You Would Say That, Wouldn't You?

Short, Sharp Interview: Chris Rhatigan

2012-01-27T05:11:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication/ project in 25 words or less?

Watch You Drown is a collection of short crime fiction that will leave you lost, sad, and craving alcohol to numb the pain.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

Julie Morrigan's Show No Mercy rocked my world -- her short stories are structured so well. Right now I'm reading Lawrence Block's The Burglar Who Though He Was Bogart, which is delcious.

In terms of TV, I'm a big fan of comedy. Portlandia is hilarious -- they make fun of hipsters in a refreshingly acerbic way. They're also bringing back absurdity in sketch comedy reminscent of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

As for movies, loved Young Adult. It's by the same writer who did Juno, but it's kind of an anti-Juno. It's got a thoroughly despicable, yet really interesting, main character. And the way it portrays Midwestern America is pitch perfect.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Yes. I read mostly for pleasure (or pain). I'll analyze something I read if it's really good but I can shut off that part of my brain when I feel like it.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Yes. I'd love to write comedy. Though I haven't tried at all. I'd probably write a novella or novel first.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

I do very little research. I like to mine things from my past, screw around on Google a bit. The rest is imagination. That's where I think the good stuff happens. For this one story idea, I took a whole day out and did field research. Then the story didn't pan out at all -- I could have spent that whole day writing instead!

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

Very. It's how I connect with other writers and readers. In a way, I'm closer with some of my online friends than the people I know. Most of my experience is on Facebook and at my blog, Death by Killing.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I just took over All Due Respect. I'm reading submissions for that and editing already accepted work. Founding Editor Alec Cizak did a fantastic job selecting strong crime fiction and I plan on following in his footsteps.

I have a couple of short stories I'm kicking around, too. And Pulp Ink Vol. 2 might be on its way in the near future...

(More Chris Rhatigan here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Jason Michel

2012-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

PDB: What the hell is And The Streets Screamed Blue Murder!?

It is the tragic history of Alfie Lime.

Bad things happen to good people.

An act sends poor old Alfie into the dark & surreal underbelly of Paris.

He meets some colourful characters.
Snowflakes fall.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

Plowing my way through A Song Of Fire & Ice series, which is completely engrossing & been digging a lot of China Miéville.

KILL LIST definitely needs another spin. Not before doing any DIY though.

TAKE SHELTER was a phenomenal piece of cinema.

Recently enjoyed HANNA too, oh & talking of spy flicks watched Funeral In Berlin again.

As for TV, well, I watch the American stuff for the drama & since The Wire's done, then Breaking Bad has got me by the balls.

For comedy, I've been chuckling my way through Trailer Park Boys & Garth Meranghi's Dark Place.

Oh, & the new BBC Sherlock is fun.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Absolutely. I don't read to judge, I read because I enjoy reading. I'm no academic. If something floors me, it's NOT because of their use of the subjunctive.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Would bloody love to. Never been asked.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Well, for the last, seeing as Alfie was a journo, I thought I'd better ask one how he approaches this & that. So,Chris Rhatigan was kind enough to put up with my pestering.

As for the rest, well, I live in the suburbs of Paris & have wandered its streets quite a few times. All the other stuff is just pure interest & fascination. Fortean phenomena, gnosticism & conspiracy theories ... what's not to like?!

PDB: How useful or important is social media for you as a writer?

I know it's important & I do try but often I just can't be arsed with it. There's not enough time in the day, too many books to read, movies to watch, ideas to play with.

I'm a shit self-publicist.
PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

PULP METAL MAGAZINE will keep on putting stuff out when I get 'round to it & will probably go quarterly as of the next issue.

PULP METAL FICTION has a wonderful collection of Chris Rhatigan's short stories out now & I'm also putting out an anthology of Richard Godwin's MUSTARD MAN series with two unpublished stories to boot!

As for the writing, well, I'll continue working on the Stories Of Old Lurk which will tie in with a follow up to ATSSBM!

(MORE JASON MICHEL HERE)

Short, Sharp Interview: R C Bridgestock

2012-01-25T15:14:00.000-08:00

I had a quick natter with the husband and wife crime-writing sensation that goes by the name of R C Bridgestock ...

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication/ project in 25 words or less?

‘Consequences’ The intricate piecing together of a puzzle allowing the reader to feel the inner workings of a police investigation, which very few books do.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

Our daughter and son-in-law bought us the boxed DVD first series of ‘Dexter’ for Christmas – we’re hooked!

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

As co-authors we are lucky enough to be able to question each other’s thoughts, ideas and responses so I guess we automatically use the same method when reading.

However it would be impossible not to be objective in respect of police procedurals, when between us we have spent nearly fifty years working within the police force. We are totally honest though about our affliction and understand the need for entertainment.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Yes, we do. In fact since we started writing the DI Dylan series we have had many remarks from professionals in the industry that it could quite easily be adapted.

One quote from well known script writer Peter J Hammond said about Deadly Focus, ‘It's both witty and harrowing, and the dialogue and characters are great. It also reveals so much about working coppers' problems with the system. I know this sort of thing has been dealt with in previous police stories, but you bring a deeper insight to it without being preachy or pretentious.

Most importantly, the police characters are believable and one cares about them. The mortuary viewing scene with the dead child is heartbreaking. In fact, it's a difficult book to put down.

Another from Carol Dove, Chief Executive Propellor TV (SKY) Winner of Hotbirds Award in 2008 said, ‘The novel takes you on a gripping venture into a criminal world that most of us are fortunate enough never to encounter.’

Sam Taylor – Creative Director says, ‘It’s good, and in current climes the more people who can get a 1st hand account of what being a police officer really means, the better. Nicola Harris, Editor/Assistant Director said, ‘‘Deadly Focus’ is very gripping and hard hitting. I think it would make an amazing film.’

White Lilies the third in the series is with our publisher Caffeine Nights Publishing, book four Snow Kills is in the process of a re-write and book five and six are in their infancy - there is plenty more material where they came from for a new TV/Film detective!

Who knows what the future holds?

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Whilst obviously a vast amount of our writing is based on our own personal life experiences within the police service we still have to do a lot of research. Systems are continually being piloted and changed within our police forces to aid the police officers to detect and catch the criminal for instance, and we have to keep abreast of those as DI Dylan and the crimes he investigates are very current. We write however from the heart, through the eyes and with the feelings of those who have been there and got the T-shirt as you might say. Our main research in each novel is done on the sub plots at the moment.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

What did writers do without it? Social media was an eye opener for us. In the first instance just seeing a book trailer made us ready to buy - we are believers! We consider online tools to be the fastest and easiest way for an unknown writer to begin building his/her audience, get better at their craft and network with others. Cut to the basics – you need to promote your books in order to get readers.

In such a short time we have built up a following of over 9,000 on our Facebook sites (one with 172 waiting to join), including our ‘Deadly Focus’ Group site @ http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/57681551283/. Over 678 on Twitter and 500+ contacts on Linkedin to name a few. We have had 1,642 hits on our two Youtube interviews with Calendar TV and Caffeine Nights and the Anchor woman Christine Talbot of ITV News even re-tweeted this fact yesterday!

Through these sites we have also met our new Literary Agent who is representing us in South Korea and Japan.

So, if you haven’t jumped into social media yet, now’s the time!

Embrace the social media. The future has arrived.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

Oh, gosh it’s amazing! 2012 as we have already said sees the publication and launch of ‘Consequences’ the second in the DI Jack Dylan series, quenching the thirst of our followers who are forever asking us for updates of publications and book signing events.

We are setting out on two book signing tours, one already scheduled from April 12th – 24th this year in Yorkshire, and since we now live on the Isle of Wight we are travelling back to the Island and completing our tour at Stratford-Upon-Avon for ‘World Book Night,’ and the anniversary of Shakespear’s death when they hold a week full of events in the historic town.

