After Dark My Sweet is another fine example of that), and Marvin has one of the all-time greatest death scenes in movies. Watch this one and John Boorman's Point Blank back to back for your Marvin boner.

WTF with N@B - we're getting a reputation as responsible, civic-minded citizens? Don't believe me? Check out this piece about the St. Louis Independent Bookstore Alliance... or just skip ahead to this quote: "But local readers also pushed several local titles into the top ten...best of all, Noir at the Bar, a collection of crime stories edited by Jedidiah Ayres and Scott Phillips, who donated the profits to local indie Subterranean Books." Thanks Aimee Levitt, but please don't ruin our standing with friends in low places - we're selfish bastards at our core.

How selfish and low, you ask? So much so that N@B alum Jane Bradley is in St. Louis in a futile attempt to have me make good on the bar tab I ran up on her account during the event she read at in August. Hey, Jesus Angel Garcia had at least half of what I did, and I'm pretty sure David Cirillo and Matt Kindt hopped that gravy train too. She's using a cover story, though: attending a conference on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Sure, Jane, I'll be sleeping with one eye open. Seriously, me no school, but her novel You Believers was one of my favorites of 2011, and this week I'm going to give away a copy of that one, (perhaps I can get it signed for you). Just leave a comment on this post - about anything - and I'll draw the winner's name on Sunday. Please note that my email address can be found by clicking on my profile located on the right hand side of your screen - if you win, make sure to send me an address to send your book to.

So hey, Robb Olson, Livius Nedin, don't listen to any of that backwash about bar tabs. C'mon down to the most dangerous city in 'merica on February 28th for our N@B throw-down with Caleb J. Ross, Mark W. Tiedemann and Gordon Highland, and open up your wallets in good faith. While you're here, you can ask Kevin Lynn Helmick about his experience with Trestle Press who just published his latest, Heartland Gothic. Yous twos been kickin ass with the Booked Podcast and I know that's a topic of interest for ya.

Of course if you wanted to hang out all week you could come on out February 21st for the opportunity to ask Benjamin Whitmer whether he believes that Satan is Real or ask real-life pulp hero Robert J. Randisi what's at The Bottom of Every Bottle? Jason Makansi will field questions about publishing (Blank Slate Press - who published ghost of N@B 2011 Fred Venturini's debut The Samaritan) and Sonia Coney will hold forth on all the possibilities betwixt hot dogs and donuts.

Went to the Late Nite Grindhouse screening of David Cronenberg's The Brood at the Hi Pointe Theatre the other night. That was pretty sweet. Them dudes at Destroy the Brain do the midnight movie thing right with old movie trailers before the feature and a $6 ticket. I was pleased to see so many folks show up. March 2nd & 3rd Late Nite Grindhouse will screen Lucio Fulci's House by the Cemetery at midnight.

Over at the Crime Factory blog Ray Banks expounds on Adrian McKinty's question - Why are most crime novels bad? I've got the new McKinty book The Cold Cold Ground, and I'm thinkin it looks pretty good. The Nerd of Noir liked it, that's a good sign. Check out his review at Spinetingler.

Lastly, Paul von Stoetzel is set to roll on his adaptation of my short story Viscosity, and I'm damn happy 'bout that. Looking forward to it, and good luck Paul.

Classy Ass

This sign was posted in a neighbor's yard about two blocks from my house. Reminded me just how few words are required to speak volumes. Of course, the fact that I made my wife drive back home so we could collect the camera, swing back around, get out of the car and trespass in order to get this peachy pic speaks a lot too. So, here's where I live.

February 28th N@B reader Kevin Lynn Helmick's latest - Heartland Gothic - was just released from Trestle Press, so you've got a few weeks to tenderize your sensibilities before he smacks your smug mug, but good at the live event. And shit, as long as we're putting the 'goo' in 'good taste' you could drop a buck on Jason Makansi's short story Trophy Wife and perhaps he'll sign your Kindle on February 21st while that asshat trying to get Robert Randisi's scrawl on 75 Gunsmith books holds up the proceedings.

