New Books: CLAN by Harry Shannon

CLAN by Harry Shannon is now on Kindle for $3.99

Like most people, I remember my first time. Pretty well, in fact. I was sober. It was wonderful. I was curled up on the bed, with my head on the pillow and my legs extended. Some 50's music was playing. I was probably wearing pajamas; most likely with some stupid-assed Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob stuff printed all over them. Or maybe it was Rin Tin Tin, I can’t say for sure. Not after more than fifty years. I was already a bookworm, though. I was devouring everything within sight by the time I was seven or eight years old. So this night I was maybe eleven, give or take. And I believe that first horror story I ever read was by H.H. Munro, who wrote under the name of Saki. The masterful little tale was of one angry and abused little boy with a vivid sense of outrage and an “imaginary creature” that was hiding in his room. The kid claimed he could summon it with a low, poetic chant. Adults mocked him. Of course it turned out to be quite real. That story was called “Srendi Vashtar.” The ending sticks with me to this day.

Anyway, that was my first time, and after that I was no longer innocent. I had been shocked into an appreciation for the macabre, and for the literary realm of horror and dark fantasy. Next came the astonishing Ray Bradbury, Ambrose Bierce, John Collier, Anthony Boucher, Richard Matheson, Roald Dahl, Robert Bloch, Robert Heinlein, A.E. Van Vogt, Shirley Jackson. So many gifted folks. And later on Stephen King, Peter Straub, Robert McCammon and a host of other authors inspired me all over again, as did the Gold Medal and Lancer Books of the 60's. But first there was that one gory little tale by Saki.

I suspect it was not an accident that the first story to grab me that way was one of flesh-rending violence. Few of us have made peace with both extremes of our nature; the beastly and the spiritual, the gourmet and the cannibal. The oldest cave paintings treat animals as deities who sacrifice their lives to feed us. They are likely just expressions of our guilt and deep ambivalence about being the earth’s dominant predators. However, our gargantuan base appetites tend to be counter-balanced with a reverence for life that makes the act of killing genuinely disturbing to our higher nature. It is a conundrum. But whether we like it or not, that dark craving does exist. It is a deep down gnawing, gristle-rending lust for blood and bone. Just stop by a steakhouse and watch the patrons chewing away, minds in vapid rapture. Or pay really close attention to the audience at a football game.

Folks, although my new novel CLAN (early incarnation released as Night of the Werewolf in late 2002) does indeed deal with these themes, it is first and foremost an entertainment. It’s a B-movie, a tribute to the spirit of pure pulp and the glory days of mass-market fiction, with a little crime noir tossed in for seasoning. But I would also like to think CLAN stands on its own as a fast-paced thriller. Readers will have to be the judge of that.

I have always had a soft spot for this one, so I'm delighted to have it rewritten, improved and back in print as a more affordable trade paperback and ebook. The first version only sold a modest number of limited-edition hardcover copies. This one should be far more widely read. I'd love to see the movie made someday, now that CG is good enough to bring this one off. Fingers crossed, because there is a screenplay already written. Anyway, should you sample and buy this new baby, I hope you consume a lot of popcorn while reading, and that at least a few of the scenes actually disturb your sleep. Nothing would make me happier than that.

Best,
Harry Shannon

1

Best-Selling Author and Grieving Mother Jude Deveraux Loses $20 Million to ‘Psychics’

Jude Deveraux

From The Daily Mail U.K.

Best-Selling Author and Grieving Mother Loses $20 Million to ‘Psychics’

Bestselling author 'gave fortune tellers $20m after she was told her dead son was somewhere between heaven and hell'
By JOHN STEVENS and TED THORNHILLL

A bestselling author gave $20 million to a group of fortune-telling gypsies after she was told that her dead son was somewhere between heaven and hell, it has been claimed.

Prosecutors said ten 'psychic readers' from Fort Lauderdale in Florida allegedly conned customers out of a total of $40million, telling them that unless they handed over cash and valuables, they would be haunted.
Jude Deveraux, the author of 37 New York Times bestsellers, is reported to be the writer who lost $20 million.

Conned? Jude Deveraux, the author of 37 New York Times bestsellers, is reported to be the writer who lost $20 million to the gang of fortune tellers
Prosecutors refused to identify the author who they said lost her eight-year-old son in a motorcycle accident, but several sources with knowledge of the case has named Ms Deveraux.

More...
Aruba suspect and missing woman did NOT go snorkelling, says witness as man's account of how Robyn Gardner vanished falls apart
'I was up all night trying to figure out how to use those iPhone things.' West Memphis Three on first taste of freedom in 18 years after release for 'satanic' boy scout killings
The author, whose real name is Jude Gilliam Montassir, wrote on her MySpace page that she 'adopted a son, Sam Alexander Montassir… My son died at age 8 in a motorcycle accident.'

Arrested: Nancy Marks is one of the fortune tellers who has been arrested for fraud (file picture)
Ms Deveraux, 63, who has written romantic novels and tales of the paranormal, was allegedly exploited by at least one of the defendants, Rose Marks, who she considered a friend.

'She was under, for want of a better word, the curse of Rose Marks,' Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurence Bardfeld told a judge at a hearing in federal court in West Palm Beach on Friday.

Police swooped on the soothsayers, who are all related by blood or marriage, this week after a huge cross-state investigation dubbed 'Operation Crystal Ball'.

More than 400 rings, 100 watches and 200 necklaces – many of them from Cartier, Tiffany & Co and Gucci – were seized.
Facing charges are Rose Marks, 60, Nancy Marks, 42, Cynthia Miller, 33, Rosie Marks, 36, Victoria Eli, 65, Vivian Marks, 21, Ricky Marks, 39, Michael Marks, 33, Donnie Eli, 38, and Peter Wolofsky, 84.

They all billed themselves as fortune tellers, clairvoyants and spiritual advisers and operated from shops in Fort Lauderdale.
The authorities said that many customers came to them as a desperate last resort, for instance hoping that they could be cured of a disease or put in touch with a deceased loved one.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028541/Bestselling-author-reported-Jude-Deveraux-gave-fortune-tellers-20m.html#ixzz1VlojyLFX

Gold Medal in The 70s by Fred Blosser

GOLD MEDAL IN THE 70s by Fred Blosser

Whenever the old timers write fondly about Gold Medal Books, they seem to dwell mostly on the glory era
of the '50s and '60s. I don't see the '70s GMs discussed much. Maybe I've
missed an article here or a blog there? Or could it be that fans view the '70s
as a twilight era for GM, a sad march toward the line's eventual extinction, and
best forgotten?

One could argue that attrition had hit GM hard. Knox Burger departed in ...
1970? Also by 1970, Stephen Marlowe had left the GM stable, the six-book run of
Richard Stark's Parker under the GM tag (four originals, plus two movie tie-in
reprints from Pocket) had ended, and I believe Lawrence Block had moved on as
well.

The old guard of John D. MacDonald, Donald Hamilton, Philip Atlee, Dan J.
Marlowe, Lou Cameron, Charles Runyon, and Edward S. Aarons hung on through some,
most, or all of the decade. (And in the Western line, "Jonas Ward" plugged on.)
In my opinion, Hamilton's and Marlowe's best work was behind them, although
Hamilton had already started to slip in the mid-'60s when the Matt Helms began
to get longer in page count and flabbier in pace. The '70s cover art, in which
the tough-guy series characters began to look like sleazy lounge singers or porn
actors in long hair and sideburns, didn't help much either.

I can't identify any one dominant trend in the '70s GMs, but there were some
smaller trends, at least in the first half of the decade:

MAFIA NOVELS ... "From the publisher of THE GODFATHER," as Fawcett Gold Medal's
cover blurbs capitalized on the fact that Fawcett Crest had published the
paperback edition of Mario Puzo's bestseller. Could it also have been a
marketing campaign to compete with the rising tide of The Executioner and
similar war-against-the-mafia pulp paperback series?

THIEF-TURNED-SECRET-AGENT NOVELS, a sub-genre not unique to GM at the time by
any means, but Dan J. Marlowe's Earl Drake and Don Smith's Tim Parnell were game
contenders, Marlowe's in relative longevity if not in relative quality (unless
someone would care to argue that Marlowe's OPERATION ... titles were better than
THE NAME OF THE GAME IS DEATH and ONE ENDLESS HOUR).

MOTORCYCLE GANGS -- although I may be stretching a point on this one. Do two
novels -- THE HIGH SIDE by Max Ehrlich and THE SCARRED MAN by Basil Heatter -- a
trend make?

RETURN OF SOME STALWARTS WHO HAD BEEN SCARCE ON THE GM LISTS IN THE LATTER '60S
-- Peter Rabe, Robert Colby, Richard Wormser, and Ovid Demaris (with a reprint
of CANDYLEG as a movie-tie in).

New to the ranks in the '70s were Daniel Da Cruz, Richard Posner, and (a
one-shot, I believe) Mike Jahn. Da Cruz's DOUBLE KILL is pretty good -- reminds
me of Dan Marlowe in places -- and its three sequels in the Jock Sargent series
have their moments. I don't know that I ever read any of Posner's stuff.

