The Incident Report No. 85 features highlights from the Small Crimes posts I run almost every day. If you don’t have the time to read the daily missives then this might just be for you.
The phone buzzed the way babies cry when they’re hungry. I wasn’t available and didn’t want to be, but in the Dashing world you’re either available or you’re broke. I picked it up and read: Five Guys. Three bacon cheeseburgers with everything and one chocolate shake. I grabbed my hat and headed for the jalopy.
Chris Rhatigan, publisher of All Due Respects, sat down with Colin Conway and Frank Zafiro, authors of “Charlie-316” and the upcoming “Never the Crime” (Down & Out Books). There are so many crappy police procedural novels, so when Rhattigan spent the time to recommend one of books from this often-maligned genres, I took notice.
The concept and the original bones of the plot was all Colin’s idea. He asked me to collaborate based on my longer police background and the positions I held. Once we got started on the brainstorming, a lot of the details changed and a couple of characters emerged differently than we’d planned, but the bones of his original idea remained intact. I just loved the idea, the question of whether a city or a police department would be willing to sacrifice their favorite son on the altar of public opinion.
Over at The Big Thrill, Paul D. Brazill was interviewed about his new book, “Man of the World” (All Due Respect). The conversation bounced from violence, careers, music and novellas.
“Oh, I really don’t know why they’re not [more] popular,” Brazill said. “I love them! Though, apparently, Don Winslow is doing novellas now so that may change. For me, the novella is just the right length to tell a story without getting bogged down with exposition, soap opera, and holding the reader’s hand—without needless repetition and hammering home the point. A good novella is a short, sharp shock. Fast and furious.” And just to punctuate the point about music, Brazill added that novellas are “more like a Ramones single than a Genesis LP.”
Nate Hoffelder rightly skewers Macmillian CEO John Sargent and all other publishers, big and small, over the price of ebooks. What got Hoffelder going was Tor’s giveaway of the MurderBot series, four ebooks totaling 625 pages and a whopping $36 if bought individually.
John Sargent wonders why his ebook sales are down, and he has repeatedly blamed library ebooks. It’s really weird how he never seems to realize its his own policies (as evidenced by this series) that are causing the shortfall in sales.
I mean, Sargent was running Macmillan when he decided that the publisher’s first move into ebooks was to conspire with Apple and bring about agency pricing, raising Macmillan’s ebook prices in the process. And he was still in charge when he brought about Agency 2.0 in 2014.
And now, as a result of Sargent’s policies, we have Macmillan charging $36 for a novel-length story.
The reason this is the perfect example of what is wrong with tradpub, folks, is that for the past decade trad pub has refused to sell the public what it wants at a price the public wants to pay. The whole point of agency pricing was to raise ebook prices and force consumers to buy the print books the publishers want to sell.
Some other quick links for you are “Leaving Home For Work with OCD” by Stephen J. Golds (Punk Noir), Kevin Tipple’s review of “Hosier Noir: One” (Kevin’s Corner), and “Going Down Slow“, a film by Eryk Pruitt.
featured books
“Recoil: Shotgun Honey Presents Vol. 4” edited by Ron Earl Phillips (Shotgun Honey)
“Gunslingers, Hosiers, and Johnny Cash” features links to Scott Adlerberg, Cornell Woolrich, Paul D. Brazill, Reed Farrel Coleman, Eryk Pruitt and more.
Essay: Scott Adlerberg on Cornell Woolrich’s “Waltz Into Darkness” (Mystery Tribune)
Interview: Tim Mara sat down to interview Paul D. Brazill (The Big Thrill)
Interview: “Off the Cuff with Reed Farrel Coleman” (Dietrich Kalteis)
Short Story: “Fragrant” by Rod D. Smith (Shotgun Honey)
Book Review: “King of the Crows” by Russell Day (Fahrenheit Press) (Grab This Book)
Journal Review: “Hoosier Noir: One” (First City Books) (Kevin’s Corner)
The Wednesday edition of Small Crimes features Colin Conway, Frank Zafiro, Chris Rhatigan, Matthew Ross, Paul D. Brazill, Russel D. McLean, Emily Hockaday, Jackie Sherbow, Curtis Ippolito, Barnes & Noble, and Michael David Wilson.
Interview: Chris Rhatigan talked to Colin Conway and Frank Zafiro, authors of “Charlie-316” and the upcoming “Never the Crime” (Down & Out Books) (All Due Respect Books)
Book Review: “Death of a Painter” by Matthew Ross (Red Dog Press) (Col’s Criminal Library)
Book Review: “Man of the World” by Paul D. Brazill (All Due Respect Books) (Crime Fiction Lover)
Book Review: “Ed’s Dead” by Russel D. McLean (Contraband) (Nigel Bird)
Article: The First Two Pages: “Talk to Me” by Emily Hockaday and Jackie Sherbow (Art Taylor)
Short Story: “Hook-Up Spot” by Curtis Ippolito (Punk Noir)
Submissions: “Exquisite Corpse Vol. 2” is looking for writers (The Exquisite Corpse)
News: The slow and agonizing death of Barnes and Noble as they stop selling new magazines (Good E-Reader)
A private investigator and mystery writer on the differences between being a real PI and writing a fictional one (Michael Pool)
New crime novels from Italy, S. Africa, France, and India by Donna Leon, Deon Meyer, Jean-Patrice Manchette, and Manu Joseph respectively (International Noir)
Paul D. Brazill has got the small town blues (All Due Respect)
Greg Levin, author of “In Wolves’ Clothing”, on why we read dark fiction in times of darkness (Greg Levin)
Interview with SJ Rozan, author of the Lydia Chin/Bill Smith books (Dietrich Kalteis)
Review: “I would like to tell you more about how the app works or what the Epub looks like, but there is no Epub because the app didn’t work.” (The Digital Reader)
Portrait of the Artist as a Consumer: Chris Rhatigan, publisher of All Due Respect Books (Punk Noir)
Paul D. Brazill’s “Supernatural Noir” (Close to the Bone) is like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup: “You got some supernatural in my noir” “No, you got noir in my supernatural”. And then hilarity of horror ensues. A series of collected short stories, Brazill’s work focuses on a place called The City, it’s like Gotham infused with Lon Chaney, Béla Lugosi, and Christopher Lee.
A reader should go into “Supernatural Noir” with the viewpoint that they’ll be reading the pulp of the pulp. There’s a werewolf PI, zombies, vampires, golems and other monsters. There are heinous crimes of bodies being ripped apart and law and order’s battle against the criminal anarchy sweeping The City. It’s pulpy!
These are older stories by Brazill and at times it shows. There’s still his wit, the good music, and frankness of language, but it is muddled in spots. It isn’t always the tight sharp writing that Brazill usually delivers. If you’ve read any of Brazill’s current work, you will see in “Supernatural Noir” a writer developing his distinctive voice. If you like reading Brazill–and who doesn’t–, you should give this short story collection a twirl because it’s Brazill and there are zombies. Oh yeah, get it because it’s going for a little over a buck.
Paul D. Brazill was one of the first independent crime writers I stumbled across when I got into this game. Two things that stood out with Paul is the humor in his writing and his support for other writers. Paul has two new recent releases: “Small Time Crimes”, a collection of short stories published by Near to the Knuckle, and “Last Year’s Man”, a novella about an aging hitman returning to his hometown. I reviewed “Last Year’s Man” a few weeks back here. You can find out more about Paul D. Brazill on his website.
Paul D. Brazill was one of the first independent crime writers I stumbled across when I got into this game. Two things that stood out with Paul is the humor in his writing and his support for other writers. Paul has two new recent releases: