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June 07, 2012

Con Job by Jason S. Ridler

“Christ, Sputnik, is there anybody you didn’t piss off in this town?” – Keith ‘The Bullet’ Winnick

You certainly wouldn’t think so from the way events unfold in Con Job, author Jason Ridler’s follow up to Death Match, the book that introduced readers to ex-punk rocker turned indie bookstore clerk and reluctant amateur detective Spar Battersea.

Still reeling from the events in Death Match, including having lost his best friend/roommate and his part time job writing for the local newspaper, Spar finds himself holding on desperately to his position at the bookstore as he tries to put the pieces of his life back together. Unfortunately for Spar, this requires him to work the store’s booth at CosmiCon, a huge sci-fi and comic book convention.

Not exactly a warm and fuzzy people person under the best of circumstances, being surrounded by a bunch of pudgy wookiees, Trekkers, and hobbits isn’t exactly Spar’s cup of tea. Things go from bad to worse when Spar learns he has to babysit an egomaniacal, over-the-hill science fiction writer who’s been contracted to sign at the store’s booth.

Annoyance turns to alarm, however, when Spar learns that his former high school crush, who was supposed to be working at the convention as a “booth babe,” has gone missing under very suspicious circumstances. Spar may “hate most people” but he’s not the kind of guy who turns his back on a friend – or a smoking hot babe – so he sets out to track her down and make sure everything’s ok. →

June 06, 2012

No One Best Way by Jason S. Ridler

I’m very happy to welcome back to the blog author Jason S. Ridler. I’ve previously reviewed Jason’s short story collection, Knockouts, as well as his first Spar Battersea thriller, Death Match. Tomorrow I’ll be reviewing Jason’s newest release Con Job, the second Spar Battersea thriller, but today Jason has a story to tell about how an attitude problem and two magic words fueled his dreams of being an author.

Jason S. Ridler No One Best Way: Confessions of a Novelist and (Ex) Punk Rock Kid

One of the greatest lessons I’ve learned while creating my writing career? Here it is:

There is no one best way to become a writer.

There is no one path. No one background. No one class, education, religion, race or creed required. Examples abound, from every facet of life. This fact should be a kind of freedom.

But when I started, back in the 20th century, I was convinced only certain kinds of people were allowed to become writers. That there was a check list of youthful experience all writers needed by the time they were twenty: all writers are born knowing they will grow up to be writers; all writers spend their teenaged years dreaming and working toward writing a masterpiece; and all writers have read all the greats of literature, both popular and classic, before they graduated high school.

If this was the test, I was boned.

Until I was nineteen, I didn’t give a shit about reading or writing. I watched relentless hours of TV, and loved gutter entertainment: comic books, slasher flicks, Dungeons and Dragons and, of course, pro wrestling!

Books? Pass. →

June 04, 2012

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

He promised to take care of me, and yet I feel afraid. I feel like something is going wrong, very wrong, and that it will get even worse. – From the diary of Amy Dunne

The setup for Gone Girl, the third book from critically acclaimed author Gillian Flynn, is deceptively simple. Having both recently lost their jobs in the writing industry, married couple Nick and Amy Dunne move from New York City back to Nick’s hometown of North Carthage, Missouri. Using the last of Amy’s trust fund money Nick opens a bar with his twin sister and the Dunnes try to adjust to their new life.

Two years into their residence in North Carthage, on the day of their fifth wedding anniversary actually, Nick returns home from the bar to find signs of a violent struggle in their house on the Mississippi River, but no sign of Amy. The police are called, a search is launched, and the reader is primed for what seems to be a routine where is she/whodunit mystery.

Folks, there is nothing routine about Gone Girl.