All in all, according to my personal tastes, I can't say that GM in the
Watergate and Disco years matched, volt for volt, the energy of the '50s years
with Charles Williams, Stephen Marlowe, and Peter Rabe (and some would probably
add Richard Prather) or the '60s with JDM, Jim Thompson, the best of Dan J.
Marlowe, Block, and the early Matt Helms. But I wouldn't count the line out
altogether after 1969. DOUBLE KILL, THE PADRONE, BLACK MAFIA, THE CANADIAN
BOMBER CONTRACT, and POWER KILL are worthy efforts, to name some that come to
mind.

DYING MEMORIES by Dave Zeltserman

In ten years Dave Zeltserman has just about covered the waterfront with the range of his novels and stories. In so doing he's created at least three neo-noir masterpieces, done both Rex Stout and Bram Stoker one better, and now he's edged into territory previously the province of the late Richard Condon.

Dying Memories is a flat-out conspiracy novel with an engine that never falters. The story starts in the first sentence and pushes relentlessly to the last sentence. No detours get in the way.

Murders and mysterious e mails lead reporter Bill Conway to a corporation named VIGen whose stated business may sound innocent but isn't. What raises the novel above many conspiracy novels is that Zeltserman is able to keep thrilling us while at the same time seriously examining how human beings are being subjected to experiments and critical intrusions by both corporations and government. He always manages to give us some new twists on being framed for murder.

Think of such great thrillers as North By Northwest and Charade and the early novels of Michael Crichton. The pleasure comes from putting all the pieces together until the smashing climax. If you're up for great intelligent read, this is it. And for only $2.99 wherever e books are sold.

Alan Guthrie's Thuggish Thirteen

Allan Guthrie’s Thuggish Thirteen—Brit Grit Part 3 From AsheditFor the rest go here:

Filed under: Uncategorized — ashedit

I am beyond thrilled to welcome Allan Guthrie to Ashedit. I asked Allan for “a few words” on the current state of British crime fiction and he delivered a microcosm of space and time in 13 paragraphs—a feat not unlike stuffing a battleship into a bottle. Allan’s name comes up time and again whenever British crime fiction is mentioned. He is the author of 5 novels, including a Top Ten Amazon Bestseller. His debut novel was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger award and went on to win the Theakston’s Crime Novel Of The Year in 2007. He was also nominated for an Edgar Award. When he’s not writing, Allan is a literary agent with Jenny Brown Associates. A complete list of his credits appears at the end of this feature.



Thuggish Thirteen:

Ray Banks, originally from Kirkcaldy but now living in Edinburgh, is part Ted Lewis, part Bukowski, part Palahniuk, and a whole lot Ray Banks. He’s best known for a 4-book series featuring Manchester-based, uprooted Scot, Callum Innes, that might just be the most realistic depiction of a British PI you’ll find. The last book, BEAST OF BURDEN, is just out now in the US and it’s one very brave piece of crime writing. He just released an ebook novella, GUN, which is an excellent introduction to his writing.

David Belbin made his name as a writer of YA fiction. His debut adult crime novel, BONE AND CANE, is set in Nottingham against the backdrop of the 1997 general election, and follows the intersecting storylines of Nick Cane, an ex-con just released after serving a sentence for growing wholesale quantities of cannabis, and Sarah Bone, his ex-girlfriend and Labour MP. Belbin hit the ground running with this book, scoring an Amazon UK #1, and there’s a lot of publisher support for the next book in the series. Very smart crime fiction, potentially as ambitious as David Peace’s RED RIDING QUARTET.

Tony Black’s another Scot with grit in abundance. His series about Edinburgh-based dypso-journo Gus Dury started with PAYING FOR IT and now runs to four books. Black conveys a remarkable sense of place, and Gus Dury – a man who’s never short of an opinion or two – is an excellent guide to the city. The first in a new police procedural series TRUTH LIES BLEEDING is just out as well, and Black has a novella pending with Pulp Press.

For the rest go here:
http://ashedit.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/allan-guthries-thuggish-thirteen—brit-grit-part-3/

Private Eye Writers Banquet; Literary Brooklyn

FROM ROBERT J. RANDISI, President Private Eye Writers if America

Hey Guys,

Can we get this info on your site, please? Tickets are available for the PWA Banquet in St. Louis.

Fri., Sept. 16, 2011, 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM at a St. Louis institution. Tickets are $60, buses will leave from the Convention Hotel to the venue. Email Christine Matthews ar RRandisi@aol.com for more information, or to order tickets.

RJR

-------------------------------LITERARY BROOKLYN

Brooklyn Takes a Bow as a Town of Writers
By DWIGHT GARNER
Published: August 16, 2011

“Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in,” the chorus of an improbably lovely song by the Avett Brothers implores. “Are you aware the shape I’m in?”

Amy Wilton
Evan Hughes
LITERARY BROOKLYN
The Writers of Brooklyn and the Story of American City Life
By Evan Hughes
337 pages. Henry Holt & Company. $17.
Related

Excerpt: 'Literary Brooklyn' (pdf)

Patricia Wall/The New York Times
For generations — long before it became fashionable — Brooklyn has taken in writers fleeing from Manhattan’s steep rents and steeper pretensions. In the first sentence of “Sophie’s Choice” (1979), William Styron’s narrator, Stingo, turns out his pockets and says, “In those days cheap apartments were almost impossible to find in Manhattan, so I had to move to Brooklyn.”

It’s been a refuge too for those who simply needed some quiet, a place that had human scale and dirt under its fingernails. “Young men were writing manifestos in the higher magazines of Manhattan,” Thomas Wolfe said in the 1930s about his years in the borough, “but the weather of man’s life, the substance and structure of the world in which he lives, was soaking in on me in those years in Brooklyn.”

As anyone who has paid attention to the Book Review, Styles and Dining sections of The New York Times is aware, things have changed in Brooklyn. Over the past decade or two it has filled with heat-seeking young writers, editors, artists and chefs, so much so that it’s become the butt of unfair but funny anti-hipster tirades. The novelist Colson Whitehead was compelled to cool the warm jets in 2008 by writing a witty essay in The Times titled: “I Write in Brooklyn. Get Over It.”

For the rest go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/books/literary-brooklyn-by-evan-hughes-review.html

Canceling The Lone Ranger; Galleys

Ed here: I bet those old Lone Ranger TV episodes didn't cost more than six or seven million apiece. :)

Shutting Down The Lone Ranger

By Lee Pfeiffer of Cinema Retro

"Studios are cracking down on pet projects of big name directors by canceling some high profile productions because of budget costs. Ron Howard and Guillermo Del Toro are among the recent "victims". Now Disney has informed producer Jerry Bruckheimer and star Johnny Depp that their long-planned Lone Ranger film is being shut down. Filming was to start in October- but Disney execs got cold feet when the estimated budget hit $232 million. The studio is insisting that the film cost no more than $200. This is how insane Hollywood has become: $200 million for a movie about a guy on horse and it's considered to be too paltry of a sum. The question remains whether Bruckheimer and Depp will have their egos bruised and scale down the budget in order to make the movie. As of right now, it's officially off Disney's schedule. The underwhelming performance of Cowboys & Aliens has the studio nervous- and there are other factors as well. Disney is sinking a jaw-dropping $250 million into next year's John Carter sci-fi epic and there is also the $200 million Oz: The Great and Powerful in the pipeline. Saying "no" to Johnny Depp is almost unheard of in the industry, especially when he has brought billions into Disney's coffers through the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. However, his track record outside of that series is spotty at best and the suits at Disney aren't about to invest a king's ransom just to please him."

Then Lee links to: Hitflix.com and writer Gregory Ellwood

"Starring Depp as Tonto and "The Social Network's" Armie Hammer as the masked Western hero, "Ranger" was expected to be one of the studio's major tentpoles for December 2012. The film's budget, however, was said to be hovering at around $232 million and that was just too rich for Disney's tastes. Especially considering the dubious prospects for next year's "John Carter" (a stunning $250 million plus budget) and their $200 million investment in Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful." And yet, this is still bizarre considering Bruckheimer and Depp's billion dollar track record on the "Pirates" series and the $1 billion dollar gross for Depp's "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010. The fact Depp could even help the audience-unfriendly "The Tourist" hit $278 million worldwide can't be disputed either. With Will Smith still on his personal sabbatical Depp is absolutely the biggest draw in the world. So, why would Disney get so skittish about a Johnny Depp adventure movie? Perhaps "Cowboys & Aliens" contributed to their thinking.

for the rest go here:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/shocker-disney-shuts-down-production-on-the-lone-ranger-with-johnny-depp

------------------------GALLEYS

Last night I ran a review of my new novel (Oct) Bad Moon Rising. If you don't regularly review my books, have a blog and will review the book I have eighteen galleys I can send. ejgorman99@aol.com is my e address. Please put GALLEYS in the subject line (don't want to get spammed) and include your snail mail address. Thanks, Ed



Bad Moon Rising
*Starred Review

Ed Gorman. Pegasus (Norton, dist.), $25 (208p) ISBN 978-1-60598-260-1

Social turmoil overshadows the sleuthing in Gorman’s excellent ninth Sam McCain mystery (after 2009’s A Ticket to Ride). In 1968, a hippie commune near Black River Falls, Iowa, both horrifies and entices the townsfolk with its uninhibited lifestyle. Sardonic lawyer and investigator McCain becomes involved after the discovery of the body of Vanessa Mainwaring, the teenage daughter of a well-to-do local, at the commune, and a Vietnam vet who’s one of its members flees. Interference by a bigoted sheriff, an opportunistic preacher, and a hysterical father makes matters even worse as Sam tries not just to solve the murder but to help the people around him caught in an intensely stressful situation. The real crime, as Sam eventually realizes, is how one generation exploits the next—while the younger generation devours itself. In turn mellow and melancholy, this book grapples with problems that are too complex for any detective to untangle. (Oct.)