Over at Ransom Notes today I'm lamenting my slipping down the list of January shit I've not read yet - one of them being N@B (Los Angeles) alum Robert Ward's latest The Best Bad Dream and it's making me wonder if he's penning any memoirs? Cause I'd be all over those like white on the GOP. Last week, at Ransom Notes, I looked at a few franchise film casting moves that went both ways. Never know what's gonna work, is all I took away from that piece. Well, that and I found out that the Tom Cruise as Lee Child's Jack Reacher adaptation One Shot is directed by Christopher McQuarrie and co-written by McQuarrie and Josh Olson (A History of Violence). Shit, I guess I'll be seeing that one after all. Say whatcha wanna about the source material or star, I'll give McQarrie a fair shake on anything after Way of the Gun... Check out this sweet-ass George Pelecanos essay on the John Flynn's The Outfit from Richard Stark's novel, that one and the Jim Brown as Parker vehicle The Split top my got-to-find-them movies from books to catch up on. This year, we've got some hot shit book to film adaptations to looksee like Lee Daniel's take on Pete Dexter's The Paperboy, Oliver Stone's Savages from Don Winslow's book, (dunno what happened to the Michael Mann-manned Winter of Frankie Machine movie - oh well, can't wait to check out the Mann/David Milch project Luck on HBO), and oh, what's that other one... Oh yeah, Julian Grant's Fuckload of Scotch Tape - I'm looking forward to that one. And did I see that Jame Franco is directing the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God? Okay. I've been intending to revisit Billy Bob Thornton's All the Pretty Horses - I just re-read the book and seem to recall that there was a director's cut floating around out there supposed to have another hour or so attached. I'd give that a shot.

We Need to Talk About Kevin and Alan

  Night number 2 of our February N@B double header features Caleb J. Ross, the sicko at the center of the latest Booked Podcast. Robb and Livius give a whole hour to Ross's books I Didn't Mean To Be Kevin and As a Machine in Parts. Get your mitts on a copy and get that sucker vandalized by the author Feb. 28th! 

You know another podcast that caught my ear this week? The Other People podcast hosted by Brad Listi interviewed Alan Heathcock who confesses for the record (about fifteen minutes in) that he regretted he didn't make it to St. Louis in 2011 for Noir at the Bar. Y'know what, Al? Me too. So, c'mon, don't be sorry like Heathcock, get your ass to Meshuggah Cafe in St. Louis for a N@B event whenever the hell they happen.

And a big heartfelt congratulations to N@B star Matthew McBride whose Frank Sinatra in a Blender will be released (in print!) by New Pulp Press later in 2012. That's fuckin sweet, dude. Y'know what else is? Eddie Vega and Cort McMeel's Bare Knuckle Press have plans to publish not one, not two, but three Scott Wolven novellas electronically with a print omnibus to follow. If that's not a hot cuppa for your worn, chapped soul, you're reading the wrong damn blog.

The Wrong Kind of Write

Oky-doke kiddos, here's the official lineup for the N@B double header coming your way late in February. Two nights of walking on the dark side in St. Louis. First up, February 21st, Robert Randisi has been added to the the lineup alongside Benjamin Whitmer, Sonia Coney and Jason Makansi, so that's fantastic. How many people do you know who've read over five hundred books, let alone written that many, let alone published that many? Sure, somebody in the near future will probably take a big ol' dump all over the internets with their self-published titles and get up into the hundreds like that, but Randisi has done it the hard way, the ultimate pulp writer kids. That cat goes through keyboards faster than I go through underwear, and tossing 'em when he's worn the letters off the keys. Take that, James Patterson.

And just about the time that hangover is wearing off, it'll be time to tie one on all over again. February 28 Caleb J. Ross and Gordon Highland will be joined by Mark W. Tiedemann and Kevin Lynn Helmick for some serious transgression and boundary crossing. Man, we can't even see good taste from over here. Ross and Highland are passing through St. Louis from Kansas City on their way to Chicago for the AWP, and I just may get up there my own self. 

I'm not an academic, so why the hell would I bother? Well maybe for some of this shits - 

Looka that! N@B alum Anthony Neil Smith, Kyle Minor and Pinckney Benedict joined by David James Keaton, John Weagly, Nikki Dolson, Robin Becker and Sean O'Kane. Yeah, that sounds like a reason to make a trip. Looks like the place to be on March 1st is The Galway Arms. 

Oh man, while I'm hypothetically up there I'd love to run into folks like Kent Gowran, Richard Thomas, Nik Korpon, Elizabeth White, Josh Converse, Jason Stuart, Thomas Pluck, plus Livius Nedin and Robb Olson from the Booked Podcast and all the other like-minded perverts on the attending list on the Face Book. Sounds like a blast. 

Of course if I'm in Chicagoland, I'll have to drop in on Julian Grant and take a gander at the Fuckload of Scotch Tape rough cut. Yeah, I think that seals it. I've gotta get to Chi-town.