Told in chapters that alternate between Nick’s and Amy’s point of view, author Gillian Flynn presents Gone Girl as the ultimate case study of a marriage that has gone horribly off the rails. Not all at once, mind you, but slowly, painfully over time, like watching video of a building imploding in slow motion. Divided into three sections, Gone Girl is a masterful piece of writing that knows precisely which buttons to push for optimal manipulation, both between Nick and Amy as well as between Flynn and the reader. The more Flynn reveals the less the reader actually knows, as every little detail and nuance which came before is continually cast into doubt and shadows by subsequent discoveries and reveals. →

May 29, 2012

Conjurer’s Oath by Malachi Stone

C.G. Jung was right: the Mind of God is timeless; so is the collective unconscious mind of man, as I have now experienced firsthand. – From the journal of Sandor Zeit-Reisender

In case the above quote doesn’t make it abundantly clear on its own, please allow me to note here at the outset that Conjurer’s Oath by Malachi Stone is decidedly not a beach read. As he did in the outstanding Devil’s Toll, in Conjurer’s Oath Stone once again explores seriously ambitious material, challenging the reader to step up and keep up. And to bring an open mind.

Thirteen-year-old Dennis Krause lives with his parents and sister in Hades, Illinois. He and his friends ride bikes, sneak looks at girlie magazines, get dragged to church by their parents, and go on boring family trips. It’s a life not unlike that which any boy his age experiences in small town America in the early 1960s.

When a massive explosion levels the town while Dennis and his family are away on a family outing, his father takes it as a sign and moves the family to an isolated religious commune led by an evangelist known as Possle Strong. Forced to live simply without modern conveniences, Strong’s followers depend on him for everything from their basic wool robes to their spiritual well-being. But when Dennis meets a mysterious girl not much older than himself who works in Strong’s house, it soon becomes clear that the spiritual well-being of his “lambs” is not the only thing Strong is concerned with… nor is Strong merely a charismatic charlatan. →

May 29, 2012

A Bad Day For Voodoo by Jeff Strand

“I empathize with your plight, but it’s not my fault that you dabbled in the dark arts without being ready to commit.”

To a sixteen-year-old, not having your own car and having to borrow the family minivan is a plight. Having to confront one of the biggest kids in school over a cheating incident is a plight. But being responsible for one of your teacher’s legs disconnecting from his body in a gory spray of blood and bone because the voodoo doll your semi-psychotic best friend gave you actually works? Yeah… we’re gonna pass “plight” and go directly to full-on freak out of epic proportions.

Such is the situation Tyler Churchill finds himself in when his best friend Adam gives Tyler a voodoo doll of their teacher, Mr. Click, so Tyler can work out his frustration over having been falsely accused of cheating by Click. Not expecting anything to actually happen, but wanting Adam to stop bugging him about it, Tyler jams a pin into Voodoo Click’s left leg only to watch in horror, along with the rest of the class, as Click’s leg meets with the aforementioned gruesome ending.

Already understandably freaked out, Adam goes completely off the deep end when the boys later hear on the news that Click has died while being treated at the hospital. Not from the leg wound, mind you, but from a broken neck. Kinda like how the neck of the voodoo doll broke when Tyler and Adam were fighting over what to do with it. Oops. Despite Tyler’s assurances he has no intention of telling anyone about the doll – who’d believe them anyway? – Adam doesn’t trust him and obtains an insurance policy to ensure Tyler’s silence… a voodoo doll of Tyler, which Adam threatens to use unless Tyler gives him the Click doll. →

May 28, 2012

How To Become a Young Adult Author in 34 Easy Steps by Jeff Strand

I am quite happy this Memorial Day to welcome back frequent visitor (he has his own archive section) author Jeff Strand. Already well-known and respected for his work in the horror and humor-horror genres, Jeff recently decided to expand his horizons and specifically set out to scar young minds by writing a YA novel. I will be reviewing the result of his efforts, A Bad Day For Voodoo, tomorrow, but for now sit back and allow Jeff to regale you with the secret of his success.

Jeff Strand How To Become a Young Adult Author in 34 Easy Steps

1. Publish a few mostly-comedic books between 2000 and 2005.

2. Read a novel called Fireworks by James A. Moore and think “Wow, that was awesome! I loved how it was an alien invasion novel but not at all about the actual alien invasion!” E-mail the author to tell him so.

3. Receive a friendly response back from James A. Moore, who you can now call “Jim.”

4. Later, receive an e-mail from Jim saying that he’s just read your novel Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) and absolutely loved it.

5. Exchange several thousand e-mails (approximately) with Jim. This relationship will eventually lead to you two collaborating on the monster-filled extravaganza The Haunted Forest Tour, but that’s off-topic.