Forgotten TV Shows: Dobie Gillis

The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1963)

"Teen Dobie wanted hot girls, money and to do as little work as possible, egged on by equally work-adverse beatnik pal Maynard (Bob Denver). But Dobie's modest background made that difficult, as did nemeses like golddigger Thalia (Tuesday Weld), the girl Dobie wanted, and handsome rich kid Milton (Warren Beatty), Dobie's rival for Thalia's affections."
Best TV Shows of the 50s.

Ed here: I was a big Max Shulman fan so I was happy to see one of his best books turned into a TV series. The casting was spot on. Dobie was the kind of earnest kid who couldn't get laid with a bag of cash and a Maserati and Maynard the kind who turned shiftlessness into a protest movement. Perfect. Tuesday Weld was not only radiant and beautiful she obviously had a great time playing heartbreaker Thalia Menninger. And Warren Beatty was perfect too--a pain in the ass then and a pain in the ass still.

The whole cast was rich and deep. Frank Faylen and Flordia Freibus as Dobie's parents, Sheila James as Zelda Gilroy (the "sensible" choice for Dobie to hook up with but whoever wanted "sensible," right?) and of course the great Steve Franken's Chatsworth Osborne Jr. nearly stole every episode he was in. He showed Beatty how to play an obnoxious rich kid.

I still watch these on DVD. The first three seasons are the best. Few things satisfy me as much as hearing Dobie's old man say "I gotta kill that kid someday." Now THAT's my kind of "family" show.

Gold Medal sales figures. Can these be right?

Ed here: I was researching a piece and stumbled on this post by Edie Dykeman on Bellaonline. BTW House of Flesh is a truly disturbing novel, a little gem--gothic noir.)

Edie Dykeman::

"The noir genre exploded when Fawcett Publications created Gold Medal Books toward the end of 1949. The new line began publishing original stories that tackled the darker cynical side of the genre; and they were not inhibited as to sexual content. Gold Medal soon began publishing eight original paperbacks a month. Although the line started out slowly, in 1951 Richard Carroll, who had worked as a story editor in Hollywood, became editor, and the line quickly established itself as a leader in the field.

"Other popular paperback publishers that followed Gold Medals lead during the 1950’s were Dell, Lion, Ace, and Popular Library, among others. The decade became known for its paperback originals. Gold Medal discovered a number of authors during that time including Charles Williams, Bruno Fischer, and Gil Brewer. Lion Books was instrumental in publishing many of the early works of Jim Thompson.

"House of Flesh (1950) by Fischer sold over 18 million copies, Hill Girl by Williams sold almost 13 million, and 13 French Street (1951) by Brewer sold over 12 million. Although millions of paperbacks were sold during the decade, by the end of the 1950’s the advent of television brought a slowing of sales of paperbacks into the 1960’s."

for the rest go here:http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art33841.asp

Canceling The Lone Ranger -Budget Insanity; Galleys

Ed here: I bet those old Lone Ranger TV episodes didn't cost more than six or seven million apiece. :)

Shutting Down The Lone Ranger

By Lee Pfeiffer of Cinema Retro

"Studios are cracking down on pet projects of big name directors by canceling some high profile productions because of budget costs. Ron Howard and Guillermo Del Toro are among the recent "victims". Now Disney has informed producer Jerry Bruckheimer and star Johnny Depp that their long-planned Lone Ranger film is being shut down. Filming was to start in October- but Disney execs got cold feet when the estimated budget hit $232 million. The studio is insisting that the film cost no more than $200. This is how insane Hollywood has become: $200 million for a movie about a guy on horse and it's considered to be too paltry of a sum. The question remains whether Bruckheimer and Depp will have their egos bruised and scale down the budget in order to make the movie. As of right now, it's officially off Disney's schedule. The underwhelming performance of Cowboys & Aliens has the studio nervous- and there are other factors as well. Disney is sinking a jaw-dropping $250 million into next year's John Carter sci-fi epic and there is also the $200 million Oz: The Great and Powerful in the pipeline. Saying "no" to Johnny Depp is almost unheard of in the industry, especially when he has brought billions into Disney's coffers through the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. However, his track record outside of that series is spotty at best and the suits at Disney aren't about to invest a king's ransom just to please him."

Then Lee links to: Hitflix.com and writer Gregory Ellwood

"Starring Depp as Tonto and "The Social Network's" Armie Hammer as the masked Western hero, "Ranger" was expected to be one of the studio's major tentpoles for December 2012. The film's budget, however, was said to be hovering at around $232 million and that was just too rich for Disney's tastes. Especially considering the dubious prospects for next year's "John Carter" (a stunning $250 million plus budget) and their $200 million investment in Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful." And yet, this is still bizarre considering Bruckheimer and Depp's billion dollar track record on the "Pirates" series and the $1 billion dollar gross for Depp's "Alice in Wonderland" in 2010. The fact Depp could even help the audience-unfriendly "The Tourist" hit $278 million worldwide can't be disputed either. With Will Smith still on his personal sabbatical Depp is absolutely the biggest draw in the world. So, why would Disney get so skittish about a Johnny Depp adventure movie? Perhaps "Cowboys & Aliens" contributed to their thinking.

for the rest go here:
http://www.hitfix.com/articles/shocker-disney-shuts-down-production-on-the-lone-ranger-with-johnny-depp

------------------------GALLEYS

Last night I ran a review of my new novel (Oct) Bad Moon Rising. If you don't regularly review my books, have a blog and will review the book I have eighteen galleys I can send. ejgorman99@aol.com is my e address. Please put GALLEYS in the subject line (don't want to get spammed) and include your snail mail address. Thanks, Ed



Bad Moon Rising
*Starred Review

Ed Gorman. Pegasus (Norton, dist.), $25 (208p) ISBN 978-1-60598-260-1

Social turmoil overshadows the sleuthing in Gorman’s excellent ninth Sam McCain mystery (after 2009’s A Ticket to Ride). In 1968, a hippie commune near Black River Falls, Iowa, both horrifies and entices the townsfolk with its uninhibited lifestyle. Sardonic lawyer and investigator McCain becomes involved after the discovery of the body of Vanessa Mainwaring, the teenage daughter of a well-to-do local, at the commune, and a Vietnam vet who’s one of its members flees. Interference by a bigoted sheriff, an opportunistic preacher, and a hysterical father makes matters even worse as Sam tries not just to solve the murder but to help the people around him caught in an intensely stressful situation. The real crime, as Sam eventually realizes, is how one generation exploits the next—while the younger generation devours itself. In turn mellow and melancholy, this book grapples with problems that are too complex for any detective to untangle. (Oct.)

29. William Holden on Humphrey Bogart: “I hated the bastard

Ed here: There's a long list of these on Movie Morlocks today - here are some highlights. For the rest go here:

3. Joan Crawford on Bette Davis: “She has a cult, and what the hell is a cult except a gang of rebels without a cause. I have fans. There’s a big difference.”
4. Bette Davis on Joan Crawford: “I wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire.”
5. Sterling Hayden on Joan Crawford: “There’s is not enough money in Hollywood to lure me into making another picture with Joan Crawford. And I like money.”
”
7. Carol Lombard on Vivien Leigh: “That f–king English bitch.”

19. Walter Mattheu to Barbra Streisand during an on set argument while making HELLO DOLLY!: “I have more talent in my farts than you have in your whole body.”

25. Richard Harris on Michael Caine: “An over-fat, flatulent, 62-year-old windbag. A master of inconsequence masquerading as a guru, passing off his vast limitations as pious virtues.”
26. Frank Sinatra on Shelley Winters: “A bowlegged bitch of a Brooklyn blonde.”
27. Shelley Winters on Frank Sinatra: “A skinny, no-talent, stupid, Hoboken bastard.”

28. John Gielgud on Ingrid Bergman: “Ingrid Bergman speaks five languages and can’t act in any of them.”
29. William Holden on Humphrey Bogart: “I hated the bastard.”
30. Humphrey Bogart on William Holden: “A dumb prick.”