We also run a small writing circle on the Isle of Wight and we annually organise two writing competitions on the Island each year to inspire others to read and write – especially children. The monies raised go to local charities so it’s a real community affair. You can read all about it @ www.iowwritingcircle.co.uk; see pictures of past events and presentations as well as read winning stories.

The ‘Crime & Intrigue’ competition involving the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary will be launched in March and a presentation will be held at our Island’s Newport Minster in June to fall in line with ‘National Crime Writing Week’.

In June/July we are hoping to do a southern book tour, and in between this we are booked to do talks on the ‘Life of a Senior Investigative Officer – what it’s like to take charge of murder,’ which we do for local groups in aid of the Earl Mountbatten Hospice, where we also help the very dedicated fundraising team when we can.

Last November we did a talk at CSI Portsmouth Bookfest with the likes of Mark Billingham, John Harvey and Michael Ridpath and this year we are hoping to do this again. In August we are expecting a grandchild! What more could anyone want?

Thank you so very much for giving us the chance to be interviewed on your very popular blogspot Paul!

To all our readers; everyone has a story to tell. Why not tell yours? Look at us – who knows where it will lead? You can read more about our journey @ www.rcbridgestock.com & www.caffeine-nights.com

(Find Out More about R C Bridgestock here)

Short, Sharp Interview: J J De Ceglie

2012-01-24T04:07:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch Drawing Dead in 25 words or less?

Uh, this is gonna be a little over...fuck it right?

Jack Andrelli's life - a quick checklist.

Dead girlfriend...check

Alcohol problem...check

Gambling debt...check

Looming death...check

Committing fraud...check

Throw in the most beautiful woman Jack's ever laid eyes on and the fact that she's trying to play him like a fiddle and you're starting to get the picture.

Yeah, Jack Andrelli is fighting for his life, and he's gonna crack wise and drink booze right up until the reaper has him by the balls.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

Books: I read Dan Fante's "Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving - A Memoir". I thought it was fantastic (like everything he has written). A loving, raw tribute to his father John. Some snapshots of his troubled brother. A genuinely moving story about fathers and sons and writing. Much hell, much redemption.

I know Fante is writing a crime novel, "Point Doom", I bet my balls that it'll be a cracker.

Also read James Sallis' "Drive". Brutal, simple, sometimes poetic. Just a ripping read, only a novella really, about a stunt car driver who also expertly drives for robberies. It is an exercise in existential noir, the lone human agent making his way in a absurd world, and it has a real sense of place, the grit and sun and air of California comes to life in between the lines. Along with much driving it has a second act full of psychotic savage revenge. I found myself not really wanting the book to end.

Films: I made a list of the ten I really liked in 2011 the other day, Tree of Life, Take Shelter, Drive, Midnight in Paris, Yellow River (Korean), I Saw The Devil (Korean), Rampart, Limitless, Warrior & Submarine.

TV: Breaking Bad. Boardwalk Empire. Love'em both equally, like a man does his children.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

I think so...definitely. Otherwise the enjoyment disappears somewhat. If you sit reading in judgement of the prose at all times you are tending toward asshole territory aren't you...aren't you?

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

I do...I wrote a script last year and have had some interest, and have a couple of other things I'm working on with some people too. Hopefully something comes to fruition in 2012.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Depends...for "Drawing Dead" not so much, I wrote it from the gut, though for "Damned Good" I went over each poker hand with a Pro to make sure they were absolutly legit and believable at an elite level of high-stakes poker.

So yeah, it depends...mostly I write what I know, or think I know, and make measured extensions from that.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I'm new to it, so I'm still green, but what I am learning, and learning very quickly, is that it helps, it helps very, very much.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I have a start on a new crime work, about 10, 000 words, another psycho noir type of deal, and I have a bunch of notes planned out for another work, but I'll keep that under wraps.

There'll be some more Kindle releases of previous works, "Damned Good" with the original ending, and also works that have been stuck in transit like "Princes Without Kingdom".

And here's hoping I get a script sold, or made, both would be best though huh.

(more J J De Ceglie here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Pearce Hansen

2012-01-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch Stagger Bay in 25 words or less?

A street paladin’s bloody vengeance spree, where all his moral choices only seem to increase the body count. A father’s return to his estranged son.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

'American Horror Story' surprised me -- give it a chance past the first couple episodes, the writing was surprisingly good, and there was actually *gasp!* a discernible story arc. I haven't seen 'Driver' yet, but I'm eagerly awaiting the DVD release.

I'm in the middle of reading Cody Goodfellow's 'Radiant Dawn' at present -- its criminal that this guy isn't a household name: RD is like X-Files if it actually had intelligent writers, and if it had been made by HBO (ala Sopranos, Deadwood, Rome) rather than having to please the censors on primetime cable.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Yes. Or rather, if it's NOT possible, the writer's not going to be able to do their own editing, neh?

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

I do. My fifth project will probably be straight-to-screenplay, and I plan on adapting some of my older stuff one of these days.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

That's predicated on the current technology levels. In my initial spurt of writing ('96-'06) I was relying entirely on memory and (usually bad) dreams -- it was as much catharsis as anything else, getting rid of bad memories about fucked up experiences.

When I re-wrote Street Raised starting in '09, technology like Google Earth and the proliferation of 'Remember when?' blogs made it so I had to wade through research material for 18 months before being satisfied with the re-write, which set SR firmly in the East Bay of 1984. I'll say this: given the current state of the Internet, a writer has no excuses for factual errors anymore.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

See above in terms of research. Writing is a lonely business, and the networking has been helpful -- a lot of other writers have helped me, I'm trying to not be utterly useless, and all that would be a lot less accessible to us without social media.

Also (sort of a plug, but sort of just noting something NUTS): I offered Street Raised free on Kindle for five days, promoting the Stagger Bay release -- I've tweeted three times in the 24 hours since SB came out, and FB posted twice I think -- SR has gone up to #1,000 ranking for Free Kindle books, in one day, with no slowing down as yet -- I'm not offering that as a 'brag,' because i have no idea what it means yet, BUT . . . how could that have happened before social media?

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I'm going to promote Stagger Bay as hard as I can with everything I learned from the Street Raised re-release, hopefully stopping short of being a whore or an ass.

When I hit the point of diminishing returns on promotion, I'm going to A) finish & publish my third novel The Storm Giants, which I'm 70k words into start writing for all the crime magazines, and sort of get my short fiction creds back C) catch up on all the book reviews I owe to all the wonderful people that have encouraged me -- all writers know how emotionally brutal this game is, at the BEST of times -- I owe, and I always to pay back, good or bad

Stories For Sunday: Banks, Dark & Duffy.

2012-01-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

The Travel Agent by Ray Banks.

Ray Banks is one of the best writers around, he really is. He writes gritty and witty crime stories, usually set in the north of England, and his Call Innes quartet is a great example of how to write a realistic P I series.

In the latest issue of The Crime Factory, however, he takes us over to Prague with a bleak and brilliant story called The Travel Agent. A bit of a departure for Banks but as excellent as always.

Man or Mouse by Mark Dark.

Up and coming crime writer Mark Dark's hard hitting Man Or Mouse is the gangland set story of a footsoldier wanting to rise up in the ranks. A whip crack of hard boiled crime writing from a name to watch out for.

Blood & Alcohol by Frank Duffy

The Drunk On the Moon series continues to bend genres with Frank Duffy's typically wonderful take on Roman Dalton, werewolf private detective.

A cold blooded killer. A mysterious man with a past cloaked in shadows. Dark, delirious dreams of strange worlds. Frank Duffy's Blood and Alcohol is P I Roman Dalton's most haunting story yet.

