A Post in Which the Author Admits He is Having Trouble Adapting to the Century in Which He Lives

So, I'm trying to get back on the reviewing and blogging wagon after having taken much needed break. While I've been away, lots of authors I enjoy reading, like Allan Guthrie, Dave Zeltserman, and Anthony Neil Smith have released electronic exclusives. After resisting the e-book trend for a long time, I finally broke down and downloaded Kindle for PC, and bought a couple of books I wanted to read. The problem is, however, that I'm having a hard time reading them. On many days, I spend the better part of eight hours staring a a computer screen, and when I get home I often find myself not wanting to spend another couple hours doing the same thing for recreational purposes.

And when I do fire up the computer, I always end up caught up in myriad distractions (I have four other tabs open in my browser as I write this.) As McLuhan said, the medium is the message, and I fear the Internet has conditioned me to jump around from one thing to the next, never staying in one place, or lavishing too much attention on any one thing. Sitting in front of a computer and trying to do something as straightforward and linear as reading a novel feels unnatural, and I'm having a hard time adapting. I recently read Grimhaven as a PDF, and it took me two weeks to get through. It's a short book, and I should have been able to sit down and read it in an afternoon, but I kept getting distracted, or feeling like I needed a break from staring at the screen. It wasn't easy.

Right now, I'm trying to decide on whether or not to shell out for a Kindle. I think that the portable format may be more book-like, and make me more comfortable with the whole electronic book concept, but I'm afraid it won't work, and I'll have wasted a bunch of money on something I'll never use. So, I'm asking anyone who's got one, how do you like yours? Was it worth the money? Is it similar enough to reading a book that you feel comfortable doing it? Or should I just forget it?

Review of The Dead Women of Juarez

Debut novelist Sam Hawken's novel The Dead Women of Juarez (Serpent's Tail, 2010) is a surprisingly assured and skilled first novel. First novels are often works where you can see the seams, and watch as an writer shows hints of potential. It's a fairly rare that a first novel doesn't seem like a first novel, and Hawken's novel reads like the work of someone who's been turning out novels for a long time.

The Dead Women of Juarez starts out as the story of washed up boxer Kelly Courter, who has retreated south of the border after making some horrible decisions that torpedoed a once promising career. To get by he picks up the occasional unsanctioned fight and helps his best friend Esteban sell weed. He's also involved with Esteban's sister, Paloma, who works for Mujeres sin Voces, a group dedicated to bringing attention to the hundreds of unsolved murders of women in Juarez.

Hawken takes a rather bold turn when, halfway through the story, he has events sideline Kelly, and switches the story's focus to aging Mexican cop Rafael Sevilla, who struggles with the loss of his daughter and granddaughter, who simply went out one day and then vanished, just two more victims of the senseless crime that thrives in Mexico. While he switches characters, Hawken, doesn't switch stories, however, so the transition is smooth, and works well.

Overall, Hawken's prose is strong, the plot is well thought out, and the characters are well drawn. Kelly and Rafael both have affecting and convincing backstories, that make them seem quite human and explains their motivations. The fact that the story is inspired by the real life murders that plague Juarez (more famously the subject of Roberto Bolano's novel 2666), serves to make the novel even stronger.

Lynn Kostoff Interview

Lynn Kostoff gets interviewed by South Carolina's NPR station about Late Rain. It's about time someone paid attention to this book. And if you haven't read A Choice of Nightmares, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Let's Read Grimhaven!

I've had a copy of Charles Willeford's unpublished novel Grimhaven for a while now, but I just got around to reading it recently. It is, without a doubt, one of the biggest Fuck You's that anyone has ever committed to print. It's easy to see why it never made it into proper circulation, and that is a shame. Aside from The Burnt Orange Heresy, it's probably Willeford's most harrowing work, and it has what can only be described as the most twisted happy endings in the history of literature.

Grimhaven isn't really a crime novel in the traditional sense. It bears no similarity to Miami Blues or any of the other subsequent Hoke Mosely novels where broken down old Hoke continues to be an unorthodox, false teeth wearing hero with a badge. It has more in similar with Camus' The Stranger than it does with any contemporary crime novels. That's really not a surprise, as Willeford is nothing if not the rarest of creatures: An American existentialist. Manifest Destiny, American Exceptionalism, the smiling, reassuring God everyone is so sure has some sort of grand plan, despite the fact that there is no evidence for this ridiculous assertion.

Grimhaven finds Hoke living a simple life. He has retired from the police force, works at his father's hardware store and spends his spare time swimming and working on chess problems. He is content until his ex-wife sends his two teenage daughters to live with him while she lives it up with a black baseball player in LA. The story is really about the lengths a man will go to get back what he has lost, and Hoke is willing to go a long, long way. He doesn't want his wife back. He doesn't want his job back. He just wants to go on living as he was, alone and with time to spend working on his chess puzzles without being bothered. The way he sets about doing this is harrowing and, well, grim, but it's also brilliant. I'm reluctant to say anymore because I don't want to give away the ending to a book that many people haven't read, but let's just say the ending made me laugh even though there's nothing funny about it. Hoke, the perpetual loser, turns out to be the winner after all, even though he's the only one who will ever know.