6. Attend the World Horror Convention in New York City in 2005. Do not resist when Jim (a large, intimidating gentleman who could rip off any or all of your extremities) pulls you out of your seat during the mass signing and says that he’s going to introduce you to Paul Miller. →

May 23, 2012

The Vegas Knockout by Tom Schreck

I was half an hour from the most exciting city in the world living in a house where sex went on constantly and I had nothing to do until two o’clock when I’d go into the city and get my ass kicked. Life can be strange. – Duffy

Though the situation part-time social worker, part-time professional boxing sparring partner Duffy Dombrowski finds himself in starts out merely strange, things quickly elevate to downright life threatening in The Vegas Knockout, author Tom Schreck’s fourth entry in the Duffy Dombrowski series.

When Duffy gets a chance to go to Vegas and serve as the sparring partner for Russian heavyweight Boris Rusakov it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. After creatively figuring out how to ditch the two week seminar he’s supposed to be attending for his social worker job, Duffy heads to Vegas with his sidekick, basset hound Al, in tow.

Instead of staying at a glamorous location on The Strip and working in first-class conditions, however, Duffy finds himself quartered at a brothel on the outskirts of town and subjected to lopsided and dirty sparring techniques. Still, he’s getting paid well and it is Vegas.

But when Boris and his crew attempt to “promote” a worker at the brothel from maid to prostitute against her will Duffy isn’t about to ignore the matter and puts a stop to things. Permanently. And that’s when it gets really ugly. Boris’s connections in the Russian mob don’t take kindly to Duffy’s interference, and make it their mission in life to make sure Duffy understands that. Permanently. →

May 22, 2012

Bad Fight Scenes by Tom Schreck

I’m very pleased to welcome author and boxing aficionado/official Tom Schreck to the blog today to set a few things straight about how fights go down in the real world. Hey, fiction is fiction, but it still wouldn’t hurt authors to play things a little closer to the truth when their characters go for the KO. And speaking of knockouts, tomorrow I’ll be reviewing Tom’s latest Duffy Dombrowski novel, The Vegas Knockout.

Bad Fight Scenes by Tom Schreck I make part of my living evaluating fights. I’m a pro boxing judge with the World Boxing Association and I do world title fights. I’m also still a gym rat who crawls between the ropes to mix it up with other guys who have made equally ill-advised decisions on how to spend free time. Before I got into boxing I was a black belt Tae Kwon Do instructor.

I also write the Duffy Dombrowski mysteries that feature a run-of-the-mill pro boxer who works as a social worker during the day. He has a few more wins than losses, but almost every time the caliber of his opponents is stepped up he gets beat.

Like most writers I’m an avid mystery reader. I’m okay with the whole willing suspension of disbelief thing but really bad fight scenes bother me. Just like a gun guy would hate to read something about the wrong cartridge going into the wrong type of gun (I’m not a gun guy), I bristle when I come across authors that just don’t get how fights go. What to they do that’s wrong? →

May 18, 2012

Last Call for the Living by Peter Farris

Brothers will come lookin’ for me because I jumped on this one. Got greedy. Ye don’t just walk away from jumpin’ a score. – Hobe Hicklin

Fresh out of prison after a long stretch, what’s the first thing up on ex-con Hobe Hicklin’s ‘To Do’ list? Rob his hometown North Georgia Savings and Loan, of course. In and out in under 3 minutes with the cash, as robberies go this one goes pretty smoothly.

Well, except for killing the bank manager. Probably shouldn’t have taken the teller hostage either. Oh, and considering the job was planned with his fellow Aryan Brotherhood members while he was inside, Hicklin probably should have waited for them instead of jumping the score.

Now not only does Hicklin have local Sheriff Tommy Lang and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation on his ass, he has some very seriously pissed off Brotherhood members gunning for him as well. On top of which, Hicklin’s got to juggle his tweaking junkie girlfriend, Hummingbird, and that skittish mama’s boy of a teller, Charlie Colquitt.

Come to think of it, maybe that score didn’t go so smoothly after all. And it’s a good thing for readers it didn’t, because author Peter Farris’s debut Last Call for the Living is an intensely engaging exploration of the aftermath of a robbery which initially seems to have gone right, only to be revealed as having gone gloriously wrong in virtually every way possible. →

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