These insults were compiled from various books, magazines, newspapers and IMDB.com.
Feel free to share some of your own favorite insults from classic actors below. I’m sure there are plenty more that I haven’t mentioned.

Badfellas Who's nastier: Jimmy Cagney or Joe Pesci?

Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta in a still from the film Goodfellas. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Ed here: David Thomson lists his ten favorite gangster movies in this Guardian (UK) piece from June 2009. Here's one of his selections:



Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Delinquency in the 50s was often teenage territory - think of Rebel Without a Cause. But Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly is grown-up and very sick. On the surface, it's a story about Mickey Spillane's pulp hero, Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker), who picks up a girl one night on the Pacific coast highway and gets into a heap of trouble. But the case that develops is a confrontation with a crime organisation that has its hands on the ultimate deterrent: a box that holds nothing less than nuclear heat. The gangsters Hammer meets along the way are weird and effete (Jack Elam, Paul Stewart, Albert Dekker). But Hammer himself makes up for their defects and lives up to his name. He's a private eye (if you dare to hire him), a smug womaniser and a fascist who walks like Mussolini on his day off. The women are all mad in some way. Los Angeles is a hell on earth, and gangsters have taken over the whole operation. Still a shattering film. Meeker's strut is the stuff of nightmares.

for the rest go here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jun/26/top-ten-gangster-films

LEVINE, LASSITER BACK FOR CHARITY

LEVINE, LASSITER BACK FOR CHARITY
by Oline Cogdill
Wednesday, 10 August 2011 05:04
Last year, Paul Levine celebrated the 20th anniversary of his first novel, To Speak for the Dead, by re-issuing that novel as an e-book. The twist was that Levine wasn't just joining hundreds of other authors who are finding new audiences for their work.

Levine gave ALL proceeds of the To Speak for the Dead e-book to the Four Diamonds Fund, which supports treatment and research at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

The book reached number one on Amazon’s Hardboiled Mystery Bestseller List and raised thousands of dollars for cancer treatment at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.

And if something works once, try it again.

Levine has put up his second novel Flesh & Bones as an e-book with all the royalties going to the Fund.

Flesh & Bones continued Levine's series about Miami lawyer Jake Lassiter, a Miami Dolphins linebacker turned hard-nosed lawyer.

Levine helped launch the current wave of Florida mysteries through these novels that gave the world a new view of what really goes on in South Florida.

Before Lassiter went on hiatus in 1997, the series earned Levine the John D. MacDonald Florida Fiction Award. To Speak for the Dead was named one of the 10 best mysteries of the year by the Los Angeles Times.

For those of us who missed the wise-cracking Lassiter, Levine is returning to the series with the aptly named Lassiter, due out in September from Bantam.

Rating the Coen Brothers movies

Ed here: I've watched The Big Lebowksi probably ten times, Raising Arizona seven or eight, Fargo probably six or seven and Barton Fink four or five. And most of the others at least two or three times. Here's a piece from Slate that rates the Coen Bros. movies.

Ranking the Coen Brothers' Movies
The Ladykillers always comes in last.
By David Haglund
Updated Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011, at 10:05 AM ET

Ranking the films of Joel and Ethan Coen is something of an online pastime. Christopher Orr of the Atlantic submitted his order last December, the same month Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post offered her more eccentric take (check out Nos. 11-14), and just after Andrew Osborne did the same for Nerve. Salon outsourced the question of "best Coens movie" to several writers and film folk a year before that, while AMC let visitors to their website decide the question. Rotten Tomatoes has compiled a list of the 10 best-reviewed Coen movies.
Averaging all of the rankings, you get a list that looks something like this:
1. Fargo
2. Raising Arizona
3. Miller's Crossing
4. No Country for Old Men
5. The Big Lebowski
6. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
7. True Grit
8. Barton Fink
9. Blood Simple
10. Burn After Reading
11. A Serious Man
12. The Hudsucker Proxy
13. The Man Who Wasn't There
14. Intolerable Cruelty
15. The Ladykillers

for the rest go herte: http://www.slate.com/id/2300656/

Guild - from Cullen Gallagher Pulp Serenade

"Guild" by Ed Gorman (M. Evans and Company, 1987)

Guild is one of Ed Gorman’s most haunting and enduring protagonists, a somber guide through the umbra and penumbra of the Old West. A former lawman haunted by memories of a little girl he killed while on duty, he’s become a bounty hunter with no clear allegiance to the law or the lawless. Guild appeared in four novels and one short story, and together they articulate Gorman’s anti-classical vision of the West, a profound and original take on the genre.

Gorman doesn’t celebrate celestial skies and wide-open plains, upstanding lawmen and quick-draw gunfighters, or any of the other iconic themes of the genre. Instead of a clear division between heaven and earth, Gorman sees a morally ambiguous purgatory populated by characters of equally uncertain morals. Nobody is entirely good or all bad; everybody’s guilty of something, and they always have their reasons. Whereas for many authors the land represented the possibility of redemption and renewal, for Gorman the land represents lingering ghosts and painful memories.

Guild, the first novel in the series, was first published by M. Evans and Company in 1987. It is now available as an eBook for Kindle. The story begins with Guild delivering a prisoner to the town of Danton. Before Guild can move on, trouble rears its ugly head when an accountant at the local bank is murdered during an attempted robbery. Frank Cord, the bank manager, is quick to point his finger at a traveling magician named Hammond. As the town turns into a lynch mob, Guild takes it upon himself to try and save Hammond, keep law and order, and figure out what Frank Cord is hiding from everyone.

From start to finish, Guild is a terrific novel and exemplifies some of Gorman’s strongest traits as a writer: not only his lean plotting, deft display of action, and masterful command of language that wastes not a word, but also his intuitive feeling for character and emotion. One of Gorman’s hallmarks is his deep sympathy for humans at their weakest, most desperate moments. He understands all too well why people make bad decisions, and hurt others or themselves. When the Sheriff refuses to take a stand against Frank Cord, Gorman allows him this dignified justification: “It just means I’m old and afraid of getting turned out in the winter like some animal.” It doesn’t excuse his cowardice, but it explains it. Much of Gorman’s bitter poetry stems from all-too-human rationalizations such as these.

One of the aspects of Gorman’s writing that I greatly admire is how reluctant he is to presume to understand the extent of human suffering. A perfect example is Annie, a young woman that Hammond saved from a brothel and who travels with him as companion and assistant. Their relationship is neither as lover nor parent-child, but something deeper, more uncertain, and more sacred. Theirs is a bond based on love, support, and need. Something so natural it defies words, and which the townsfolk of Danton can’t comprehend. When Guild learns of her troubled past, Gorman doesn’t give needless, lurid explication. Instead, he offers a humble, subtle description of Guild’s reaction: “Guild made a face. He thought about her and her eyes and her grief.” Not only is there power in such understatement, but also dignity. Gorman gives Annie, and women who have suffered as she has, a respectful distance. By not going into excessive detail, Gorman conveys that real pain is sometimes beyond words.

Another quality of Guild that I like is his political commentary on the times. “There was a sense in the Territory that civilization was not only inevitable but good–yet most people still enjoyed the blood-quickening thrill that only violence brought.” Like Gorman’s later character, the political strategist Dev Conrad, Guild sees beyond party and class lines. His observations of a social gathering make his cynicism and skepticism very clear:
“Women in pink gowns and white gowns and blue gowns that cost as much as a working man’s wages floated around the three floors of the restaurant on the arms of men who talked in loud, important voices about finance and politics and local matters as if their opinions alone could change the course of things.”

“Finally, predictably, he got tired of looking at and listening to the walruslike men around him with their air of money and malice.”
In later Guild novels, Gorman would further explore the deep-seated moral, economic and political corruption of The West, but already in this first book his worldview is made clear. He has no tolerance for hypocrisy, elitism, or human exploitation.

In traditional Western lore, Manifest Destiny promised people freedom, opportunity, and a prosperous future. In reality, the land offered no such easy rewards. Gorman’s view of the harsh landscape reflects the hardships and torments that everyday people had to endure in order to survive: “This was the Territory, and all it asked for purchase was that you be able to tolerate cholera and influenza and ague and typhoid and scurvy, and that you be able to endure the fact that many of your young ones would die before they reached age five.” Gorman is a Realist, not a Romanticist, and Guild is a poetic lament rather than a patriotic celebration.

Guild is a man of principals, but he’s not morally righteous. He’s a man of rare humility and humanity. If he sees the worst in others, it is only because he has already seen it deep within himself. He uses his own troubled past—the killing of the young girl—as a measure for others. Guild is at once burdened and humbled by his own guilt. As he tells Annie, “I’m not sure I’m worth forgiving.” Whereas in a more Classical Western, characters could find redemption in the natural landscape, no such easy release from the past is possible in Gorman’s world. This is one of the novel’s most noir-inspired touches: the past stays with the characters, the bad deeds never go away, the ghosts never disappear.

One of the most heartfelt, and heartbreaking, moments of the book was between Annie and Guild. The two are full of anger and guilt, much of which stems from their own failure to make things right in the world, and the way the let down those they love. They fought with each other, but eventually they realized that all they have left is each other. “So you try not to hate me, mister, and I’ll try not to hate you,” Annie tells Guild. This is the only love that is possible in Gorman’s world. Imperfect and wounded, there’s nothing ideal about their bond, but it is sincere and honest. No relationship in any of Gorman’s novels is perfect—they’re all full of aching and loneliness, but they’re also completely believable, and all too relatable.

As a Western-Suspense novel, Guild is top-notch. The plot hooks you right away, the cast is well-rounded and compelling, and the novel builds momentum until its dark, sobering conclusion. Like in his noir novels, Gorman doesn’t soften the blows: life in the West has seldom been more bleak or blistering than in Gorman’s novels. Don’t expect a happy ending, but what you’ll get instead is a richer and more emotionally powerful experience.

Buy Guild on Kindle.

Ed here: I've always wanted to thank Bob Randisi for helping me learn how to write a western. I would never have written Guild without his teaching and encouragement.

New Books:DERANGED by Lonni Lees; more Robert Ryan

“Lonni Lees sends chills down my spine!”
Terrill Lee Lankford, Novelist and Filmmaker

DERANGED
By Lonni Lees

Being a writer as well as an artist, I’ve always been torn between the two. I’d dabbled in non-fiction, writing magazine articles and working for a small newspaper, but a few years ago I dove head first into short story writing and published several in Hardboiled Magazine and on some ezines.
I wondered why I hadn’t started years ago. I discovered noir and crime and dark stories. This was where I belonged!

A collection of my short stories, titled CRAWLSPACE, will be released shortly from Wildside Books as a double. The other side, COLD BULLETS AND HOT BABES, is by my sister, Arlette Lees. I’m working on my second novel and more short stories.

I knew it was time to dust off and finish a story I’d started awhile back. It began with a dream. Literally. One of those dreams so vivid that upon my awakening still felt very real. It was a story I had to tell. That dream plus a real life event were the catalysts. We all read about murders but few of us are personally touched by the violence. I was twice. The one that left the deepest impact on me was a young friend who was abducted, raped and murdered, her body buried in a shallow grave in the California desert. Her killer was never found. I wanted to give her short life a different ending. DERANGED is the result.

Some monsters are born that way, others are created as a result of their own victimization. But the result is the same. Ultimately, one is no less dangerous than the other. The madman we fear doesn’t wear a warning sign. He is likely cloaked in a facade of normalcy, wearing a mask that makes him look like the rest of us. He could be the man standing behind you at the check-out line at the grocery store, the quiet neighbor who borrows your tools, the teenage boy who mows your lawn with a smile, or the stranger who stops along the highway to offer a hitchhiker a ride. He moves among us, invisible, leaving death and destruction in his wake.

Charlie Blackhawk is such a man. Twisted fantasies lure him to the neon-splashed alleys of Hollywood to feed his hunger. He’s a cold-blooded killer who likes to use a knife. When his path crosses that of Meg Stinson and her 12-year-old daughter, Sabrina, their lives are changed forever. What’s the connection between the Stinsons and a girl named Amy? Do Amy’s nightmares hold the key to Sabrina’s survival?

DERANGED is a journey into the darkest corners of the human psyche, but it is also a tale of survival, redemption, forgiveness and hope. It’s a chilling, thrilling exercise in unrelenting horror and suspense.

“DERANGED is a hell of a good read by a bright new talent. It’s a harrowing ride, a first novel mixing crime with horror and horror with crime in a way you won’t soon forget. Bravo!”
Gary Lovisi, HARDBOILED MAGAZINE and GRYPHON BOOKS

“Lonni Lees sends chills down my spine!”
Terrill Lee Lankford, Novelist and Filmmaker
DERANGED is available at $14.99 from Wildside Press
9710 Traville Gateway Dr. #234
Rockville MD 20850-7408
301-762-1305 wildsidepress.com

Also available at amazon.com bn.com or may be ordered from your local bookstore.

------------------------------------------------MORE ROBERT RYAN


The Quiet Furies of Robert Ryan by MANOHLA DARGIS from the New York Times

Ryan made “The Set-Up,” one of his favorites and most indelible films, two years later. Directed by Robert Wise (who had edited “Citizen Kane”), “The Set-Up” is a tight, intensely moving, pocket-size masterwork about Stoker Thompson, a washed-up, 35-year-old heavyweight who believes he’s just “one punch away” from changing his lousy luck. Part redemption story, part romance (his wife is played by Audrey Totter), the film unfolds in close to real time and takes place in the cruelly named Paradise City. Ryan, all muscle, sinew and heart-rending longing, slugs through one punishing round after another — look for the photographer Weegee hitting the bell as the timekeeper — creating a portrait of a man who endures ghastly physical punishment on his way to redemption.

“The Set-Up” almost didn’t happen, having been canceled by Howard Hughes, who had bought a controlling interest in RKO in 1948. Oddly, that same year Ryan starred in “Caught,” a non-RKO thriller directed by Max Ophuls about a naïf (Barbara Bel Geddes) who dreams of money and is punished for her yearning with a marriage to a millionaire psychopath (Ryan), modeled on Hughes, and rewarded with the love of a kind doctor (James Mason). Though based on a novel, the movie turned into a veiled story of Hughes because, as its screenwriter, Arthur Laurents, claimed in his memoir, Ophuls hated Hughes. “Make him an idiot,” Ophuls demanded of Laurents. “Kill him off.” While melodramatic, the movie is a fascinating dark look at desire and power as is Ryan’s sexually charged take on a man whose savagery wounds himself as much as everyone else.

for the rest go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/movies/the-quiet-furies-of-robert-ryan.html?ref=arts

An answer to the Shell Scott question-Randy Johnson

http://randall120.wordpress.com/2008/12/01/three-shells-sort-of-by-richard-s-prather

A real mystery-Shell Scott name used in non-Scott novel

Ed here: My friend Greg Shepard of Stark House sent me the following. Back in the Seventies Gold Medal made Dan J. Marlowe convert some of his stand-alones into series adventure novels--that's the closest example I can come to this. Though historians will probably come up with others. Can anybody speak to the legality of this? Wouldn't they need the permission of the estate? Does the estate still hold the copyrights? Maybe this was all done legally. INquiring minds want to know.

Hi Ed:

I received this following email from a reader friend named Frank Loose. He noticed that there is a distinct difference between two editions of Prather's Dagger of Flesh. It started life as a non-Shell Scott book, but the ebook publisher changed it to a Shell book. Can they do this? Know anything about this publishing phenonenon? Might be worth a write-up on your blog, might not. But I thought I'd ask since you are delving deeper than I into the world of ebooks.

Greg

-- >
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011, 8:12 AM

Greg ... On a lark, I was checking Amazon to see what various editions were
out there for the Prather book DAGGER OF FLESH. Its fun to peruse the
covers, when they're shown.

In addition to scores of editions from the 50s and 60s, there's a new
edition that e-books has put out in addition to dozens of Shell Scott
titles. Only, what I noticed on the cover was it said DAGGER was a Shell
Scott book.

Well, I know it isn't, so I clicked on the preview button and pulled up the
first couple pages on the computer. It read exactly the same as my PB and I
figured the publisher was sloppy in their cover work. Then I noticed the
name Shell on the page where in my PB book it says Mark. I checked further
into the preview, and found that every Mark had been replaced by Shell.

I've not heard of someone doing this. Have you? I'm also curious when the
change took place. The new publisher? The old publisher telling Prather
his book was too hardboiled for a Shell Scott, so Prather changed the main
character?

All a bit of a mystery.

Frank

The writers who keep popular writers alive

The writers who keep popular authors alive
Jason Bourne, James Bond and other heroes live on, despite their creators' deaths, thanks to "the continuators"

BY EMMA MUSTICH from Salon

Robert Ludlum, Jason Bourne (as played on screen by Matt Damon) and Eric Van Lustbader.
Some call them "the continuators" -- choosing a term with appropriate Schwarzenegger swagger to describe the writers charged with reinvigorating aging heroes and keeping valuable franchises alive.

Critics sometimes use less charitable names. After all, literary respect and acclaim don't always follow for writers who step into the shoes of the late greats and revive old characters after their creators' deaths. (Robert Goldsborough, who continued Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe mysteries, playfully addressed the continuator's plight in a Wolfe meta-mystery about the murder of another, fictional continuator.) Expectant fans are often wary, too. If your name isn't Ludlum, Parker, Fleming or Spillane, it's not always easy to convince obsessives that you understand Bourne, Spenser, Bond or Hammer.

But the writers who embrace the task of continuing other authors’ series face a set of challenges all their own: adopting and modernizing familiar characters; respecting the voices of the dead; dealing with the demands of authors’ estates. And while they bristle at the term "ghostwriter," their books are clearly haunted by the beloved authors who first breathed life into the characters these continuators carefully but creatively resurrect.

