Riordan's Desk

Ride a Red Dragon

2011-12-19T07:01:00.000-08:00

I'm pleased to announce my short story, "Ride a Red Dragon" is available on Amazon Kindle for a mere 99 cents! Here's the set up:

When speakeasy and gambling hall owner Scooter Hawkins puts a call into private eye Vic Lane to investigate an extortion attempt, Lane barely has time to hear the assignment before two men with Thompson sub-machine guns burst through the door to ratchet up the stakes with a stream of lead.

Lane’s investigation leads to a rival gambling house known as the Red Dragon, and soon he is caught up in a ruthless struggle with its beautiful proprietress, Wan Jung.

Set in 1920s San Francisco with flappers, speakeasies and roadsters, “Ride a Red Dragon” is a two-fisted tale of deceit and revenge reminiscent of Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op stories.

Pick it up here.

Patricia Cornwell's RED MIST

2011-12-03T10:30:00.001-08:00

#1 New York Times bestselling author Patricia Cornwell's new novel, Red Mist, goes on sale this Tuesday, December 6th.

What's that go to do with me? The book is set in and around Savannah, Georgia and when her publisher, Putnum, went looking for a atmospheric photograph from the area to use for the book's end papers, they found my shot of a foggy morning at Colonial Park Cemetery.

They printed it in silver on both end papers and I think it looks tremendous:

(Notice the image is reversed to keep the tree clear of the dust jacket flap.) Patricia is also featuring it on her website:

I don't think the Putnum folks realized that I am also a crime fiction writer, but of course the fact that I, too, write crime makes me all the more proud to have the photo on Patricia's book.

Coming to a Bookstore/eReader Near You!

2011-10-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

I can now say with confidence that Prom Night and Other Man-Made Disasters, my collection of humorous first-person essays, will be available in spring 2012. Keep an eye peeled for it!

Dollar Store-like Pricing on eBooks in the August Riordan Series!

2011-09-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

All five novels in the August Riordan series, including The Immortal Game, Vulture Capital, Candy from Strangers, Runoff and The Big Wake-Up are now available in eBook format for a mere 99 cents.

Get them while they are hot!

Candy from Strangers Podcast Complete!

2011-09-29T20:20:00.000-07:00

The free podcast for my third novel, Candy from Strangers, is complete! Download individual episodes or subscribe to the feed on Apple's iTunes here.

THE IMMORTAL GAME in Chinese!

2011-07-06T19:45:00.001-07:00

Traditional Chinese Translation of THE IMMORTAL GAME, a photo by Mark Coggins on Flickr.

Here's the cover and the promotional give-away (a USB drive in the shape of a chess king) for my first novel THE IMMORTAL GAME.

To Gertrude

2011-05-31T07:07:00.001-07:00

Check out my post on Gertrude Stein and a bit of "found prose" from her grave in Paris here on SFGate.com.

True Fiction

2011-05-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

Susan Harkema, research director at the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center in Louisville, recently published an article in Lancet regarding her work to help spinal cord injury victims regain mobility by using electrical stimulation to the spine. Read about it in the New York Times here and TechCrunch here.

The real life technology is very similar to that developed by the fictional start-up company NeuroStimix in my novel Vulture Capital. Read about the book here or listen to the free podcast here.

My New Celebrity Endorsement ...

2011-05-11T16:24:00.000-07:00

Appearance on the Kindle Author Blog

2011-05-04T11:48:00.000-07:00

Check out my interview on David Wisehart's Kindle Author blog right here.

Making Some Racket on PodioRacket

2011-04-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm podcasting my first novel, The Immortal Game for FREE. Listen to my interview about the book and the process of podcasting it with the great folks from PodioRacket here.

Pick up the actual podcast at Seth Harwood's CrimeWAV here or at PodioBooks here.

Martin Cruz Smith

2011-03-25T11:30:00.001-07:00

I was on a panel today at Left Coast Crime 2011 in Santa Fe, New Mexico with one of my literary heroes, Martin Cruz Smith of Gorky Park fame.

Reuniting Cissy & Ray

2011-02-15T19:35:00.000-08:00

Read my Rap Sheet post about the ceremony to reunite Raymond Chandler and his wife Cissy here.

New Career

2011-02-06T11:43:00.000-08:00

My wife says I have too many "hobbies," and she includes novel-writing among them! Well, here's another one to add to the list: author photographer.

Barbara Fister used a photo I snapped of her at a Left Coast Crime conference for her latest, Through the Cracks.

And Seth Harwood posed in my professionally furnished studio (i.e., my back yard) for his latest, Young Junius. (Say, Tyrus Books, what happened to that photo credit?)

Finally, I snapped a picture of another big name author at last year's Bouchercon. You'll see it on a book he has coming out this June.

The Many Faces (and Formats) of THE IMMORTAL GAME

2011-01-24T07:49:00.001-08:00

Over the years, my first novel, The Immortal Game, has been issued in four (paper book) editions. Today I'm announcing release of a another edition in an entirely new medium: audio.

If you've not read the book, listen to a one minute promo for it here:

And subscribe to the free podcast of the entire novel here.

Der Malteser Falke

2011-01-18T11:18:00.000-08:00

Swiss Publisher Diogenes borrowed the photograph I use for the masthead of this blog to promote their German translation of The Maltese Falcon.