BRIT GRIT ON THE BOX!

2012-01-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

With the BBC’s pretty damn smashing Sherlock back on the small screen, it may again seem that America is still the centre of hard-boiled crime television, such as Breaking Bad and The Wire, while the United Kingdom, is the land of Dame Agatha style cozies, stuck-up, Latin quoting police detectives and foppish socio-pathic geniuses!

However, for over forty years British television also has looked at the grubby underbelly and produced plenty of gritty crime writing.

While we may think of sixties and seventies British TV cops as sophisticated post James Bonds, for example, Frank Marker, who was played so brilliantly by Alfred Burke in the sixties television series PUBLIC EYE was certainly no Simon Templar, Jason King or John Steed, I can tell you.

The Public Eye ran for 10 years –from 1965 to 1975- with almost 100 episodes and although I haven’t seen it since then I remember it quite well and very fondly. Marker moved from a dingy office in London to another flea pit in Birmingham and eventually to Brighton, and I can still picture him walking along a wind and rain swept sea-front, looking like someone from a Morrissey song.

Marker looked like a soggy mongrel and he was a walking hard luck story, getting knocked about by the police as well as criminals and even being framed and sent to prison.

Not a lot of peace and love there, then.

The seventies was a time when music and film were doing some pretty ground breaking and experimental stuff and, in the UK at least, so was TV.

The BBC’s Play For Today, for example, is looked back upon with dewy eyed reverence these days. And so it should be. There were plays by Dennis Potter –Blue Remembered Hills, Mike Leigh –Abigail’s Party, Alan Bleasdale, John Osborne. Some of them were terrifying to the young mind- I still cringe when I remember the harrowing and brilliant Edna The Inebriated Woman. Others were hilarious –Rumpole Of The Baily, which spawned the television series.

And some were rock hard.

In 1975, Philip Martin’s controversial Gangsters aired and it was great. Gangsters was true Brit Grit television. Set in Birmingham, it was a multicultural crime story about illegal immigrants and corrupt politicians. I was thirteen at the time and I loved it. There was a violence, swearing, nudity! What more could you want?!

The next day at school everyone was talking about it. The subsequent media furore only added to the buzz.

Gangsters was such a success it was made into a series with theme music from the prog rock band Greenslade. It told the story of Kline, played by super-craggy Maurice Colborn, ex SAS, fresh out of prison and trying to go straight. And failing.

Like the Play For Today it came from the series was hardboiled, with maybe only Mike Hodges’ Get Carter as an antecedent.

By season two, the series really took a turn for the mental, though. The title sequence now had blues singer Chris Farlow belting out the theme song and looked like something from a low budget Kung Fu film.

Indeed, it went down such a weird path that it even had writer Philip Martin regularly appearing as himself dictating scenes to a typist. And later he appeared as The White Devil, a hit man dressed as W C Fields(a role originally intended for Les Dawson!) who eventually killed Kline.

Gangsters, which had started off as a hard hitting social realist crime drama , ended fantastically with the characters walking off the set, shots of the writers literally tossing away the script and a ‘That’s All Folks’ caption appearing on screen.

‘Daft!’ said my sister in law, who watched it with me. And she was right, I suppose, but then ‘daft’ isn’t always a bad thing, is it?

In one play and the two seasons of Gangsters, there were drug addicts, hit men, sleazy night clubs, triads, murders, racist comedians, the CIA, strippers and all manner of urban rough and tumble. And W C Fields.

And on to the nineties.

CRACKER was a Granada TV series that was created by the writer Jimmy McGovern which ran from 1993- 1995. A mere two years, yet it made a great impact in that short time.(Okay, there was also a fine Hong Kong set special in 1996 -and another in 2006,which I didn’t see.)

The star of the show was Scottish comedy actor Robbie Coltrane who was previously best known for a cracking- see what I did then? – performance in the BBC’s version of John Byrne’s Tuttie Fruttie and for throwing a chair through a pub window.

Coltrane played Fitz, a brilliant, hard-drinking, heavy – smoking, bad- tempered criminal psychologist who worked as an assistant to the Manchester Police Force. “I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much.” Top man.

Colrane was mesmerising. The stories were gritty and twisty and moving -even when they pushed the boundaries of melodrama. The rest of the actors involved were spot on too, in particular Christopher Ecclestone as the young detective learning more about life’s underbelly than he wanted. And Robert Carlyle was super impressive as the bitter, disillusioned Albie in the amazingly intense story ‘To Be A Somebody.’ But it was all great.

Later, there was a watered-down U.S. version with Robert

Pastorelli as Fitz . Pastorelli is a good actor but it really was a decaffeinated version of the original.

So, what Brit Grit television have we had recently? Luther and ...

To be honest, I couldn’t tell you, since I haven’t lived in the UK for over ten years. But if there is none, then surely one of the writers from Brit Grit Too could put Brit Grit back on the box?

For example, wouldn't Darren Sant's Tales From The Longcroft Estate make a great series? And maybe Nick Quantrill could do for Hull what Gangsters did for Birmingham? And as for Richard Godwin... is there a television station brave enough to adapt Richard's work?

(You can buy Brit Grit Too here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Alison Bruce

2012-01-20T11:14:00.000-08:00

PDB: TheCalling is a very reflective crime novel, did you have to dig up dark memories to write it?

AB: It was the idea for The Calling that first let me to write a book. I came up with part of the idea about 20 years ago and went on a screenwriting course because I thought it would make a good film. The guy running the course was David Yates, now the director of the final Harry Potter films, he advised me to start writing it as a book as he said it was very difficult to get films made without them first being successful novels.

The basic premise of the story revolves around a girl who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship and is so traumatised that when she accidentally bump into her ex-boyfriend coming out of the shop she suffers a panic attack.

She self harms and is verging on a breakdown. When the police start receive anonymous calls implicating her ex-boyfriend in a series of murders it is quite obvious that the reader that she is not the most reliable of witnesses, and may even be involved herself.

There are elements here but I drew from past experience. My relationship with my first serious boyfriend did not turn out well. He was manipulative and controlling towards me but instead of walking away I found myself trying to put everything right. In the end I felt I had lost a lot of self-respect, and some of my own identity even. He finished with me and, more than anything else, I was left wondering why I had failed to assert myself.

Me being me, I read up on the subject and discovered that it is very common for first adult relationships to deteriorate in this way.

Obviously, TheCalling, is fiction but I hope that drawing on those kind of experiences has allowed me to make the key relationships in the book relevant to many readers.

PDB: How strong an influence is music on your writing?

AB: It's either huge or not at all. Sometimes I'll write for several days without playing anything but more often than not I have a piece of music that's playing over and over while I write a particular scene, chapter or section.

Sometimes this is music that homes in on the character's emotional state but there are other times when a particular track helps me visualise a sequence of events.

I also find music a very good way of stopping me from being distracted. I can take writing into a pub where live music is playing and happily write using the noise to block out all other distractions. Sometimes this is far more productive for me in writing at home when I have a lot of other activities vying for my time.

Because certain tracks get played repeatedly whilst I'm writing some sections of the book I end up finding that, for me, those songs are forever associated with that section of the story.
I have often explain this at events and was often asked which songs these were. In the end I decided to include the 'soundtrack' for each book is a listing at the back. These pages appear on paperback of Cambridge Blue and all editions of The Siren and The Calling.

I'm currently working on book four in the Goodhew series and my iPlayer tells me that the most popular track I am currently working to has been played 482 times!

I also find that the soundtrack listing generates nearly half of all questions I receive about my books.

I think that modern technology is leading to a convergence of media; phones are cameras, iPods, radios and even e-book readers. Why shouldn't a book give the option of adding music to the experience?

