Angel City

I've gotten off my proverbial fat ass and started to write a new shot of Noir, while my ongoing battle with my novel Flesh carries on...

I'll be basing this one in the U.S. - Los Angeles to be precise - the home of Noir in my most humble of opinions...

Given the locale and the history of Noir that the fine city of angles has given birth to, I'll be treading carefully on the hallowed grounds before me.

I've been to L.A. around five times now and I've been taking copious notes and building a story in my head for the last few months. Now the hard work begins... or should I say, now the hard work has BEGUN...

Watch this space for a new Shot of Modern Noir...

We can see the stars - especially from the gutter...

I've mentioned Out of the Gutter previously - and I couldn't help but mention them again.

In their latest edition we find the US and the UK slugging it out for the world championship in pulp fiction. We see top-grade lowlife writers such as Tony Black slugging it out with the likes of E.E. Howard and Julie Morgan.

If you like your fiction hard, heavy and a little on the moist side, Out of the Gutter will serve up a right hook, followed by a jab that will leave you with a grin that stretches from ear to ear, much like the type you might get in an old Glasgow pub on displaying the wrong attitude on a cool October Saturday night.

Keep smiling.., and click here...

Whatever happened to humanity?

I'm sitting here scratching my head in-between typing these words. I have no idea where time has flown, but it has been travelling at the speed of sound, or maybe, perhaps, silence.

My promises to keep up the pace on my work-in-progress have been broken by an overload of work and what people call real life. I know.

I have been doing some more research though, and feel a lot closer to that which I am writing about. I've been doing some reading, and an investigative journalist friend of mine put me in touch with some 'undesirables' that could add more than a passing air of legitimacy to my forthcoming tome....

Let's just say I hope you or your family never meet these people.

The social (perhaps more correct to call it the anti-social) underbelly of this world continues to draw me into its dark corners, where despair, brutality and humanity occupy the same shadows.

Sometimes I question my reasons for doing what I do - exposing myself to the worst side of humanity - when most of the people around me smile and continue to exhibit an openness and trust that I have long-since abandoned.

There is a parallel world. It is dark, disturbing, violent, sickening and all too real.

You can read about some elements of this world in my bestselling short shots collection, Why I Kill. And just remember this - truth is always stranger than fiction. I hope fiction is as close as you get.

Sleep tight.