Later this Spring or Summer N@B is hoping to host Jake Hinkson whose debut Hell On Church Street is pretty fuckin great. Really, just a sweet-ass book that I'm officially jealous over. Do yourself a favor and put down that bloated best-seller you're chipping away at and order you a copy of this refuse-to-blink, yeah-it-just-went-there story of a con-man in an Arkansas Baptist Church. You'll finish it in one or two sittings, I bet and if it leaves you desperate for more of that southern-fried bad religion, order you a copy of Heath Lowrance's The Bastard Hand or Jesus Angel Garcia's Badbadbad. Hmmm, we already had Garcia at a N@B event, maybe we can seduce Lowrance down from Detroit for one when Hinkson comes through? That would be a helluva good lineup I believe. For more thoughts on Hinkson's book check out what I had to say at Ransom Notes. But don't take my word for it, go check out these reviews of Hell On Church Street, John Rector's Already Gone, Reed Farrel Coleman's Hurt Machine and Alan Glyn's Bloodland at the Los Angeles Review of Books by Cullen Gallagher - 'cause he knows his shit. Speaking of Senor Coleman, I see he'll be in St. Louis in April along with Sara J. Henry and N@B alum Duane Swierczynski and Frank Bill. Guess I'll be there too. Shit, that's a healthy lineup.

Today at Ransom Notes, I'm getting a little Nordic in my diet. Checking out Quentin Bates' books and briefly mentioning that a couple weeks ago, I read a Jo Nesbo book to my kids. They loved it and I guess we'll be going for the next one in the series soon.

Noir at the Bar is Real

Over at Ransom Notes last week I posted on Daniel O'Malley's debut, The Rook, which reminded me of Charles Stross's The Atrocity Archives big time, but I enjoyed both enough to have them peacefully co-exist, but today at Ransom Notes I'm enjoying the slightly less speculative history of a mob hit man in the latest from RJ Ellory, A Quiet Vendetta and another New Orleans post/Katrina missing persons bit Storm Damage by Ed Kovacs. I just picked up Cathi Unsworth's Bad Penny Blues, Dan Chaon's Stay Awake, Joe R. Lansdale's Edge of Dark Water and Sean Doolittle's Lake Country - so it's been a kick-ass week for bookery in St. Louis. Really looking forward to more January sweetness from Ryan David Jahn's The Dispatcher and George Pelecanos's What it Was which you can take a gander at in the new issue of Playboy with some kick-ass artwork (or you can sample both online right here by 'liking' the page on Facebook.)

Have you checked out the five minute sequence from Steven Soderbergh's latest Haywire? You can access it, like I did, through them handsome fellas over at The Criminal Complex. Now, I'm pretty pumped for it. Looks badass. That Gina Carano has the physicality for it (we'll see about the acting, hard to tell how that'll go over just from this clip - better, I suspect than Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience - and hey, it's already the single best Channing Tatum performance ever), and she's supported by a deep bench, so yeah, count me in.

Soooo, you've cleared your calendars for Tuesday, February 28's N@B with Gordon Highland (Major Inversions) and Caleb J. Ross, (Stranger Will) right? Well, it just got sweeter. Mark W. Tiedemann, the author of speculative and horror fiction (Diva, Remains) is joining the lineup and he won't raise the bar, he'll drop it on your head. Now you need to go ahead and clear the Tuesday before as well, because February 21st, N@B will host Benjamin Whitmer whose Satan is Real: The Ballad of Louvin Brothers is catching some mighty fine reviews and attention, and whose Pike pretty much blotted out the sun around here in 2010, and somebody I'm pretty confident you're gonna get to know soon, Sonia Coney will shock and offend you (me anyhow) for no extra fee. Yeah, February is chock-full of ooey-gooiness which more than likely will be found to contain human DNA. More names to drop for those events soon.

In N@B charter news, it seems them L.A. boys have rounded up another sweet-ass event with Robert Ward, Aaron Phillip Clark, AJ Hayes and Stephen Blackmoore for January 22. Man, wish I could be there. They're racking up a great track record betwixt Blackmoore, Aldo Calcagno and Eric Beetner (whose Dig Two Graves sounds like some uber-righteous hardboiled nasty right up my very own alley), and I'd love to visit one of their throwdowns, so we'll see, maybe I can swing a trip to Los Angeles some time this year...

Paul Von Stoetzel is moving forward with his short film adaptation of my short story Viscosity and I've now seen a script, so it feels like it's gonna happen soon. Anybody who's read Viscosity knows that the piece is nothing but dialogue and unattributed at that, and I don't know if that makes things easier or harder from a directorial standpoint, but it does mean that there's serious leaning on the actors. So, looking forward to this one and interested to hear the actors' performances.

