Candy Says Kill: A Shot of Modern Noir

My new novella, Candy Says Kill: A Shot of Modern Noir, is now available in eBook format.

It's a genre piece that includes all the best elements of a noir experience - mistaken identities, confusion, sex, deceit and of course, murder.

It's a long short story, or a short novella - which ever you prefer...around 7,000 words in length - perfect for the Kindle.

Here's the cover art...  a Beretta 92A1 being the metal in question, capable of holding a magazine with seventeen rounds... more than enough for any serious killer....

The earlier post with an excerpt from the work is still to be found below if you want an early sample...

Eight Ball Boogie

I've just learned that Eight Ball Boogie by Declan Burke is now also available in eBook format.

I read Declan's book The Big O recently and I have to say it was a wonderfully refreshing mix of crime and comedy with a dash of attitude. I haven't read Eight Ball Boogie yet, but if Ken Bruen likes (he gives it a big thumbs up) it then it must be good...
Here's a bit of the blurb from the book:
When the wife of a politician keeping the government in power is murdered, Sligo journalist Harry Rigby is one of the first on the scene. He very quickly discovers that he’s in out of his depth when it transpires that the woman’s murder is linked to an ex-paramilitary gang’s attempt to seize control of the burgeoning cocaine market in the Irish Northwest. Harry’s ongoing feud with his ex-partner Denise over their young son’s future doesn’t help matters; and then there’s Harry’s ex-con brother Gonzo, back on the streets and mean as a jilted shark .

Eight Ball Boogie is on sale for the ridiculously low price of US$0.99 cents at the moment - so strike while the proverbial iron is still hot... The print version would otherwise set you back £26.95...

Back Alley Webzine - for more modern noir....

I love finding new sites, blogs and whatnot on the Net. And I also love spreading the word when I find something cool, good or just plain sassy.

My latest 'find' might not be a find for some of you more intrepid readers, but for me it was great...

Back Alley Webzine contains a load of moderns noir shorts for you to savour. It's Edited by PWA Shamus Award Nominee and Two-Time SMFS Derringer Award Winner Richard Helms and contains a nice history of noir for your pleasure, served with a full helping of the moderns stuff...


Check it out for yourself!

Killing A Friend: once again and with feeling....

After some technical difficulties (proofing work) Killing A Friend is live in electronic format. The print version will follow in a week or so...

For those of you that missed it the first time, here's the cover blurb:


Familiarity brings destruction. Temptation leads us into extraordinary circumstances.

Set in Göteborg, Sweden, Killing a Friend is a novel about people that love each other, about friends, acquaintances and life partners.

Lost souls in lost lands - far from home and clinging to the familiar, despite their better judgment - a story that takes normal life one step further.

Two friends, two artists, two men that love the same woman - a tragedy, an unforgivable able deception and a chance to begin again. An examination of what love is and what love could be.

Killing a Friend is a book of love, lust and morals. It is an examination of the self, a questioning of social mores, a valley of personal grief and a ray of light for those that suffer.

There... I feel better now...

Another Paul Auster book... what does this mean?

I just finished reading 'Invisible' by Paul Auster.

Excellent book. Full of life, lust, lies and love. And there's death (by knife) and murder... by well I'll not tell you... But overall, apart from being a stylistic tour de force, Invisible is also a crime novel at heart, just throbbing to break free from its literary chains.

Auster apparently cut his teeth on writing crime novels under a "nom de plume". I wish he'd take another serious look at the genre and give us a full-on crime novel. I can almost feel the invisible chains that he's using to stop himself releasing his noir side...

Come on Paul, get the knuckle dusters on and give us some more sex, greed, death and mayhem - crime style....

Russian Crime Fiction

I'd never really thought about Dostoevsky as a crime writer - even though he wrote Crime & Punishment - it always somehow seemed to be literature and not crime... but I came across this short piece on a site called Fictiondb and it made me rethink my view on what constitutes a crime, mystery, or thriller/suspense novel.


The site lists the following Russian authors as the literal godfathers of Russian crime writing...Anton Chekhov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nicolai Gogol, Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Nabokov, Vil Lipitov, Alexander Pushkin, Lev Sheinen, Boris Sokoloff and Leo Tolstoy


I haven't picked up a Russian writer in anger for years.... maybe it's time I revisited these guys... My last connection to Russia was a 1989 Dnepr Mt-11, which was produced in Kiev - which was then a part of the Soviet Union... but not quite Russia.... Think of it as a Ural, but with more character and less moving parts...


I digress...

Hats off to hats...

Call me predictable, old-fashioned and irascible (which I occasionally am) if you will, but I've always loved hats. Nothing to do with my beloved shiny pate - more, methinks, to do with their connection to times gone by and a memory of my grandfather, who nearly always wore a hat, like most men of his generation.

I've been wearing 'real' hats for many years. I think I started as a tax collector in London in the 80s. The publicity shots for my first novel, Ganglands, saw me in a black trilby looking fresh-faced and eager.

Maybe, I thought, it's time for a new hat. My old one seems to have shrunk and my son is now using it as a cowboy hat... just like I did, I'm reliably told, as a lad.

I'm tired of baseball caps and army styled caps, though I still have a penchant for flat caps...

Village Hats in the UK, have just delivered my order... and I'm back in hat business.

Canadian Crime Fiction

I spent a lovely week in Toronto once. I had great fun there and had a constant smile on my face when listening to the local accent. I know that Canadians and Americans do the same when they come to Ireland so I should really be forgiven - but I had this constant feeling that I was in an episode of 'Northern Exposure' that quirky Cohen-brothers-style series that was around maybe a decade ago...

Anyhow....

I spent an afternoon in a bookshop on Front Street there - Nicholas Hoare's to be precise - and found a wonderful smattering of Irish and British thrillers and mysteries. It was just delightful to find books by both well-known and lesser-known Irish and British authors. I didn't see any of my old out of print stuff there, sadly, but my ego survived the event in any case...

So, Canadian bookstore memories apart, and acknowleding the wonderful works of Peter Robinson, that displaced (or rather well placed) Geordie now a resident Canuck, I was wondering what Canadian Crime has to offer these days...

To the right here you'll see C.B. Forrest's Slow Recoil, which follows Detective Charlie McKelvey from Toronto's version of 'The Sweeney' or Flying Squad.

In this tome, his follow-up to The Weight of Stones, Forrest takes us on a melting pot tour of Toronto with a wee sojourn in the Balkans as he investigates the death of an immigrant.

Well worth a gamble in my humble and dark opinion...

The New York Trilogy

I keep coming back to Paul Auster's work. Perhaps it's a desire to elevate my writing to a more literary level, or perhaps it's just that he's such a good storyteller. I think it's both, and his seeming obsession with chance that appeals to my sense of chaos in our confused little world.

Auster has written everything from postmodern noir in the New York Trilogy, to introspective personal memoirs, but in all he manages to construct a pace and rhythm that keeps the pages turning.

Now, as this is 'Crime Time' I'll not side track you with a discussion on modern mainstream literary mores... but rather point you in the direction of something relevant to your self-admitted taste...

Read the New York Trilogy. You'll like it a lot.

Some more wonderful old Noir movie posters...

Check out loads more over on 

Film Noir Photos.