PDB: Cambridge isn’t a city that many people would consider having a criminal underbelly. How wrong could they be?

Although Cambridge isn't a large city it is extremely diverse. The crimes that make headlines locally are mostly the same kind of crimes that appear on pages of newspapers throughout the country. Maybe there's less of the crime associated with densely populated urban areas but that doesn't mean that Cambridge doesn't suffer from knife crime or drug-related crime, to name but two. The point is, in Cambridge it seems out of place, and as a writer the contrast between crime and the tranquil image of the city definitely works to my advantage.

Cambridge is not without its notorious cases however, in the 1970s the Cambridge Rapist made national headlines, just recently a huge money-laundering racket was uncovered operating between London, Cambridge and Jamaica and the city has also been at the heart of several major terrorist investigations. Given its scientific and high-tech credentials there have also been cases of computer fraud and industrial espionage occurring locally.

Add to that the history of a city that has lived through Roman occupation, Tudor investment, the discovery of DNA and the education of some of the world's greatest minds and a population that, at times, consists of approximately 50% students and tourists, you have the perfect backdrop for crime and pretty much any story you'd like to imagine.

Personally, I love Cambridge but I never quite shake the feeling that, here, anything can happen.

(Find out more about Alison Bruce here.)

Short, Sharp Interview: Theresa Weir/ Anne Frasier

2012-01-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

Messed-up girl meets messed-up boy. They pool their dysfunction and together they live a messed-up life. (The Orchard, nonfiction, Theresa Weir)

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I'm really loving HBO's Enlightened starring Laura Dern, Mike White, Luke Wilson, and Diane Ladd. Excellent writing and acting.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

No. I don't read books the way a reader reads books.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

No. Too much of a long shot. Otherwise I would definitely have interest.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

It varies from almost zero to tons.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I enjoy it, but I'm not sure it has much benefit as far as sales. That being said, I think it's important for writers to have an online presence. Otherwise readers assume you're dead.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I'm juggling too many things right now. I hope to finish two full-length projects, one nonfiction, one fiction. I will probably self-publish both. I'd like to sell a Play Dead sequel to a major house, but that could be a pipe dream. I'm spending a large percentage of my time digitizing my backlist and learning how to format ebooks -- that's a huge priority for me in 2012. I have a couple of short stories coming out, one in the Once Upon a Crime anthology (April 2012). I'm also taking a beekeeping class.

(find out more about Theresa Weir here)

Short Sharp Interview: Kevin Lynn Helmick

2012-01-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

KLH: I’ll give it a shot-Heartland Gothic. It’s a fish outta water, black comedy, literary suspense, gothic noir, about a failed Hollywood screenwriter forced to reconnect with his estranged (strange) Midwestern roots.

How’s that, 25 if ya don’t count the commentary, I threw noir in just piss off the noir groupies, and it is, very dark, that’s all it means anyway.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

KLH: I recently read The Bell Jar, and Plath’s talent just blew me away. Sebastian Jungers’, The Perfect Storm, good shit. I don’t care much for tv. I’m a history channel guy. Films; The Ice Harvest, is a great film, fucking rocks. Waiting for my used paperback to get here. See if Scott Phillips can write as good as those guys can make a movie. Most of it was filmed just a few miles from my house, I went down there. Ok, this is not so short, sorry. But Tales from the Script, is a great documentary too. Next?

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

KLH: Probably not, it’s how I measure myself to other writers, that, and by height. I’m six ten, (not really). But I’ll make an effort to read somebody’s shitty writing if I know them. If I like them as a person, I’ll tell the truth. If I don’t like them, I’ll lie, say “good job.” I don’t write bad reviews to anybody though. I don’t have time for that shit.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

KLH: I do, film. I would love to see any or all of my books translated to screen. I plan on educating myself a little on screenwriting this year. It’s such a different animal than novels. Not sure if I can do it. But if a writer can crack that nut, and do it well, that’s where the money is and probably a lot of heartache. Call it a goal. I’m a glutton for punishment.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

KLH: Hardly any, I write fiction. Research suggests facts and details, and facts and details are just nuts and bolts. That’s boring. If I can’t get the point across with prose, what kinda writer would I be? I only research places I’ve never been, cities, towns, streets, shit like that. Just for setting. Hell, I’m bored just talking about research.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

KLH: Crucial, especially when you’re pretty much out there alone, competition’s fierce, advertisings expensive. I wouldn’t sell any books without social media. I know because I wrote before it existed. A writer or artist or anybody can be noticed and have a worldwide presence practically overnight now. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s pretty damn important, to selling something like books.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

KLH: Working with Trestle Press on Heartland Gothic. Should be fun to see what happens with that. Like I said, learn more about screenwriting. Write another novel. It might end up a short story, novella, I don’t know yet. Working on one called Driving Alone now.

Stick around, see if those fucking, Mayans, are as smart as everybody thinks they are.

Not exactly short but hopefully sharp. Thanks for having me, and good luck with everything.

(find out more about Kevin Lynn Helmick here)

Kevin has a new blog called The Write Room here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Iain Rowan

2012-01-19T05:16:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication/ project in 25 words or less?

Yes, I can. What? Oh hell, ten words gone already. Fifty-two stories, fifty-two songs. One new story, inspired by a song, every week throughout 2012.

URLs don't count to word limits, you know: http://fiftytwosongsfiftytwostories.blogspot.com/

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I often go on binges. Last one in film was seventies paranoid conspiracy thrillers: The Conversation, Klute, Marathon Man, Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View, and as a bit of an antidote, the wonderful The President's Analyst. In books, towards the back end of last year, I picked up William Gibson's newest novel and ended up reading all nine. Right now it's various shades of darkness: in print recently I really enjoyed Michelle Paver's Dark Matter, loved John Ajvide Lindqvist's Harbour (pretty much how long horror fiction ought to be, I thought), and on screen I'm watching lots of old BBC spooky stuff, like all of their M R James adaptations, and whatever unhinged TV weirdness I can track down: Quatermass, the Stone Tapes and Children of the Stones (the latter thanks to you, Paul!)

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

It's very difficult to avoid falling into either an admiring, 'hey, how did you do that?' or conversely a critical 'hmm, wouldn't have done it that way myself' trap. I still find though that it's the mark of a really good book that when reading it I just about forget my own name, let alone the fact that I happen to write myself.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Yes, I'd like to have a go at a screenplay sometime. I like the challenge of the constraints of working in a different type of writing. Back when I had an agent (long story) my editor there told me that my prose was very cinematic. Sometimes I take that as a compliment, and think that maybe I might be able to have a good go at it.

It is interesting how different a craft it is though, and I think there's a danger of arrogance in any prose writer saying oh yeah, I'm going to write a screenplay as if they could just wander across and knock off something as easily as they do their books. And vice-versa. The language and the tools and the approach are all very, very different.

Of course, my real interest is not in writing for films, but in someone phoning me up and saying hello, I'd like to give you money in exchange for taking your ideas and someone else rewriting them for films. Maybe adding some robots. Or pirates. But pirates are a bit done now. Maybe chipmunks?

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

As little as I can get away with. That's not to say what's in there isn't important, but I don't write the kinds of stories in which lots of research is important. A creative choice obviously, and not at all because I am lazy. I've always liked books in invented settings (even if the rest of the book is brutally realist) and I've never been that keen on books where the author has done lots of research and no way is he going to let the reader get away without knowing that.

I also don't take much of a shine to crime novels which are set in a particular city and the author therefore feels that the book has to be a Lonely Planet guide with brutal murders interspersed between the tourist attractions. TV crime is even worse for this. If you are near a famous landmark in London and see two people talking, they are spies, apparently, because that's where spies (and cops and their informers) have to meet. It's some kind of Spy Law.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

It's vitally useful. Without it I would spend much more time writing, and that's obviously not acceptable.

Apart from that, the most important things are the support and encouragement you get from a community of people who are genuinely interested in, and supportive of, each other's success. And that's just lovely.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

Publishing my (Debut Dagger shortlisted blah blah) novel One of Us on Amazon. Writing a new short story a week for Fifty-Two Songs. Getting back into writing some weird/horror fiction, some to market and some for the very fun project I'm involved in as one of the Abominable Gentlemen: Penny Dreadnought. (http://www.pennydreadnought.com/ - volume two out now). Writing more crime short fiction. Maybe even attempting to finish a new novel. Do more things because I enjoy them, than because they form some kind of notionally sensible career development.

(find out more about Iain Rowan here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Malachi Stone

2012-01-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

AMERICAN BANSHEE. Phony exorcist preying on local yokels in the Missouri Ozarks encounters an authentic “haint”: a banshee. Will she drag him down to hell?

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

One of my cardinal virtues, one I truly strive for, is originality. If I have the slightest suspicion that a phrase I’ve written down may not be completely original (which usually begins with a nagging feeling that if I’m too much in love with a particular bit of dialogue or description, it must be borrowed unwittingly from another author) I Google it. If my suspicions prove correct I strike it out and start over. Fortunately for me I’m usually incorrect. The most recent time I harbored a suspicion that I had unwittingly lifted a particular phrase, I Googled it and then discovered that I had used it before in the same novel. I was stealing from myself.

I am pathologically afraid of committing unconscious plagiarism. Therefore I try to avoid reading books that have anything to do with what I might attempt to write in the future. For this reason I read very little crime fiction these days. I made an exception for Matthew J. McBride’s Frank Sinatra in a Blender, an impudent, in-your face book that bends the genre in outrageous ways. I’ve met Matt McBride at Noir at the Bar in St. Louis. He’s a disarmingly nice young man whose outré writing style reminds me of a guy making balloon animals out of inflated condoms and then handing them out in restaurants. And I mean that as a compliment.

I’ve read works written by Daniel B. O’Shea, Steve Weddle and others. Their books deserve to be published by one of the majors and one day will be. I’ve read Joelle Charbonneau, whose name, I predict, soon will be a better known brand than, say, Janet Evanovich or Sue Grafton. Scott Phillips is the gold standard. His Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Cottonwood, Rut, and The Adjustment have left me hungering for more. Jedidiah Ayres is an unsurpassed editor whose knowledge of the crime noir genre is encyclopedic in depth and scope, and whose own fiction deserves a reading by anyone who enjoys dark, edgy prose. Check out D*CKED: Dark Fiction Inspired by Dick Cheney and Crimefactory and you’ll see what I mean.

I don’t mean for this to sound like an Academy Award acceptance speech, but I also recommend Frank Bill, John Hornor Jacobs, Seth Harwood, Chuck Wendig, Laura and Pinckney Benedict, Keith Rawson, Hilary Davidson, Barna Donovan, Jeff Shelby, Owen Laukkanen (if you can get past that Canadian accent) and Anthony Neil Smith.

Let’s face it: every writer is essentially an amateur. There is no government licensing of writers, thank God. A professional writer is one who gets paid for what otherwise would be nothing more than hobby. For me it’s still a hobby, albeit one I take very seriously. These days you can’t tell a writer apart from any other hobbyist. It’s like walking down the street in an unfamiliar suburban neighborhood. The guy who lives in the third house on the left may have a huge set of trains in his basement. Next house over, the homeowner may have installed a fully-equipped torture dungeon with soundproofed walls. Everybody should have a hobby. It’s not mine to judge.

Movies that float my boat are the old Hollywood B-pictures, the ones Raymond Chandler derisively characterized as “gun-in-the-kidney,” where all the men wear hats, everybody smokes their brains out and a quick punch in the nose is the sure rejoinder to every well-tuned wisecrack. For a considerable period of time I watched a steady diet of those turkeys, studying the dialogue for my novel Heartbalm, where the heroine suffers from a posttraumatic mental condition that causes her to revert to hard-boiled dialogue from 40’s crime movies whenever she’s placed under stress. By the way, anybody interested may read Heartbalm in its entirety on my blog. I’ve also posted podcasts of the first ten chapters. I would have produced more but for the fact that my dear wife, having overheard one particularly offensive recording session, made me quit.

As to television, other than the old movies I’ve already mentioned, I’m particularly fond of programs like Dateline where Keith Morrison, Josh Mankiewicz (my alter ego Nastydamus’s Twitter nemesis) and others provide in-depth coverage of tabloid-worthy interspousal homicides. Keith Morrison’s creepy voice-overs make Peter Lorre sound like Mister Rogers; Josh Mankiewicz’s distrustful squint evokes Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh.

Speaking of homicide, how can I not bring up Nancy Grace, the Grande Dame of all tee vee prosecutrixies, whose hour-long idiot call-in shows every weeknight feature three minutes of (slanted) fact presentation followed by endless hand-wringing angst and enough outrage to fire up a torchlit lynch parade from the television station direct to the jail house.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Yes, if he has the moral strength to rein in his envy and his pride. My blog reviews of novels written by Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck were probably unfairly harsh. I attribute that fact to my politics, my lack of personal financial success as a writer thus far, and my respect for the United States Constitution as proof against demagoguery. However, most of the people who’ve read those reviews told me they were funny. Plus, I’m no Michiko Kakutani, so a bad review or two from me isn’t likely to damp down sales.

On second thought, I wasn’t being unfairly harsh.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Grease me up and bend me over, Dude. While everybody from Frederica Maas to Raymond Chandler to John Gregory Dunne has castigated Hollywood for its mistreatment of writers, I’ll match any one of them ouch for ouch, and grovel for the chance to lunge for that brass ring out there in La La Land. In other words, yes.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

All of my novels have dealt with some aspect of law practice. I have actively practiced law for three decades now, so I tend to write from a technical baseline of what I already know. Everything else—the characters, the dialogue, the plot—is strictly imaginary. In American Banshee I sought out a challenge: to write a traditional ghost story with enough original elements that it would stand out from the genre and at the same time to write an exorcism story that aligned with what is known about real-life exorcisms. Therefore I studied these books in particular, all three of which I highly recommend: Hostage to the Devil by Dr. Malachi Martin; An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr. Gabriele Amorth, and People of the Lie by Dr. M. Scott Peck. The challenge, as always to the modern novelist, was how to write something even more hair-raising than those eminent authors’ authentic accounts. In American Banshee I hope I have succeeded.

PDB: How useful or important ARE social media for you as a writer?

I never would have explored social media if not for the recommendation of my literary agent Stacia J. N. Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency. Social media have provided me with a number of useful contacts but, more importantly, I have encountered many fascinating people I never would have known but for Facebook and Twitter. The down side, of course, is that the social media suck out time from one’s day like a black hole.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

Finishing Nightmare Number Nine, my tenth novel. It’s a sequel to Dead Man’s Act that features protagonist Bosco Hoël undergoing sleep studies to find out why he keeps dreaming about murders with himself as the killer. Bosco and his amputee wife run a three-legged race with insidious forces seeking to destroy him. Those interested can find the entire manuscript of Dead Man’s Act as well as the partial ms of Nightmare Number Nine posted on my blog http://malachistone.wordpress.com/ for review, critique and comment. Editors please note: they’re for sale.

Thanks again for the opportunity to be interviewed on your excellent blog.

(FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MALACHI STONE HERE)

Short, Sharp Interview:Ben Sobieck

2012-01-18T02:36:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

"Cleansing Eden" is a crime thriller novel about a young man trying to kick a bizarre drug addiction that forces him to kill Hollywood celebrities.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I'm a "Justified" junkie. It's one of the few crime dramas that does justice to its source material - and to wearing Stetsons. Can't wait for the new season to start this month.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Maybe. An author's mind never stops writing, even if he/she isn't at the keyboard. That means every word put in front of those pupils is seen through the lens of the writing process. There's the surface story and the writing story. Reading isn't the same if you also write.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Not really. Authors sometimes view movies and TV as the ultimate expression of their written works. It's like they're saying words aren't good enough to tell a story. I don't see any directors hoping their show is optioned for a book. Why should authors be any different?

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

I'm a journalist by degree and by trade, so I put a lot of value into research. For "Cleansing Eden," I created a drug called Bluegrasse for the protagonist's addiction, since nothing in reality did what I needed it to do. Creating it meant researching how artificial drugs, such as synthetic marijuana, are created. Granted, I didn't do any first-hand research, but I read enough to get a sense of how it all worked. Other chemicals, like atropine, are central to certain events. Those needed research, too.

PDB: How useful or important ARE social media for you as a writer?

Extremely important. My mornings are spent hitting Facebook, Google Plus, Goodreads, Twitter, CrimeSpace and BookTown - at a minimum. That's on top of my website/blog at CrimeFictionBook.com. For as powerful a tool as it is, social media is a blessing and a curse. It can replace writing as the number one priority. Finding a balance is difficult when time is so limited. Outside of writing, I work full-time as an online editor for a media company and help run a working ranch.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I'm working on my second crime novel and hope to have it published before the year is up. It's about a phony psychic who is tapped to find a missing college student.

Maynard Soloman, the lead in my crime fiction humor short story series, will have many more installments. This series is a ton of fun to write and is finding a devoted audience. I'll be collaborating with Laura Roberts, editor of Black Heart magazine, on the next one. That's going to be wild.

(FIND OUT MORE ABOUT BEN SOBIECK HERE)

Short, Sharp Interview: McDroll/ F G Johnson/ Fiona Johnson

2012-01-17T04:14:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication/ project in 25 words or less?

My latest short story, SWEEPER, is available in Near To The Knuckle. It examines how society doesn’t always look out for the most vulnerable.

PDB Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

Film – has to be MONGOL, about the early life of Genghis Khan, a rare treat of a film, scenery, acting, story and blood. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044/

TV – I enjoyed The Slap, an Australian production. It follows the shattering repercussions of a single event. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/theslap/

Books – Always the last thing I’ve read, so Murderers Anonymous by Douglas Lindsay http://goo.gl/j1o58

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

I think when you try to write yourself, it makes you appreciate even more the skill that goes into telling a very simple story that keeps you turning the page…or clicking the button!

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Does writing school Christmas shows count...no didn’t think so! But if you’re offering...I’m in!

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

I write more about emotions and if I feel I suddenly have to research something then that’s a big hint to me that I’m beginning to over-complicate and write guff that I don’t know about.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I can’t imagine writing without the support of all of my on-line friends, the opportunities to have your work read and the instant feedback that I receive.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I’m trying to write some longer pieces starting with a serialization of a novel that I’m currently tearing to shreds. I’ve also written the first chapter of a new novel and outlined the rest so I’ll see how that goes. Both pieces are crime based but I find more and more humour creeping into my work.

( find out more about McDroll here)

UPDATES: INTERVIEWS,REVIEWS ETC

2012-01-17T02:11:00.000-08:00

MORNING!

I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT MYSELF A LOT LATELY. NO CHANGE THERE, THEN.

CANADIAN AUTHOR JILL EDMONDSON LET ME WAFFLE ON AT THE SASHA JACKSON MYSTERIES.

RENATO BRATKOVIC INVITED ME OVER TO HIS SLOVENIAN WEBSITE RADIKALNEWS FOR A NATTER.

AMERICAN HORROR WRITER M.R.GOTT ASKED ME OVER TO CUTIS ANSERINA.

POP OVER IF THERE'S NOWT ON THE TELLY.

ALSO:

IT'S THE ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF JEANETTE CHEEZUM'S CAVALCADE OF STARS AND MY STORY THE TUT IS GATECRASHING THE CELEBRATIONS AS WE SPEAK.

BRIT GRIT TOO, THE CHARITY ANTHOLOGY THAT I EDITED, WAS GIVEN A CRACKING REVIEW AT AVAILABLE IN ANY COLOUR.

MEANWHILE, THERE HAVE BEEN LOADS OF INTERVIEWS HERE ON MY BLOG AND THERE ARE LOADS MORE TO COME!

(PHOTO BY PETE STULTS)

BRIT GRIT TOO LESS THAN A POUND/ DOLLAR FOR TODAY ONLY!

2012-01-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

'All in all, this feels like a snapshot of a nation: a dank, musty, blackly-humorous, rain-sodden little nation where everybody's going to hell but a lot of people can really write. Frankly, you should buy it even if you hate kids. It's that good.'

Edited by Paul D Brazill, Brit Grit Too collects 32 of Britain's best up and coming crime fiction writers to aid the charity Children 1st children1st.org.uk/

FOR ONE DAY ONLY -16 JANUARY 2012 - BRIT GRIT TOO IS LESS THAN A DOLLAR/POUND.

The BRIT GRIT mob is coming to kick down your door with hobnailed boots. Kitchen-sink noir; petty-thief-louts; lives of quiet desperation; sharp, blood-stained slices of life; booze-sodden brawls from the bottom of the barrel and comedy that's as black as it's bitter--this is BRIT GRIT.

Table Of Contents.

1. Two Fingers Of Noir by Alan Griffiths
2. Looking For Jamie by Iain Rowan
3. Stones In Me Pocket by Nigel Bird
4. The Catch And The Fall by Luke Block
5. A Long Time Coming by Paul Grzegorzek
6. Loose Ends by Gary Dobb
7. Graduation Day by Malcolm Holt
8. Cry Baby by Victoria Watson
9. The Savage World Of Men by Richard Godwin
10. Hard Boiled Poem (a mystery) by Alan Savage
11. A Dirty Job by Sue Harding
12. Squaring The Circle by Nick Quantrill
13. The Best Days Of My Life by Steven Porter
14. Hanging Stan by Jason Michel
15. The Wrong Place To Die by Nick Triplow
16. Coffin Boy by Nick Mott
17. Meat Is Murder by Colin Graham
18. Adult Education by Graham Smith
19. A Public Service by Col Bury
20. Hero by Pete Sortwell
21. Snapshots by Paul D Brazill
22. Smoked by Luca Veste
23. Geraldine by Andy Rivers
24. A Minimum Of Reason by Nick Boldock
25. Dope On A Rope by Darren Sant
26. A Speck Of Dust by David Barber
27. Hard Times by Ian Ayris
28. Never Ending by Fiona Johnson
29. Faces by Frank Duffy
30. The Plebitarian by Danny Hogan
31. King Edward by Gerard Brennan
32. Brit Grit by Charlie Wade

Stories For Sunday: Walker, Graham & Vaughn

2012-01-15T04:02:00.000-08:00

Three corkers this week.

Carrying by Stephen Walker.

Stephen Walker is a writer who first came to my attention thanks to his excellent and addictive Steve Does Comics blog . Well, he's just published a load of ebooks and judging by Carrying he's someone well worth checking out if your a fan of paranormal/ urban fantasy. Carrying opens with a young woman in a Davy Crocket hat who takes a lift to the thirteenth floor of a twelve story building, where she meets a dead man covered in cobwebs. An then it gets strange.Carrying is smart, funny and an immensely enjoyable introduction to the weird world of Stephen Walker.

