Mickey G. and I were cleaning up after group session, punishment for cocking fists at each other after he misinterpreted a crack I made about fat people. Mickey G. is in here for binge eating and doesn’t take too kindly to being slighted. It wasn’t like I was trying to be offensive. Then again, I’m [...]
Archive for November, 2011
Book review: Crime Factory: The First Shift
Posted by John on November 29th, 2011
You could call it lazy, but I choose to call it savoring. When I came back from this year’s Bouchercon with a bag full of books, I sorted them into piles: To Be Read Right Now, To Be Read Soon, To Be Read Sometime. Crime Factory: The First Shift (New Pulp Press, 269 p., $14.95) was [...]
Posted in Reviews 
Tags: Adrian McKinty, Charlie Stella, Chris F. Holm, Crime Factory, Dave White, Dave Zeltserman, Dennis Tafoya, Frank Bill, Ken Bruen 
3 Comments »Interrogation: George Pelecanos on the forthcoming What It Was
Posted by John on November 28th, 2011
When I first heard about George Pelecanos’ forthcoming novel, What It Was, I was confused? Was it an ebook? A short story? A collection? Surely it couldn’t be a new novel. Wasn’t The Cut just out a couple of months ago? Alas, it is indeed a new novel. Not only that, but it is a [...]
Hard Case Crime adds ingeniously structured book to lineup
Posted by John on November 25th, 2011
We have come to expect great things from Hard Case Crime, mostly in the form of vintage crime fiction rescued from obscurity. But the line also should be known for the unexpected. From the Ken Bruen and Jason Starr co-writes to an unearthed Donald Westlake novel to HCC Editor Charles Ardai’s inventive Fifty-to-One (and let’s [...]
Grift Flash: The Smooth Shoulder by Court Merrigan
Posted by John on November 23rd, 2011
Lou watched the orange calico cat across the street. “Look at it nosing the front door,” he said to Merilyn. “Poor thing must be starving,” said Merilyn, rocking the squalling baby. Cheeks twitching, Lou looked at his screeching son. Four months now the baby hadn’t stopped screaming. Lou had developed this tic. Couldn’t make it [...]
Book review: Dead Money by Ray Banks
Posted by John on November 22nd, 2011
By Ron Earl Phillips You’ve heard the old turn, with friends like these, who needs enemies? In Ray Banks’ Dead Money, Alan Slater has that in spades with co-worker Les Beale, a divorced, middle-aged, piss-poor double-glazing salesman who has serious addiction issues with cards, drinking and drugs, not to mention Beale is a mouthy bigot, [...]
Interrogation: Eoin Colfer, author of Plugged
Posted by John on November 21st, 2011
I’ll admit straight off that I hadn’t heard of Eoin Colfer before September. Sure, I had heard of the Artemis Fowl books, but I can’t say I knew that Colfer was their author. But I like funny books, so when a panel at the Bouchercon Crime Fiction Conference in St. Louis this fall promised a [...]
Grift Flash: Candle by Thomas Pluck
Posted by John on November 16th, 2011
After inaugurating GRIFT FLASH, our weekly flash fiction offering here at Griftmagazine.com, with Matthew C. Funk’s fine story “The Town They Earned,” we continue this week with a new one from Thomas Pluck. So I was parked by the lake, lovely bit of water, when I started thinking fractions. I was never good at maths, [...]
Grift Flash: The Town They Earned by Matthew C. Funk
Posted by John on November 9th, 2011
Today marks the debut of GRIFT FLASH, our weekly flash fiction offering here at Griftmagazine.com. I couldn’t be happier to start this series off with a tale from Matthew C. Funk. I first read Matthew’s work last year, and haven’t been disappointed by anything since. His eye for detail and gritty reality make everything he [...]
GRIFT FLASH is coming!
Posted by John on November 8th, 2011
Check out Griftmagazine.com tomorrow when we inaugurate our new GRIFT FLASH feature with a hard-hitting story from Matthew C. Funk. While everyone waits for the debut print issue of Grift, be sure to visit the site often as we continue to offer a mix of news, reviews, interviews and fiction. GRIFT FLASH stories will appear [...]