It's a New Year, and I'm back

It's 2011. The last half of 2010 found me suffering from reading, reviewing and blogging burnout. As anyone who's followed this blog knows, it's been moribund for a while now. I haven't been happy about this, but I did feel I needed the break. When a hobby starts to feel like work it's definitely time to back off for a bit. I do this for fun. I don't do it because I need another job. So, now that I've taken my break, I just want to announce that I'm bringing Independent Crime back for 2011. So, stay tuned for reviews and news about small press crime fiction. I deliberately took myself out of the loop for a while, but I'm getting back into the groove. I've got a couple novels I really want to read and review, and I'm sure I can find some new Wednesday Paperback Covers, as well as other interesting tidbits to post. Stay tuned.

Upside Down Pulp

Here is a great collection of pulp covers from Australia along with a good essay on the history of pulps down under courtesy of the University of Otago. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The Return of Hard Case

Here is the latest news from Charles Ardai regarding the return of Hard Case Crime. I'm just gonna reprint the entire statement in full since I'm sure it's of interest.

We've got some big news to announce today: After a year's hiatus, Hard Case Crime will be returning to bookstores with new titles in 2011, thanks to a deal we just signed with UK-based Titan Publishing.

Titan is a publisher both of fiction and of gorgeous art books focusing on pop culture such as movie poster art, pin-ups, newspaper comic strips, and Golden Age comic books, and has worked with filmmakers such as J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, and George Lucas. Titan has been around for 30 years, has more than 200 employees, and in addition to publishing books also has a magazine division, a retail division (Titan owns the famous Forbidden Planet bookstore in London, and until recently co-owned the Murder One mystery bookstore with Maxim Jakubowski), and a merchandise division that produces items such as t-shirts, sculptures, and accessories.

We look forward to exploring ways we might develop some cool Hard Case Crime products with them! But first things first: books. Hard Case Crime will relaunch in September/October 2011 with four new books, including CHOKE HOLD by Christa Faust (sequel to her Edgar Award-nominated MONEY SHOT), QUARRY'S EX by Max Allan Collins (the latest in the popular series of hit man novels by the author of "Road to Perdition"), and two never-before-published novels by MWA Grand Masters (names to be announced shortly).

Additionally, Titan Publishing plans to acquire all existing stock of Hard Case Crime's backlist from Dorchester Publishing and to resume shipping these titles to booksellers immediately. New books will be published in paperback (possibly some in hardcover as well!); ebook editions will also be released across multiple platforms. Titan is distributed in the U.S. and Canada by Random House. We're very excited about working with Titan (indeed, we had offers from five publishers and chose Titan over several that were much larger and better-known) -- they love pulp fiction as much as we do and appreciate that in books like ours the visual dimension is just as important as the storytelling. It's hard to imagine a better home for Hard Case Crime.

Harwood Rides Again

In time for the release of his latest novel, Young Junius, Seth Harwood has once again made the news for his innovative internet based self-promotion techniques. It's hard to put a price on the kind of press he's been getting for his work.

New Pulp Press in NYM Again

New Pulp Press has gotten the attention of the folks at New York Magazine again. First, Bad Juju shows up on the approval matrix, and now Dave Zeltserman's 21 Tales has been singled out.

The Sinners

I've been on a bit of a graphic novel streak lately, and my most recent read was Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips latest Criminal trade, The Sinners. This one picks up the story of Tracy Lawless, the hardass military deserter who came back to the city to find his little brother's killer, only to discover some ugly truths and end up working as a hitman for the city's chief crime boss. Turns out Tracy's heart isn't in paid killing, so crime boss Sebastian Hyde asks him to look into a string of killings of made men. Tracy is relieved to have some non-homicidal work, but he's also got the military on his tail, and he's been having an affair with Hyde's wife. After the last storyline, Bad Night, and its predecessor, The Dead and the Dying, both of which were innovative, touching and horrifying in their own ways, The Sinners feels a bit rote.

Lawless is your average antihero, the killer with the broken heart of gold who lives by his own moral code, even if society disapproves, and the story was also a bit of a disappointment. The identity of the killers felt like a stretch, and the choice of bad guys is hardly unique.

(Spoiler Alert)








A priest who corrupts youth isn't exactly original, even if sex isn't involved (and really, hasn't the Catholic Church been kicked around enough? I'm no fan of Catholicism. I could expound on my criticisms at length but I won't. This blog is about crime fiction not religion.) Criminal usually tells unusual stories (Coward or Bad Night), or tells more conventional stories in unconventional ways (The Dead and The Dying). This particular story arc did neither. There was no big twist or ending that provoked sympathy for the lost souls Brubaker creates so well. I think this stems from the fact that Lawless just isn't that interesting of a character. His first story arc was saved by the ending, which was quite the punch in the gut for both the character and the reader, but now that he's found out the truth about his brother, and quit romanticizing his past, he's just another big man with a gun and an attitude. Hopefully the next story arc will be a little more engaging.