As it happens, 2011 is a banner year for continuators, boasting at least five high-profile releases: Eric Van Lustbader's newest Jason Bourne volume, "The Bourne Dominion"; Jeffery Deaver's latter-day Bond book, "Carte Blanche"; Michael Brandman's "Robert B. Parker's Killing the Blues"; a new Sherlock Holmes novel; and Felix Francis's "Dick Francis's Gamble," the latest in a line of horse-racing mysteries popularized by his father. Furthermore, last month, the mystery writer Max Allan Collins confirmed that he would complete three early Mike Hammer novels still unfinished when creator Mickey Spillane died in 2006.

So why do these authors -- many of whom have written blockbuster best-sellers of their own -- want the hassle and the pressure? Sometimes it's the thrill of writing a favorite character. Other times, as with Collins and Spillane, the writers are long-time friends and the younger one is eager to continue his mentor's legacy.

for the rest go here: http://www.salon.com/books/writing/index.html?story=/books/feature/2011/08/07/bringing_back_characters

Jerry Lewis; Bill Maher

Ed here: Mark Evanier--television writer, producer, director, comic book writer, show biz historian unmatched in my opinion--is my favorite voice of sanity where controversies are concerned. While we're still waiting to hear from Jerry Lewis himself about his awkward "release" from his Telethon duties, lovers and haters of Lewis have flooded the blogs with opinions.

Jerry Lewis was my favorite comic actor when I was young. Nobody made me laugh longer or harder. As I got older his stuff started to pall for me. There didn't seem to be any there there. When you think of the great comedians such as Keaton and Chaplin and (to me) Lloyd there is an almost literary persona at work in everything they do. Lewis just started looking silly to me. And watching him on talk shows I saw both his famous mean streak and arrogance.

He was brave to do his live show that lasted so briefly but the mawkish final episode made you turn away. Several years ago he was on NPR with Terry Gross for an hour promoting his autobiography. I was surprised by how little humor he has about himself. Life to him is a grudge match with no possibility that he could ever be at fault. I emphasize that this is my opinion only. He has fans and serious admirers all over the world. And not just in France.

As for being dismissed from his Telethon duties, I understand why they wanted to bring on a new representative. Eighty-five is too old, especially given his health. And he is liable to say anything. I gave up watching it years ago. He's one of those performers who makes me nervous. Seriously. I'm always waiting for him to do something catastrophic. There are a number of actors who have this effect on me when I see them live.

However the man did bring in more than two billion dollars to this very worthy cause. And for the first fifteen years or so the Telethon was a huge pop culture event. He deserves being treated respectfully. Now as Mark Evanier notes maybe Lewis wouldn't be reasonable. Maybe it was his way or the highway. But even if that's the case they should lead off the next Telethon with a ten minute video taped salute to Jerry to remind people where all this largesse came from.


From Marke Evanier: News From Me http://www.newsfromme.com/

"I see all these online petitions and rallying cries to reinstate Jer where he rightly belongs: On our sets on Labor Day weekend, tuxedo-clad in Vegas and introducing Tony Orlando. None that I have seen have mentioned or seemed to care about the real reason the telethon exists. Yes, it's a tradition. Yes, it's often enormously entertaining on at least some level. Yes, Jerry is a legend and pretty much the last relic of a certain generation of performer. All that is great...but the purpose of the telethon is to raise the operating capital for a cause that, and Jerry would be the first and last one to tell you this, does a lot of good for a lot of people. It's not about amusing us from afar as we roast weiners and burgers. It's not about giving Norm Crosby a chance to make his annual appearance on TV. It's not even about upholding custom or honoring Jerry for The Nutty Professor. It's about buying wheelchairs and maybe, someday, finding a cure.

(more)

...but supposing they're right. I mean, just supposing. And maybe the problem isn't that they don't appreciate Jerry for past efforts but that he wants it done his way or not at all. Even those of us who love Jerry in some or all manners are aware of his volatility, his unconcealed anger at those he believes have wronged him, his tendency to just say whatever pops into his mind without the kind of regulator that most other public figures have to filter their verbal output. Perhaps the folks in the MDA offices made the wrong call...but if it was the right call insofar as their fund-raising is concerned, how do you ease out a legend without creating the kind of backlash we're now seeing? More specifically, how do you ease out Jerry Lewis if he doesn't want to go?"

for the entire piece go here and scroll down-http://www.newsfromme.com/


-----------------------------------------Bill Maher must see tv

Bill Maher's going on vacation until mid-September but he ended with one of his best final segments ever. Here Bill postulates the notions that the dems need their own version of the Tea Party--just as ignorant, just as psychotic. WARNING THIS IS VERY POLITICAL.

SCROLL DOWN TO

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/07/bill-maher-liberal-tea-party_n_920268.html

In Praise of Robert Ryan by Mark Asch

(thanks to Peter Winkler for the link) the L Magazine

"If most movie stars embody one or another of our treasured notions about who we are, Robert Ryan quickly became a shadow-self, a fathomless well of postwar America's weaknesses, insecurities, prejudices and demons. In Fred Zinnemann's 1948 Act of Violence, he's the war buddy who torments Van Heflin—the solid homesteader of so many Westerns, here symbolically cast as a suburban contractor—with knowledge of his dark past. A few years ago, The L's Nicolas Rapold pointed out Act's striking similarities to A History of Violence: Ryan is the specter of our worst capabilities, but also a conflicted, sympathetic character. Zinnemann keeps the camera on him as he stands just outside the threshold of Heflin's comfy house, waiting to mete out his long-sought vengeance but also starting guiltily at the sound of a woman's voice from inside, sweating and grimacing and trying to slow his churning heartbeat.

"Ryan was always either pursuer or pursued, or maybe both, but he brought nearly infinite nuance and variety to his boogeymen. In Fritz Lang's Clash By Night (1952), as the small-town projectionist who hounds Barbara Stanwyck, he's full of loathing borne of self-knowledge and given flight by Clifford Odets's baroque, steel-edged dialogue; he's more raw as the racist bankrobber in Robert Wise's Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), with its great wintry uptown and upstate locations. Blacklisted screenwriter Abe Polonsky makes the film's heist into a racial allegory, plagued by tensions between Ryan and angry Harry Belafonte: most Ryan performances are psychoanalytic inquiries into the social ills of postwar America, revealed as hateful or frightened or drunk, but Polonsky makes it explicit, and the liberal Ryan, despite his conscientious disapproval of his character (which he discussed with the activist press), grants himself access to stores of blind, omnidirectional hatred in a relentlessly self-flagellating performance (check that bitter smile as he delivers his first line of dialogue, addressing a small African-American girl in mock dialect).

for the entire article go here:
http://www.thelmagazine.com/gyrobase/in-praise-of-robert-ryan/Content?oid=2167949&showFullText=true

Henry Kutnner mysteries! and much much more from Haffner Press

Greetings, everybody!

Recent press releases from Haffner Press were done with html graphics, but there's so much to report from the Secret Moon Base this time around that we're going back to straight text to get this incredible news to you ASAP. Getting to it:

1) THE MICHAEL GRAY MURDERS — A New Henry Kuttner & Catherine L. Moore Book Coming in 2012.
We are announcing this massive collection of four novels from the greatest husband-wife writing team in genre history. This 700+page volume collects the four paperbacks from the late 1950s featuring San Fransisco's consulting psychoanalyst Michael Gray:
The Murder of Ann Avery
The Murder of Eleanor Pope
Murder of a Mistress
Murder of a Wife
Aside from a 1980s reprint of Murder of a Wife, this is the first hardcover edition of these texts and we are working with a vintage paperback artist for an original cover. So, as has become de rigueur at Haffner Press, you can order THE MICHAEL GRAY MURDERS as part of . . .

2) BONUS CHAPBOOK with PREORDER of Three Recently Announced Mystery Titles.
Visit www.haffnerpress.com to see the special $120 offer for the first three mystery releases for 2012. As with previous offers, customers who prepay for THE COMPLETE JOHN THUNSTONE, THE COMPLETE I.V. FROST, and THE MICHAEL GRAY MURDERS will receive an exclusive bonus chapbook with contributions from out four authors involved with these three books. What's the connection? Preorder the combo to find out!

3) SHANNACH—THE LAST: FAREWELL TO MARS Heading to the Printer!
Speaking of preorder combos, we are soon to ship SHANNACH—THE LAST: FAREWELL TO MARS by Leigh Brackett and customers who took advantage of the 2010 preorder for this title (along with TERROR IN THE HOUSE by Henry Kuttner and Edmond Hamilton's THE UNIVERSE WRECKERS and CAPTAIN FUTURE, VOLUME TWO) will also be receiving the Bonus Chapbook: AN INSIDE LOOK: PLANS FOR THE CREATION OF FUTURES PAST.