The text in white is a line from the book, "Most things in San Francisco can be bought, or taken," which Sam Spade tells Brigid O'Shaughnessy.

The photo was originally done to promote my novel The Immortal Game, and if you look closely you can see the first paragraphs of Chapter 6, "Jodie's Tip," sitting in the typewriter. Quite an honor to have my words on a poster for one of Dashiell Hammett's books!

Joe Gores

2011-01-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

Joe Gores, one of my favorite authors and an all-around wonderful guy, died on Monday, January 10th, 50 years to the day that Dashiell Hammett passed away. Read my tribute to him on The Rap Sheet here.

Podcast of Vulture Capital Complete!

2011-01-09T16:55:00.000-08:00

The free podcast of my novel Vulture Capital is complete. Check out the 1 minute promo for the podcast here:

And download or subscribe to all the episodes here.

Stockton Street Tunnel

2010-12-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

The latest in my "Polaroids from the Metropolis" series, featuring noirish photos from San Francisco, is available here on the San Francisco Chronicle website.

Riordan eBook Bonanza

2010-11-24T08:34:00.001-08:00

Get 'em while they are hot: all five of my novels in the August Riordan series are available as eBooks in Kindle, Nook and Apple iBookstore (iPad) Format--and most are being sold for the low-low price of $2.99.

If you've not read any of the books in the series, I suggest you start with the first, The Immortal Game. There's no need to continue in sequence from there, but Vulture Capital is a quasi-standalone, so you may wish to save that until after you've got a few of the other books under your belt.

The Immortal Game: A Retrospective

2010-10-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

"Just how good can a work of pastiche be?" is the question asked by Michael Slind on his blog Only Detect about my first novel, The Immortal Game.

For those who aren't familiar with the term, Wikipedia defines pastiche as "a literary technique employing a generally light-hearted tongue-in-cheek imitation of another's style; although jocular, it is usually respectful."

Michael is right: The Immortal Game is a pastiche of Raymond Chandler's work--with a dash of Dashiell Hammett thrown in.

Read his very generous answer to the question of how good it can be here.

USA Book News Awards

2010-10-26T07:44:00.000-07:00

The USA Book News "Best Books 2010" Awards have been announced, and my novel The Big Wake-Up placed as a Finalist in the "Fiction & Literature: Mystery/Suspense" category.

How 'bout them apples?

Sherlock, Old School

2010-10-26T07:43:00.000-07:00

Given the interest generated for the new PBS-TV mystery series, Sherlock, I thought it might be fun to use my blog on the San Francisco Chronicle's website to serialize my Sherlock Holmes pastiche, "The Adventure of the Black Bishop."

I'm releasing it in five weekly episodes on Monday morning. Read the first here.

Ted's Invite

2010-10-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

I recently received this invitation via e-mail:

Hi -----, is now a better time to reach out to you in regards to the CIO Summit? You received a request on behalf of our Board due to your key role in the technology field and I'm curious to know if a decision has been made.

The CIO Summit is an invitation-only group comprised of the very best executives and visionaries in technology. We meet monthly by teleconference to exchange what is working, what is not, strategies and ideas. It is a confidential forum with dedicated groups of other successful VPs and key executives whose only agenda is to help each other outperform. Our site is at www.theciosummits.org

I am certain you will find the experience both enjoyable and useful in your efforts. Please take a look and let me know of your decision. Thanks, -----.

Although the e-mail ended up in my in-tray, the individual being invited isn't me. It's a gentleman named Ted: Ted Valmont. If you follow the link to Ted's bio, you'll see he could be lumped in a group that includes the "very best executives and visionaries in technology," being the founder and CEO of VALeDiction, a revolutionary company in the speech recognition space, and all.

Only problem is, Ted is a fictional character from my novel Vulture Capital.

I'm half way tempted to accept the invitation on his behalf--except I'm not nearly as successful or as good looking as him ...

Vulture Capital, the Podcast

2010-10-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

As you might have noticed from my earlier posts of mystery author photos, last week I attended the Bouchercon mystery conference in San Francisco.

My favorite panel was one of which I only attended a portion: "Ten Crime Novels You Must Read Before You Die" moderated by the Irish duo of Declan Hughes and John Connolly. As Kathleen Ryan of the Women of Mystery blog documents, the first book on their list is The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett, and the second is The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler.

One of the reasons I so liked the panel is that I happen to think that Key and Long Goodbye are the best efforts of Hammett and Chandler respectively. The other reason is the passionate and articulate case Hughes and Connolly made for their ten selections.

So why am I blabbing about the panel in a post titled "Vulture Capital, the Podcast?" As I've written before, my novel Vulture Capital was intended as a homage to The Glass Key. So much so, that Poltroon Press, the publisher of the first edition, actually embossed the front board of the book with silver key, exactly like the one on the front board of Hammett's novel. You can see it in this photo of the limited edition of the book, along with the special photo that accompanied the volume in a custom-made box:

After that long wind-up, here's the pitch: if you haven't read Vulture Capital, I'm making it available as a free audio book in a series of podcast episodes. Familiarity with The Glass Key isn't necessary to enjoy the book, which deals with a biotech start-up in Silicon Valley.

Read more about the plot here, and select from a range of options to access the (in progress) podcast episodes here.