Publisher Profiles

David Poindexter of McAdam/Cage publishing and David Thompson of Busted Flush Press have both gotten some good press recently.

Goodbye McGinnis

As has been noted, here and elsewhere, the Robert McGinnis gallery of paperback covers maintained by Graeme Flanagan is coming down. Apparently it was McGinnis himself who requested they be taken down, and he has even retired his own Web site because of copyright concerns. In an email you can read here, Flanagan quotes McGinnis as saying that he is limiting access to his work because of "the flagrant abuse of the copyrights of (his) paintings and name out of context on the internet.” I'm not sure if he was specifically referring to Flanagan's site, which isn't harming McGinnis in any way. It's not as if Flanagan was selling unauthorized prints of McGinnis' book covers or something of that nature. He was sharing his love of McGinnis' work. Sure, McGinnis is a professional illustrator, and he does have an interest in protecting his copyrights, but if no one can see your work that defeats the purpose of creating anything at all, doesn't it?

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Happy Valentine's Day

Review of Money Shot

Hard Case Crime’s first book by a female author, the long anticipated Money Shot by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime, 2007), does not disappoint. The story of Angel Dare, a former porn star who finds herself beaten, raped, shot and left for dead after agreeing to step in front of the camera one more time for an old friend, Money Shot is a straight-up hard boiled revenge tale with a feminine twist. Think Death Wish with curves.

The revenge story, where an otherwise normal person becomes a hard nosed killer after suffering some grave injustice and somehow manages to stay one-step ahead of the authorities, can be entertaining and satisfying, if never quite believable. Angel Dare has her share of not-quite believable luck, such as instantly becoming unrecognizable to people who know her after shaving her head, but it’s never enough to overcome the momentum the story has. There are no lulls to give the reader the time to contemplate the implausibility of certain situations. Also, Angel is likeable enough, and the bad guys are vile enough that the reader will be rooting for her to get her revenge without worrying too much about reality.

The book is set against the background of the San Fernando Valley’s thriving porn industry, and that alone might turn off some readers, but Faust’s treatment of an unsavory industry isn’t romanticized or judgmental. It has been said that seeing sausages and laws get made isn’t pretty. The same can be said for porn, and Faust doesn’t shy away from the sordid side of an industry that makes a profit from selling false intimacy. Even Dare, who is relatively unscathed when compared to some other characters, has intimacy issues. Still, there is no sense of condemnation. Faust has enough respect for her characters and her audience to let readers draw their own conclusions.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

Scotsploitation

The David Simon Show

THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS SOME MINOR SPOILERS ABOUT THE WIRE SEASON 5

The final season of The Wire has resulted in more ink spilled than all of the previous four seasons combined. I tried keeping track of all the articles, but I got distracted and fell behind. Fortunately, someone else has been keeping up with the incredible crush of stories. Simon has made the New Yorker, The Atlantic and Columbia Journalism Review, and those are just the highlights. Why the sudden tidal wave of spilled ink over a television show no one watches? That's an easy one. This season The Wire is, in part, about journalism, and there's nothing journalists love more than the chance to engage in a bout of public navel gazing.

Now, those in the journalism racket, particularly the newspaper industry, need to engage in a little navel gazing. Newspapers are on the way out, and true believers like Simon are understandably upset. Simon had a long career at The Baltimore Sun before he ended up in his current role, and he has some pointed opinions on his old paper and the state of the industry. To an extent, he has a point, but his criticism is beginning to overshadow the show itself. Simon's ranting has made the part of the Wire set in the Baltimore Sun newsroom the main event for this season, which is unfortunate, since it's disappointing. Simon's using the show to settle old scores, and the newsroom characters seem to lack the nuance of the drug dealers and cops. Part of my indifference, I think, can be attributed to the fact that the journalist characters have only been around for a few episodes, as opposed to a few seasons. There is no way a long time viewer can feel the same way about the intrepid city editor Gus Haynes as he feels about Omar or McNulty.

Still, I can't help but be disappointed by the newspaper storyline thus far. It's just not that interesting. The real story this season is about Marlo, and whether his reach will exceed his grasp. He's making a play for control of the entire city, but he's made some serious mistakes, and the tension there is almost unbearable. Will Omar's return cause so much trouble that the Greeks will have second thoughts about dealing with him? Will McNulty's gambit pay off? Or is there someone else Marlo should be worrying about? I have no question that it's going to end badly for him, which is exactly what should happen, but when one person is knocked off the throne, another rises to take his place. Now, if only the newspaper subplot had half the tension of the Marlo plotline we would have something that might top season four. Unfortunately, it's predictable and just can't compete with all of the other characters and stories Simon and his crew have put so much time and effort into building over the years.

Spinetingler Awards

Sandra Ruttan has announced the winners of the Spinetingler Awards at her new Web site At Central Booking. Alas, my story did not win, which is a little disappointing, but then most things in life are. Congratulations to everyone who won, especially Chris F. Holm, whose story Seven Days of Rain won in the Best Fiction on the Web category.

This is Terrible

James Reasoner's house has burned down. Fortunately he and his family are fine. I can't imagine how it must feel to lose everything that way. My heart goes out to them.

Wednesday Paperback Cover

That's a strange choice to have to make

Review of School for Scumbags

Funny isn’t easy. Just watch television. Rooms full of writers slave away to come up with jokes for sitcoms and late night talk show hosts, and most of them fail spectacularly. It’s not that all of the people who write for those shows are hopeless (although many of them are), it’s just that being funny consistently is nigh impossible, even for very funny people.

Danny King’s School for Scumbags (Serpent's Tail, 2008) is funny. It’s not roll around on the floor holding your sides funny, but it does manage to conjure up laugh-out-loud moments, and even when it falls short, it’s still entertaining. Scumbags follows 15-year old degenerate Wayne Banstead as he get kicked out of yet another school and ends up in the Gafin School For Boys in London. The school, whose motto is “Help Yourselves Boys” is unorthodox in its methods. The boys spend a lot of time learning about crime, and none of their instructors seems to care if they smoke dope or drink. In fact, the only thing that can get a student in real trouble is snitching. Needless to say Wayne, who has trouble understanding the concept of private property, fits right in. Soon it becomes clear that, despite the statements made to students’ parents, no one at the Gafin School is interested in reforming the students, in fact, quite the opposite. The staff want the boys to help pull off a giant heist.

The plot is far-fetched, but fun, and King manages to make Wayne, a character who could easily end up on a reader’s bad side, just decent enough to keep him from becoming unlikable. The pacing is brisk, with the exception of a couple of chapters about a soccer game, which tend to drag. It turns out the only thing less exciting than watching soccer is reading about it, even if it is a rigged match. That one stumble aside, the scheming and plotting of the school boys and their teachers is enjoyable, and the climactic heist is appropriately grand. King manages to make funny look easy.