Category: Crime

Hinkson, Beetner & Robinson

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Look what was waiting for me when I got home tonight…

The Posthumous Man by Jake Hinkson

When Elliot Stilling killed himself, he thought his troubles were over. Then the ER doctors revived him. It’s infatuation at first sight when he meets his nurse, Felicia Vogan, a strange young woman with a weakness for sad sacks and losers. After she helps Elliot escape from the hospital, she takes him back to her place. He’s happy to go with her, even when she leads him straight to a gang planning a  million dollar heist. Does Felicia just want Elliot to protect her from the outfit’s psychotic leader, Stan the Man? Or is Elliot being set up to take the hard fall? One thing’s for sure: if he’s going to survive this long night of deceit and murder, Elliot will have to finally face himself and his own dark past.

One Too Many Blows to the Head by Eric Beetner

Kansas City, 1939. One story from two points of view: the hunter and the hunted. Ray Ward – seeking revenge for his brother’s death in the boxing ring. Detective Dean Fokoli – hot on a killer’s trail.Ray’s hunt takes him underground into Kansas City’s criminal nightlife. Dean Fokoli lives there full time but he’s on the run from his own troubles. Two men racing forward to collide like a knockout punch.A razor-edged story of revenge, redemption and what happens when you confront the ghosts of the past.

Dirty Words by Todd Robinson

From the creator of Thuglit.com–DIRTY WORDS The first collection from award-winning short story writer, Todd Robinson. Featuring: SO LONG JOHNNIE SCUMBAG—selected for The Year’s Best Writing 2003 by Writer’s Digest. The Derringer Award nominated short, ROSES AT HIS FEET THE LONG COUNT—selected as a Notable Story of the Year in Best American Mystery Stories 2005. PLUS eight more tales of in-your-face crime fiction.

Dig Two Graves by Eric Beetner

Dig Two Graves is a novella-length piece about Val, an ex-con who thinks he has figured out the trick to continuing his bank robbing life without ever getting caught. Except then he gets caught.

It’s not his plan that backfires, oh no. There’s a rat somewhere and Val is pretty damn sure who it is. Ernesto, his prison lover who has joined him on the outside as his partner in bank robbery.

Val stalks the city night on the hunt for Ernesto to exact revenge for breaking the ultimate criminal code: you don’t rat out a partner.

A Bouquet of Bullets by Eric Beetner

From Award-winning short story writer Eric Beetner comes a collection of hardboiled crime tales about losers, punks and wanna-be criminals. These gritty stories bleed and sweat all over the page, but always with a pitch black sense of humor. For fans of Victor Gischler and Duane Swierczynski as much as Cornell Woolrich and Raymond Chandler these crime tales represent the new wave in pulp writers at its best. Winner of the 2012 Stalker award for Most Underrated Author, a finalist in the Derringer Awards, the Watery Grave International and the Million Writers Award, Eric Beetner’s short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Needle Magazine, Crimefactory, A Twist Of Noir, Beat To A Pulp, Pulp Pusher, Powder Burn Flash, Darkest Before Dawn, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, Flash Fiction Offensive and more.

The toughest part will be deciding which to read first.

Meet Crime Writer/Reviewer Eric Beetner

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I first learned about Eric Beetner from his 60 Second Book Reviews blog.

Beetner and I like the same type of books [crime fiction]. His reviews, for the books that I’ve read, are directly in line with my thoughts. So, if Beetner likes it, it’s a good bet that I will as well.

Then I learned Eric Beetner was a writer of crime fiction and his books were all getting 5 star reviews. Now I was intrigued.  So I bookmarked Beetner’s blog.

Next I discovered this trailer for Beetner’s The Devil Doesn’t Want Me. Nice.

So the other night I broke down and ordered Beetner’s Dig Two Graves; One Too Many Blows to the Head and A Bouquet of Bullets.

Well played, Eric Beetner.  Well played.

Can This Dog Solve the Black Dahlia Murder Mystery

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On February 3, 2013, The Daily Beast posted Can This Dog Solve the Black Dahlia Homicide? by Christine Pelisek.  If you have any interest at all in the world famous 70 year old unsolved murder, then you should check out the article.  Here are a few tidbits…

No one has ever been charged with the gruesome slaying, despite years of police work, nearly 50 discredited confessions, and intense media attention…

The most intriguing theory, though, may be the one posited by Steve Hodel, whose says his own father did the deed.