The End Begins Big

Hey lookit, kids: Crime Factory is back like they mean it. Tom Piccirilli, Johnny Shaw, Benjamin Whitmer, The Black Nerd, Ray Banks, Andrew Nette, Kenneth Loosli, Chris Benton, Paul D. Brazill, Chris Deal and dirty ol' N@B bastards like Daniel B. O'Shea, Matthew C. Funk and a previously unpublished interview with Scott Phillips. Plus Frank Wheeler Jr. gives the Noir at the Bar anthology an attentive read with detailed comments on contributions by Matthew McBride, Cameron Ashley, O'Shea, Dennis Tafoya, Kyle Minor, Pinckney Benedict, Sean Doolittle and in a first and most likely last, my own: Tenks, Franks. Wowzer. In case you can't follow the link on your CF download you can use THIS ONE to Subterranean Books - the ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD to get a copy of the book.

Y'know who else reviews books? Donald Ray Pollock. Take a gander at his thoughts on The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell and tell me that ain't sweet. Now compare thems to my comments today at Ransom Notes where I'm all about Stephen Blackmoore's debut City of the Lost and you'll see clearly how short the stick is Blackmoore drew in that little match-up. But, don't hold my inferiorities against Stevie's horror/crime zombie pulp-up, cause it's a lotta fun.


Speaking of all things zombie, Rob Zombie is in production (or maybe post by now) on his latest film The Lords of Salem which I'm assuming is inspired by his song of the same name or at least by the same muse. And shit, if the movie is as scary as the video, it's gonna kick ass. Great cast of course - Zombie regulars Sheri Moon and Sid Haig are joined by classic creepies Clint Howard, Lisa Marie, Udo Kier, Michael Berryman, Billy Drago and Dee Wallace. I'm also excited to see Maria Conchita Alonso in a prominent role (I wrote a song once called Maria Conchita Alonso - Yes I did - she'd caught my eye early on appearing in a bunch of my favorites from my time spent in the eighties - The Running Man, Extreme Prejudice, Colors, Fear City and that batshit Nic Cage flick Vampire's Kiss). Anyhow, the song's video runs on a parallel track to what I envision as a novel length adaptation of my story The Adversary from Surreal South '11 - not quite the same, but similar enough to make me wanna drop everything and write it.




And while we're on movie stuffs and gnarly graphics go check out some of Julian Grant's tests for the visual style of Fuckload of Scotch Tape at the FLOST Facebook Page. He's even dabbling with publishing a promotional graphic novel which would look something about like this.



Swell. Can't wait to be able to announce where you can see this beast.

Finally, mark up your brand new calendars for Tuesday, February 28 'cause it's time for N@B. There, I said it. Lineup is still filling out, but we've got Caleb J. Ross and Gordon Highland locked in.

Dexter is Delicious

Want to finish 2011 on a high anticipatory note? I did, and now I can thanks in part to Jimmy Callaway and the fine folks at The Criminal Complex for breaking the news to me that Pete Dexter's The Paperboy is coming to the screen in 2012, directed by Lee Daniels, (whose Shadowboxer is low-grade notorious for its WTF factor, and who produced tough-hearted shit like The Woodsman, Monster's Ball and Precious). It will star Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, John Cusack and Matthew McConaughey and check this here poster the hell out. Sahweet. 'Course it all starts with Dexter for me. That cat is badass, and if you don't know his work, take this as my enthusi-fucking-astic endorsement of his particular brand of rough/perty prose and hardnard story stuffs. Yeah, color me excited.

Speaking of Dexter-level wordsmiths, I had to include Rick DeMarinis's Mama's Boy on my 2011 favorite novels list at Ransom Notes even though it weren't technically no mystery book. DeMarinis does write crime, but yeah, it was a stretch to put that particular book on a mystery blog. Please avail yerself of DeMarinis through his novels or short stories (he's got like three collections of shorts - fantastic) and tell your friends and neighbors to as well. He deserves a much more prominent place in the reading public's consciousness. That particular list is, I think, a helluva good showing for the last year. Even with penalizing some of my favorite books like Craig McDonald's El Gavilan, John Rector's Already Gone and Scott Phillips' The Adjustment for their authors having appeared on my 2010 list, it's some strong ass shit. Check it out and tell me what you think.

Even more lists to come. Just cause. See you at the end of the world.