In the run-up to the publication of SHANNACH—THE LAST: FAREWELL TO MARS, we have special Facebook page here which is being periodically updated with vintage editorial comments on many Brackettales. Check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/453gdok

4) Update on 2011 SUPER EARLY BIRD SPECIAL For WILLIAMSON #8, THUNDER IN THE VOID by Kuttner and TALES FROM SUPER-SCIENCE FICTION
Still speaking of combos, at www.haffnerpress.com we are still soliciting preorders for the exclusive bonus chapbook featuring rare texts and associated ephemera from several contributors to the above titles. Shipping is FREE to the Continental USA and we will ship the books as they are published with the chapbook accompanying the release of TALES OF SUPER-SCIENCE FICTION.

AT THE HUMAN LIMIT is already available and selling fast. We will withdraw this offer when either AT THE HUMAN LIMIT is out of print or we take possession from the bindery of THUNDER IN THE VOID (which is due in November). Don't miss out on this opportunity to get this exclusive chapbook.

5) Limited Edition of AT THE HUMAN LIMIT, THE COLLECTED STORIES OF JACK WILLIAMSON, VOLUME EIGHT
We now have all the components for the 75-copy autographed/slipcased edition of the final volume of this remarkable series. Roughly 18 copies remain of this $150 edition, which is:
Limited to 75 copies
Bound in custom-dyed Eshbach Blue Cloth matching the 1940s-50s Fantasy Press editions of Williamson's works
Housed in a matching Eshbach Blue Cloth Slipcase
Numbered limitation sheet with a mounted Jack Williamson autograph and signed by introducer Connie Willis & cover artist Ralph McQuarrie
6) Update on Jack Williamson Fund Raising Books
The 200 copies of THIRTY-YEARS OF THE JACK WILLIAMSON released during the Lectureship and autographed by several attendees have all been sold. We have additional unsigned stock on hand and we will keep the price at $19.00. Proceeds go to the Williamson Lectureship Fund. Visit http://haffnerpress.com/jw35.html to order, and check out the "LOOK INSIDE" listing for the book on Amazon.com here: http://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Five-Years-Jack-Williamson-Lectureship/dp/1893887553.

We still have about 80 copies of the 2007 memorial book, IN MEMORY OF WONDER'S CHILD. This edition is autographed by MANY contributors and one they're gone . . . they're gone. The price is $15, order here: http://haffnerpress.com/189388726X.html. Proceeds from this book go to the Blanche and Jack Williamson Scholarship Fund.

That's all for now, astrogators (and future gumshoes!).

Thanks for all your business and support over the years. 2011 has been our best (and busiest!) year ever, and 2012 will be even greater. We're honored to have you along for the ride.

Keep Watching the Skies!

Stephen Haffner
Big Poobah
HAFFNER PRESS

This is an electronic update from Haffner Press. You're receiving this message because you requested to be notified of events at Haffner Press, or have done business directly with Haffner Press in the past. If you do not wish to receive these messages in the future, please reply with "delete" in the header and we will take you off the list immediately. Note that Haffner Press' e-mail is info@haffnerpress.com.

A pic you won't believe; Ruth Rendell

TCM writer piece on Movie Morlock's week long look at Racism in Hwood movies from the beginning: "I’m fond of Joan Crawford and I recently watched her 1954 performance in TORCH SONG for the first time and was shocked to see Crawford sporting blackface for a musical number.

TCM blogger: Posted By morlockjeff : July 29, 2011 10:52 am
"TORCH SONG should come with a warning: Danger, Joan Crawford ahead! Her most ferocious, ball-busting, scene-chewing performance with plenty to offend everyone – blind people, pianists, theatre directors, African-Americans, and just about everybody else on the planet. Proceed at your own risk!"

-------------------------------------------RUTH RENDELL


From the UK Telegraph

Ruth Rendell: Interview

Ruth Rendell’s Wexford is now an OAP but, at 81, the author’s own life is far from quiet retirement, finds Jake Kerridge.

By Jake Kerridge3:11PM BST 01 Aug 20111 Comment

Ruth Rendell ushers me into her house in London’s Little Venice, astonishingly spry and trim at 81. Recently, she wrote proudly that she goes up and down the 58 stairs in her house four or five times every day, and I wonder if this may be because this connoisseur of the hidden darkness in ordinary lives gets regular urges to spy on her neighbours. The people living on the houseboats on the surrounding canals seem horribly exposed.

And yet Rendell hardly has time to devote to gazing out of the window. She is not just two prolific novelists — Ruth Rendell and Barbara Vine — but since 1997 she has also been the Labour peer Baroness Rendell of Babergh, and today she is anxious to get back to the House of Lords to see whether her party is drumming up support from the cross-benchers for a vote on the Police Bill.

Her new novel, The Vault, finds her much-loved policeman hero Reg Wexford initially twiddling his thumbs in retirement – not something she is drawing on her own experience to describe.

Since she is now coping with the unfamiliar frustrations of being in opposition, might she follow the example of many of her fellow peers and become less assiduous about attendance? “No. I think it’s incumbent on me. And I imagine I always will.”

for the rest go here:

New Books: Hank and Muddy by Steve Mertz

Writing Hank and Muddy
By Stephen Mertz

By 1975, I knew that I wanted to be either a writer or a musician.

That year saw my first fiction published in a national magazine.

And I was a working musician, blowing harp (as in harmonica) in Eagle Park Slim’s Mile High Blues Band, the house band at a black after hours club in Denver’s Five Points. From the 1930s to the 1950s Five Points was considered the “Harlem of the West,” with bars and clubs where people like Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday played, but by the 1960s it had suffered the same demise as inner cities across the U.S. In 1975, Five Points was a rough part of town. Slim is a real deal St. Louis bluesman (who currently resides and works in Eugene, Oregon) and the Mile High Band was hot. I’ve got the tapes to prove it. The band’s gig was Thursdays through Saturdays, 11PM to 3 AM. The drummer and I were the only white boys in the place.
I was living the life.

Trouble was, by late ’75 I was beginning to gradually sell more of my writing to the smaller markets of the day. No bread to speak of but I was establishing a presence. I’d wanted to be a writer since I was a kid. I could taste the dream of being a published novelist becoming a reality, that’s how close it was even though the rejections continued to outnumber the sales.
I was also starting to realize that life as musician was not exactly conducive to the discipline of schedule and routine necessary to produce fiction. Plus, an earlier conversation with the famous blues harp player, James Cotton, lingered in my mind. I was in a band called Blue Tale Fly at the time, a bar band playing Allman Brothers and J. Geils covers and a few originals. We’d landed a four night gig as the opening act for Cotton at the old Rio Grande down by Denver’s rail yards. Cotton was a party animal. Plenty of drink and smoke and passing the time with small talk between sets. He’d just signed with Albert Grossman, Dylan’s manager, who had landed him a contract with Capitol. Star time! Except, Cotton added, for the last two years, he’d been on the road 50 weeks out of the year.

That sunk in and stayed. I’d only been “living the life” with Eagle Park Slim for 18 months and I was already starting to burn out. I like to entertain and socialize well enough but like most writers, I am by nature a solitary soul.

Then Don Pendleton stepped in to nudge me into my future with an offer to assist him in the writing of Mack Bolan novels. (This was years before Don sold the Bolan franchise to Harlequin, where it continues to flourish, scripted by a cadre of contract writers.) For me, Don’s offer was the writing dream come true. No more smoky bars, bad food and crazy hours. I could sit at a keyboard and make a decent living. An apprenticeship! I could not say no, and so I said goodbye to Slim and the guys and to the musician’s life. I resettled on a country road near Don’s spread in Brown County, Indiana.
Well, that gig lasted for six months (not Don’s fault; we remained close friends until his passing) but in the process I had acquired a lifelong taste for what is called the writing life. I’ve lived on back roads ever since, writing short fiction and novels which, I’m happy to say, have been published for the most part to favorable reviews and reader acceptance.
And guess what? Turns out that being a writer is not that different from being a musician. Sure, the work conditions are more comfortable but it’s still all about hustling up the next gig, about finding an audience by striving to provide something worth their while.

My new novel, Hank & Muddy, is the account of a fictional meeting between two rough-and-tumble American music icons, whiskey-soaked Hank Williams and mojo man Muddy Waters, on a steamy summer night in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1952, and the misadventures that ensue. The title characters alternate as narrators. It’s a tale about music, race, sex and the other things that unite and divide American society in 1952 and today, with a plot that involves the Ku Klux Klan, crooked cops, and the black underworld of Shreveport in that era, G-men and commies, a bank robber’s free-spirited daughter and a quest for Hank’s missing songbook.

I hope you like it.

These days I perform now and then around Tucson with a humble little unit called The Blues Doctors and I’ve written a novel about the music I love.

Who says you can’t have it all?

Just wish I’d figured that out back in ‘75.

Peter Winkler's book on Dennis Hopper;e books aggregators

Dear Ed:

I wanted to let you and your readers know that my new biography of Dennis Hopper will be published this September by Barricade Books. Although I don't have hardcover review copies on hand yet, I can offer you a PDF to review and a JPEG of the book's front cover. Please let me know if you'd like to read it. I've included the press release for the book below.