Oh Superman by Colin Graham.

Colin Graham is an old boozing partner of mine from when I lived in Warsaw. He's better know for his hard hitting journalism - which has been published in places like The Guardian and The Moscow Times-and dark noir stories that you can find at A Twist Of Noir and Thrillers, Killers n Chillers. Well, over at Pulp Metal Magazine he gives us an hilarious story of the day in the life of a superhero who copes with his super stresses in the same way that most of us would. He goes to the pub. LOL, as the young people say, and good to see this side of Colin Graham coming through in his writing.

T- Bone's Girl by Edward Vaughn.

Shotgun Honey has been constantly putting out brilliant, hard-boiled flash fiction since it started up last year. And they score once again with Edward Vaughn's whip-crack of a story, T-Bone's Girl, where we enter the rough and ready world of two pals, Dennis and Marty.I'll say no more other than I loved this story and will deffo keep a bleary eye out for more from Edward Vaughn.

Last week's Stories For Sunday are here.

Paul D Brazill

2012-01-15T02:51:00.000-08:00

Short, Sharp Interview: Michael Haskins

2012-01-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

All about greed that in the end changes my protagonist's life forever, for the worse.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I enjoy ABC’s Castle for escapism. I think most of the movies and TV shows I like are for escapism, tho they seem to revolve around mystery, like Burn Notice, Person of Interest. Sometimes the writing on those shows impresses me. Justified is another great show, but being from Elmore Leonard it has to be.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

A writer MUST be a reader. Hemingway said it and so did Stephen King. You need to read to see what others are doing and then you need to try to do it better. This limits my reading to thrillers and mysteries, tho I do enjoy a good non-fiction book on occasion. I read WAR by Sebastian Junger and told myself it was ‘research.’ It was both a good read and research about war, which, in a mystery novel, is the good vs evil battle.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

None right now, but offer me some money. I kind of like Key West and spent too many years in Hollywood, Calif., to want to go back. Once thing you can say about LA that you can’t say about Key West, at least you can see what you’re breathing in LA! I’ll take the wonderment of clean air.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Story is pretty much made up from a ‘what if’ scenario, but I use a friend that was in military intelligence (yes an oxymoron) to get weapons and tactics right.

In Stairway to the Bottom he convinced me I needed the bad guys to use 20mm shells not 50 Caliber. In Free Range Institution he corrected my motor scooter assassins’ weapons and how RPGs would be used on the water, and finally, all about the seaplane at the end. We do this over lunch or cigars and drinks at happy hour. Research is tough! But I do it so I get the story right.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

A good question because in MWA Fla, I am on the board, we ask it a lot. I am not sure. I use FaceBook and Twitter. When I had my book sigings in Houston, Texas last year no one came up to me and said we were FB friends. Didn’t happen anywhere. What does it mean? If you figure it out let me know. However, I offered Chasin’ the Wind for Free on Kindle and got a great response, more than 2,000 downloads and mentioned it on both FB and Twitter. I am not convinced one way or another, but will continue to use them, if for no other reason than they are free.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I am rewriting my 3rd and last ‘lost manuscripts.’ It needs an ending and takes place in Tijuana, Mexico. In June I hope to begin the sequel to Stairway to the Bottom. It will be a dark story and I may write it from Norm’s voice telling about how Murphy is handling what happened in the end of Stairway. Need to find Alexi the Russian. It is about revenge and tentatively titled No One Wins. I hope to have it finished in early 2013.

In between all that, my traditional publisher has had Car Wash Blues since Jan. 2011 and will release it in August 2012. Twenty months after they bought it!

To find out more about the ‘lost manuscripts’ readers can go to my website –www.michaelhaskins.net – and on the right hand side will see a story from Solares Hills that tells all! Also a good review on Stairway.

(find out more about Michael Haskins here)

Michael Haskins is a member of the Hardboiled Collective

Short, Sharp Interview: Heath Lowrance

2012-01-14T02:37:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

DIG TEN GRAVES, a collection of bleak, violent stories designed to make you feel horrible about the world..99 cents for a limited time.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I usually catch television shows way after the fact by renting them on DVD. Having said that, I just finished up Deadwood, which I enjoyed a lot, and the first season of Dexter. Yeah, I know, old news. Movies, I've even farther behind. Just saw a great Charles Bronson flick called Chato's Land, re-watched the Coen Bros. True Grit, and obsessed over The Sweet Smell of Success for a while.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

I can't speak for all writers, but it's difficult for me. That probably has just as much to do with being a constant reader as it does being a writer, though. You become hyper-aware of what makes a story work and you notice little details, good or bad. But it doesn't detract from my enjoyment too much.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Oh, hell yes. I'd love the chance to write a film script especially.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

The least amount I can get away with. There's more research involved in writing a Western, of course, because even if the story is more mythological than historical, you still have to place in firmly in the context of history. Writing stories that take place modern day, however, the only research I do tends to be on the fly, just details.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

HUGELY important. I wouldn't be here now without it. Not just the tedious self-promotional stuff, but also the network of friends and fellow writers who offer support and keep you up to date. I don't think I'd ever have sold a single book if not for that.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

Lined up at the moment, I have the second Hawthorne story to finish (coming very soon!) from Trestle Press. The first one, "That Damned Coyote Hill", was surprisingly well received and so Hawthorne is set to become a series character. Two or three commissioned stories after that which I can't really say much about yet. Sometime in '12 Snubnose Press will be releasing my second full-length novel, CITY OF HERETICS, and then it's back to work on my third novel, which I started a couple months ago but have been sadly neglecting.

(find out more about Heath Lowrance here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Frank Duffy

2012-01-13T11:22:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

Between These Pages, These Places -Putting some scare into the mundane via 11 short stories with an international urban/suburban bent.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

I must be the only person left on the planet who hasn't seen The Sopranos. My super cool wife bought me three boxed sets of the show for Christmas. It's an extraordinary piece of writing. The actors are just about the most perfect cast you could hope for. Bliss. Also, I'm currently making my way through the fourth season of the boxed set of the original Twilight Zone. Heaven. Even if I have watched the entire series countless times.

As for books, I'm in love with King's 11:.22:.63. A wonderful, wonderful novel, that despite being 700 pages long, I could read over and over again. A

The last film I watched that made an impact on me was The Kill List, from the director of Down Terrace. Arguably the greatest British horror film since The Wicker Man. Terrifying and beautifully acted. Fantastic, ship-tight direction.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

It depends which writers they're reading. If they're people they know, then fifty-fifty. If it's somebody they love, then, probably not. If it's somebody they've never read before and outside of their genre, perhaps.

I think a writer should read a book the same as any reader who doesn't write, though whether they can 100% say they are not sometimes being subjective, rather than objective is a tricky question.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

I wrote a script over a year ago, which is in the hands of a small company of actors trying to raise some cash over in London to film it. It should run to 30 minutes, but as yet we're in the pre-pre-pre-production stage.

But apart from that, no, not really. I don't think I could bare the competitiveness of such an industry.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

I do what I call side-line research which helps me keep writing, when otherwise I might slow down. But the stuff that helps support and consolidate the plot, the characters and the background details (which are in fact less background than the writer might have you believe) comes at the end, which might seem backwards, literally, but is the only way I can work. But, my work tends not to need an awful amount of research. Yet.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I'll refrain from answering that question. You know what I think about social media networks.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I'm working on a novel called Hungry Celluloid. After that a third collection, untitled as yet. Then I'll get cracking on a long delayed second novel called Country X. I'm also working on a novella for Sideshow Press, the publisher of my first collection. I have to see some more of Tom Moran's superb art bringing my sorry ass stories to life.