… his father, George Hodel, a surgeon, killed Short after a romance between the two turned ugly. He also believes his father killed close to a dozen women in the 1940s in his Hollywood home and then gruesomely posed them in different locales around the city.

The elder Hodel, it has been revealed, was indeed a suspect in the Short murder, but his son says he was never caught out of a combination of high-powered friends (who may have had dirt on the police) and inept detective work.

Last November, Hodel joined forces with former California police detective Paul Dostie and Buster, his rambunctious 9-year-old cadaver-sniffing black Labrador, for the first-ever forensic search at Hodel’s former home.

Buster was turned loose to search for scents related to human decomposition—and he perked up, or “alerted” as Dostie calls it, at several potential clues in the basement. Soil samples were taken and results are expected next week.

Check out the article for the full story!

Hardboiled Horror in Chin Music

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Chin Music is a new five-issue comic miniseries created by writer, Steve [30 Days of NIght] Niles and  artist, Tony [Starman] Harris.  Chin Music drops on April 17th in stores and online from Image Comics.

Perhaps best described as hard-boiled horror, Chin Music is the story of a man who at one point possessed all of the mystical powers of the occult and the supernatural, lost them and now works as a private eye.

USAToday ran a profile of the series along with 11 preview pages that you can see here.

Breaking Bad: Walter White – Heisenberg Action Figure

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That’s the new Breaking Bad: Walter White – Heisenberg action figure from Mezco Toyz. Standing approximately six inches high [pun intended], the figure comes complete with removable hat, removable glasses, a sack of cash, and a bag of blue crystals.  

The figure is now available for pre-order.

This figure is obviously geared for adults who collect action figures, but I wonder how long it will be before some organization or person complains that toys for kids now include drug-dealing murderers?

A tip of Heisenberg’s chapeau to Toy News International.

The Life and Times of Deputy U.S. Marshall Bass Reeves

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I’m a bit of a history buff, but I’d never heard of Bass Reeves until I read The Life and Times of Deputy U.S. Marshall Bass Reeves by Miss Cellania over at Mental Floss.  Here’s the opening paragraph…

Over his 32-year career as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, Bass Reeves arrested 3,000 felons, killed 14 men, and was never shot himself. His reputation for persistence, his total fearlessness, his skills with a gun, and his ability to outsmart outlaws struck terror into lawbreakers in what we now call Oklahoma. Although other colorful characters made their way into our pop culture, Bass was the real badass of the Old West.

My guess is you’ll want to click over and read the rest of the short, but informative article.

I’m somewhat surprised Bass Reeves’ life story hasn’t been turned into a movie or tv series.

Pardon My French, “Parker”

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Here’s the French poster for Parker staring Jason Statham and directed by Taylor Hackford.

I know that many folks are upset over Statham playing Parker, who is based on the character created in Richard Stark’s crime novels.  While I agree that Statham wouldn’t have been my first choice, I’m hoping that the movie will work.

If reviews are good, I’ll check it out in a theater… otherwise I’ll wait for Netflix.

If you like the poster and would like to see it biggie-sized, you can thanks to the folks at IMPAwards.

The Return of Gravedigger by Mills & Burchett

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One of my all-time favorite crime comics, Gravedigger, makes a return on February 4th, 2013.

That’s right, Gravedigger by Chris Mills and Rick Burchett is making a comeback, and in a big way.  Gravedigger will begin re-appearing as a web comic with weekly updates.

Mills & Burchett will start by serializing the original Gravedigger story, The Scavengers, and then will move on to a new Gravedigger tale, The Predators.  The plan is to then collect both storylines into one graphic novel.

Kickstarter, anyone?

This news has absolutely made my day, and if you love great comics, my guess is it has made yours as well.

“Dead Man Down” Moving Up

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I’m not too excited about the poster for Dead Man Down, but the trailer looks awesome.

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev [who directed the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo], Dead Man Down stars Colin Farrell, Noomi Rapace, Terrence Howard, Dominic Cooper and Armand Assante.  Farrell plays a hit man seduced to kill a crime boss.

If that’s not enough to get you in line for a ticket, perhaps these Five Things to Know About Colin Farrell’s New Revenge Thriller will do the trick.

Dead Man Down has now moved up to my “must-see” list.