Thank you.

Yours,
Peter Winkler
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Immediate Release

Barricade Books is proud to announce the publication of Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel
Author: Peter L. Winkler
Publication Date: September 16, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56980-449-0
Hardcover, $24.95

Film enthusiasts everywhere were saddened by the passing of Dennis Hopper on May 29, 2010. The good news is that Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel, the first biography to cover the entire life and career of one of America's most intriguing show-business luminaries and true mavericks, hits bookstores in August.

Beginning with his lonely childhood in Kansas, where he became determined to win the affection of others by becoming a great artist, to his drug-fueled days and nights in Hollywood and Taos, New Mexico, Dennis Hopper's amazing life was a roller-coaster series of triumphs and failures. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel beautifully captures the life of this extraordinary individual, whose dark side often threatened to undo his many achievements.

With meticulous research and skillful writing, author Peter Winkler creates an unforgettable portrait of the man who hung out with James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Jack Nicholson, costarred in and directed Easy Rider, and came back big in Blue Velvet, overcoming years of alcoholism and drug addiction. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel is a must-read for Hopper's fans, film buffs, and readers hooked on celebrity scandals. Readers of this book are sure to enjoy sharing the wild ride.

Advance Praise for Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel

“Well researched, well written, and highly entertaining, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel is an engrossing look at one of Hollywood's most colorful legends.”
–Warren Beath, author of “The Death of James Dean”

"Dennis Hopper exploded in our midst like a firecracker thrown from a dark shadow in a passing car. Peter Winkler's new biography of the counter-culture symbol, first across the finish line since the actor's death, is full of tough research and interviews, and reads as fast and furious as the man."
–Patrick McGilligan, author of "Jack's Life" (a biography of Jack Nicholson) and "Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director"

"A readable and remarkably even-handed chronicle of one of Hollywood's wildest cards. Peter L. Winkler knows his subject–and the territory–and he objectively delivers the goods on Dennis Hopper."
–Stephen M. Silverman, author of "David Lean" and "The Fox That Got Away: The Last Days of the Zanuck Dynasty at 20th Century Fox”

Peter Winkler

--------------------------------------------FROM KRIS RUSCH E BOOKS AGGREGATORS

Kris sent this link this afternoon. More information on the mysteries of e books.

Ebook Aggregators Comparison Chart

In some cases instead of publishing directly to an ebook store you might choose to publish via an ebook “aggregator”.

What is an Ebook Aggregator?

An ebook aggregator deals with ebook authors directly and interfaces between them and ebook retailers such as Apple and Sony.

The ebook aggregator may offer other services besides distribution, for example ebook design and formatting services.

Why Use an Ebook Aggregator?

Some of the valid reasons to use an ebook aggregator include:

You are non-resident and haven’t yet acquired the various requirements (e.g. B&N requires you to have a US bank account and U.S. Tax ID).
You don’t have the hardware or software required to publish your ebook directly (e.g. Apples requires a Mac)
You don’t know how to technically format the manuscript (e.g. to ensure your epub file passes validation checks).
The following quick comparison chart of ebook aggregators shows who they distribute to as well as their fees charged and royalties paid.

We’ve had to shrink it slightly to fit on this page. You can click on it to see the chart at its original size.



(click to make image larger)

Notes

1. To the best of our knowledge the information in this chart was correct as of July 2011.

2. ISBNs are required for distribution to Apple and Sony stores. Check terms carefully. Some ebook aggregators will offer you one of their ISBNs free and this usually identifies them as the publisher. They might also offer a paid option which identifies you as the publisher. You can also “Bring Your Own” ISBN number.

3. Smashwords pays you a royalty of 60% of the retail price when your ebook sells at Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony or Diesel stores. At Kobo the royalty is 60% of list for most sales but 38% of list for certain sales. For exceptions and further details see this page.

4. Lulu takes 20% of the net revenue paid by the ebook retailer, e.g. at Apple the royalty paid on an ebook sale is 70%. Lulu keeps 20% of that, which is 14% of the retail price, leaving you with 56% royalty on the retail price.

5. An annual fee charged for each book, starting in second year.

6. Lulu pays by PayPal monthly or by check quarterly.

7. Bibliocore is paid by Apple within 45 days of sale. They then make payment within several days.



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A genre writer accepts himself by Will Lavender

From Salon

A genre writer accepts himself
How one novelist with literary ambitions learned to stop worrying and love the thriller
BY WILL LAVENDER

willlavender.com
Will Lavender
I used to think genre fiction was for the slow-minded. Page turners, potboilers, pulp -- none of that interested me. That was for folks who liked their novels rubber-banded and soft-backed, who finished two books a year and read everything aloud.

There is a war against popularity in many MFA programs in America, and in my 20s, I was on the front lines. I wrote literary fiction, the only work serious and relevant enough to be worth my time. I cut my blue jeans off at the knees and called everything ironic. I read John Banville's "The Sea" by an actual sea. I wrote the kinds of hard-bitten, muscular novelettes young men are supposed to become famous for writing.

For a short time I morphed into John Ashbery; at 25, I was sort of a Michael Chabon lite. All the while I was tunneling outward across the sediment of recent American letters, digging hard for something worthwhile to say in my own stale fiction. Being original -- or even, God forbid, honest -- didn't interest me in the least. Instead I tried on disguises, trying to cobble my fiction together out of different styles and contexts. Words like "urgency" and "vitality" were my catchphrases.

I flailed, hilariously, to be sure my writing could not be confused with mere entertainment. I went through an experimental phase; I grew the requisite chin beard. I wrote text upside down, scribbled counterpoint in the margins. Every story I wrote contained footnotes. I was like John Gardner's Grendel: forever posturing, transforming the world with words but changing nothing.

for the rest go here:

http://www.salon.com/books/writing/index.html?story=/books/feature/2011/07/30/the_thrill_of_maturityI

Covers that beat the originals - e music; GENIUS Books Services

eMusic Editorial Staff
eMusic Contributor
07.21.11
Covers That Beat The Originals

It’s one of popular music’s stranger mysteries that often the author of a song isn’t the person best suited to deliver it. The caliber of the writer isn’t the issue: One only needed to watch Fiona Apple’s shattering rendition of Elvis Costello’s “I Want You” on stage at a 2006 concert for VH1 to realize that, legend though he is, Declan MacManus was only the song’s second-best interpreter. Pop history is full of cases like this, where a good song becomes a great one with just a few simple tweaks. Maybe it’s an off-kilter arrangement, maybe it’s a different inflection, or maybe the singer just understands the words in a way the author didn’t. Or, as is the case in a few of these selections, maybe it’s a song that got so worn down from familiarity that it needed a new voice to bring it back to life. Each one is a little different, and each is remarkable in its own way. These are our picks for covers that surpass the originals.

Broken English
MARIANNE FAITHFULL
Marianne Faithfull, “Working Class Hero” (John Lennon)
When John Lennon released his first post-Beatles solo record (1970′s Plastic Ono Band), we not only bought the album; we bought the book: Primal Scream, by Dr. Arthur Janov. Lennon’s album was influenced by therapy with Janov, in which the patient screams and cries through their pain. It was novel to hear Lennon sound so “naked,” just his voice and acoustic guitar. Marianne Faithfull, herself no stranger to emotional damage, covered “Working Class Hero” on her 1979 album Broken English. Faithfull’s setting for the song sounds like Weimar Germany, as if it had been written for a Brecht-Weill musical. It is the rare case of a cover topping a version of a song by a Beatle, even a solo Beatle. — Wayne Robins

more »

Nightclubbing
GRACE JONES
Grace Jones, “Walking in the Rain” (Flash and the Pan)
Grace Jones called her 1981-82 world tour “A One Man Show.” That sly nod to her androgynous appearance and multi-faceted persona was rarely more appropriate than on this opening cut from 1981′s Nightclubbing. For her post-disco breakout album, Jones returned to the ace rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, plus another set of covers (Iggy Pop, Brian Ferry) as impeccably chic as the ones on 1980′s Warm Leatherette. And then there was “Walking in the Rain.” Applying a slick dub-funk makeover to not the Ronettes, not Love Unlimited, not even old Johnny Ray, but Australian new-wavers Flash and the Pan, Jones speaks the words, “Feeling like a woman/ Looking like a man,” and they’re transformed. She forgets to add, “Sounding fabulous.” — Marc Hogan

more »

Road To Ruin: Expanded and Remastered
RAMONES
Ramones, “Needles & Pins” (The Searchers)
One of the best songs on 1978′s Road to Ruin album was a cover of this early ’60s pop number co-written by Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche and popularized by the Searchers. The Ramones had already released cover songs on each of their first three records. But this time, they left the buzzsaw guitar behind and opted for a more straight-ahead and sentimental approach. It’s the heavy

Read more: http://www.emusic.com/music-news/list-hub/covers-that-beat-the-originals/#ixzz1ToMlYLBL

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