(find out more about Frank Duffy here)

Short, Sharp Interview: K A Laity

2012-01-12T12:34:00.000-08:00

PDB Can you pitch your latest publication IT’S A CURSE: DRUNK ON THE MOON 7 in 25 words or less?

I take your werewolf detective through the wringer, give him happiness, a chance for redemption, then grind him into the dirt. Just like real life.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

The extremely weird PENDA’S FEN, tv play from 1974 that you pointed me to via Iain Rowan’s blog; been reading lots by the bard of Galway’s mean streets, Ken Bruen (also your fault). Finally reading Georgette Heyer mysteries. Fun stuff — I had only read her romances. Some P. G. Wodehouse because I am always trying to learn from the masters so also some Flann O’Brien as well. My pal Nancy Holder’s new series DEADTOWN which is a hoot!

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

No — I am a ruthless reader because I won’t let anyone waste my time. If it’s not good, I get back to writing. Bad writing is the single best spur to get to work.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

Yes -- unfortunately, they’ve no interest in me. I exaggerate: I have written plays and had some performed (mostly very silly stuff) but I am thinking of trying to write more for television and radio as it pays better (allegedly). I’m sketching out a radio series.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Years. I never write anything until I have lived it fully. I spent five years in silent contemplation in a monastery in Tibet just to write a flash fiction piece. I cut my own leg off for a chapter in a book and then killed a man just to watch him die. Then wrote a poem about it. Or was it a song? I forget.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

It is the single best way of avoiding actual work that I have found.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I will apparently meet a tall dark stranger. Also OWL STRETCHING, my sf/urban fantasy/alt-history/road trip retelling of the Descent of Inanna >_< will be out from Immanion Press and my alter ego C. Margery Kempe’s sequel to the sexy spy novel CHASTITY FLAME will be done (or else I’ll have to murder her). It’s called LUSH SITUATION (my publisher may disagree on that, we’ll see). I’m starting a new ghost story novel that’s inspired in equal parts by Angela Carter and Kingsley Amis, and there’s a bunch of non-fiction stuff blah blah. And I’m always writing short stories because they grow out of my head like mushrooms (two at the moment, one noir, one romance). They’ll all show up on the website eventually when someone publishes them. Thanks, Mr B.

(find out more about K A Laity here)

Short, Sharp Interview: Stuart Ayris

2012-01-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

A Beatles-obsessed alcohoholic with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and a love of cricket seeks to be reunited with the son he once abandoned.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?
In terms of books I would have to say Last Night in Twisted River by John Irving and Buddhism Without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor. Film-wise, I loved the remake of True Grit and television, well, I thought Boardwalk Empire was sensational! It must have been the first whole series of anything I have watched all the way through since Twin Peaks!

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

If you mean to be an objective reader of someone's own work, then that is definitely an aquired skill - one I am gradually developing (I hope!)

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

I have always been hugely intrigued as to how plays, films and TV programmes are made and have recently been looking at adapting Tollesbury Time Forever into a script. I tend to write very much with visual scenes and background music in my mind - I find that really helps.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

The research for Tollesbury Time Forever was fairly extensive - I sought out old photos and maps of the village, read through a book about the history of Tollesbury and spent alot of time in The King's Head!

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?
I think Social Media is becoming incredibly influential in terms of meeting people who can help you with your work and vice versa - it's a fantastic thing for the lonely writer!

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

2012 will I hope see people read and enjoy Tollesbury Time Forever. I am looking at developing a script for it and also to promote it as much as time allows. I am 13,000 words into my latest novel and I hope to complete that before the end is out. And England winning the Euros, Dagenham staying in League 2 and us thrashing the Aussies would also be great!!

(find out more about Stuart Ayris here)

Short, Sharp Interview: M R Gott

2012-01-11T13:49:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

Where the Dead Fear to Tread

A cop and a killer separately search a malevolent labyrinth populated by creatures for a child in a tale of hard-boiled macabre.

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan is a strong combination of fast paced B-movie elements with an elegant prose that transcends the material.

Personal Demons by Gregory Lamberson is great mash up of police procedural, noir, supernatural horror and genetic engineering elements. While this mish mash has no right to work, it does. Lamberson’s love of these elements oozes through every page.

John Skipp & Craig Spector’s Animals is a very honest novel about human coupling. The pros and cons of relationships are carefully examined with a starling and refreshing honesty. You get all of this with supernatural horror trappings. The film is mediocre with an intense performance by Nicki Aycox.

And I will probably continue to watch the X Files over and over until the day I die.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Absolutely, perhaps to a fault. When I read I regularly find a specific wording or a plot twist that makes me stand up and cheer. “You magnificent bastard.” Admittedly when I do I usually disturb my wife.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

I have an interest in storytelling, in all of its forms.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

Very little, I call family members in the medical field with anatomy questions for my fight sequences so I know what will spurt and how much.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I have a Goodreads page (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5186943.M_R_Gott) a Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Where-The-Dead-Fear-to-Tread/249796445058794) and a blog(http://wherethedeadfeartotread.blogspot.com/) At this point in time I feel they are necessary to ensure the most possible exposure. I do not have enough date to rate how helpful they are in helping to expand my base of readers.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

Where the Damned Fear Redemption, the sequel to Where the Dead Fear to Tread is completed. I hope to get it out to my readers as soon as possible. I have a few short stories and a novella also in search of a home.

Short, Sharp Interview: Patti Abbott

2012-01-11T02:19:00.000-08:00

PDB: Can you pitch your latest publication in 25 words or less?

In October SNUBNOSE PRESS published MONKEY JUSTICE. It's a collection about people caught in traps, some of their own making and some not. And, most importantly, the stories are about how they respond

PDB: Which books, films or television shows have floated your boat recently?

TV-BREAKING BAD, THE GOOD WIFE, HOMELAND, JUSTIFIED, MAD MEN. Movies: MELANCHOLIA, FINCHER'S THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE ARTIST.

PDB: Is it possible for a writer to be an objective reader?

Since I was a reader for half a century before I was a writer, I say yes. I never see other people's work as relative to my own. I can easily separate the writer in me from the reader. Although the critic is there always.

PDB: Do you have any interest in writing for films, theatre or television?

No. I like writing about movies and TV on my blog, but I have no desire to write for either. A piece that is all dialogue is daunting to me. I need to use my authorial voice now and then. I need to narrate from time to time. I love a little description.

PDB: How much research goes into each book?

I have written two books (not published) in which I researched things like mortuary science, photography, Detroit, the treatment of mental illness in the 1950s and 60s, Philadelphia department stores, the clothes styles of those times and other such things. With the short stories, it is more likely to be what song was popular then or what someone might wear or eat. Too much research in a 3000 word story drags it down, I think. But a detail from time to time helps any story.

PDB: How useful or important are social media for you as a writer?

I need to learn how to use it more and use it more effectively. Libby Hellman just emailed me about the need to do this and gave me some ideas about how I might. I admit I haven't given it much thought. I don't twitter either, which David Cranmer advised me I must do. I find it very difficult. I am sure everyone does but they push ahead with it and are successful.I know if I was better at this MONKEY JUSTICE would probably have sold more copies.

PDB: What’s on the cards in 2012?

I am going to try to find an agent for the novels. I think an unknown writer with an e-book is unlikely to be successful without serious help. Hundreds of ebooks are going up every day. I have dozens on my kindle right now. How will anyone find mine unless I find some way to make it known? Because I have been active on the Internet for a while, I was able to sell a certain number of copies, but not enough to persuade me to write another novel. Or do publish it as an ebook right now.

I promised my writing group I would persevere this time in looking for an agent.

I have a few stories coming out: Rose and the Thorn, The Texas Gardener, Beat to a Pulp Round 2, Yellow Mama.

(find out more about Patti Abbott here)