Category Archives: Snubnose Press

My year in books: Benoit Lelievre

Today is the last guest post in the ‘my year in books’ series.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the selections that have featured on my site over the last few weeks as much as I have. There’s one more post to appear in the series, that’s my top reads for 2013, which I’ll be posting in the next day or so.

In the meantime, I’m going out on a strong note with Montreal-based blogger, Benoit Lelievre. Many Pulp Curry readers are probably familiar with Benoit’s cracker of a site, Dead End Follies. If not, check it out, it’s a great repository of writing on all things hard boiled crime and film.

Welcome Benoit.

2013 was a tough year. Tough but positive overall. I faced professional and personal turmoil, had to adapt to several tricky situations and flat out improve as a human being. On the downside, my creative input has dropped bear to nothingness. But thank god for good books. I read several great novels in 2013. Here are the five best books I have read this year, in no particular order:

The Subtle Art of Brutality, Ryan Sayles

Richard Dean Bucker, better known as RDB, is a creation half-way between Lawrence Block’s detective Matthew Scudder and Sons of Anarchy’s Jax Teller.… Read more

My year in books: Tom Pitts

Piggyback-coverNext cab off the rank in the ‘my year in books’ series I’m running over December is one of my fellow authors in the Snubnose Press stable, Tom Pitts.

Tom is the author of a great little novella, which I read earlier this year, Piggyback. It’s the story of two young women who like to party and think they’ve ripped off a car trunk load of free drugs, when in fact all they’ve really done is bring down a s*** load of chaos upon themselves.

Piggyback, along with all other Snubnose Press titles (including my novel, Ghost Money), is currently just 99 cents until before Christmas.

Anyway, enough of my shilling.

Tom’s got a novel called Hustle due out with Snubnose in 2014. 

You can find him on the web here.

Tom, your five minutes start now…

Under the Dixie Moon, Ro Cuzon

I’m often seen touting the wares of French-born, New Orleans transplant, Ro Cuzon. That’s because he’s great, this book is great. It’s a huge tale with a lot of moving parts and it manages to tie them all together in an end-run marathon of staccato chapters that build and build until you think it’s got nowhere to go–then it takes you further.… Read more

Fact and fiction in criminal case file 002

Ieng Sary Hearing 1

Late last week Ieng Sary aka criminal case file 002, former foreign minister for the charnel house known as the Khmer Rouge regime, died in Phnom Penh at the age of eighty seven.

One of five senior members of the Khmer Rouge being investigated by an international tribunal, Sary died denying he had any role in overseeing the death by starvation, torture and murder of approximately 1.7 million Cambodians between 1975 and early 1979.

Unfortunately, he escaped justice, dying before the tribunal could hand down its findings into his case.

Described in the charge sheet as ‘retired’, he lived peacefully in the former guerilla strong hold of Pailin until 2007, when an ageing Soviet-era chopper swooped down and police arrested and bundled him off to Phnom Penh.

For me, the news of the 87-year-old Sary’s death was very much a case of fact and fiction merging.  Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge in 1996 forms the historical backdrop of my crime novel set in Cambodia, Ghost Money.

Normally, I’d feel dreadful using someone’s death as an excuse to plug my book, but I’ll make an exception in Sary’s case.

I was just about to a stint as a journalist with one of the wire services in Phnom Penh, when news of Sary’s defection from the Khmer Rouge broke.… Read more

Guest post: a sense of place

Texan crime writer Jim Wilsky is one half of the team behind Blood on Blood, one of the many excellent books produced by the publisher of my crime novel, Ghost Money, Snubnose Press. He and Frank Zafiro blog at the site, Hardboiled Partners in Crime.

Blood on Blood is a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game as two estranged half-brothers race against time (and each other) to try to find jewels from their father’s last big heist. It’s on my Kindle. Why don’t you put it on yours, too.

Frank was good enough to drop by to talk about a sense of place and how it features in his writing.

Take it away, Jim.

First of all, I want to say what a pleasure it is to be doing a guest post on Andrew’s page here. Being asked to do this by a brother Snubnose Press author makes it even better.

If you’re reading this, but you haven’t read Andrew’s new book Ghost Money yet, then I have to say you’re missing the boat. You’ve had a tragic lapse in judgment. Redeem yourself! Get a copy of Ghost Money. You’ll enjoy a terrific book.

Andrew wanted me to write a little about the crime fiction scene in Texas, where I live and work.… Read more

Noir Con or bust guest post #6: a place to start

For my last ‘Noir Con or bust’ guest post, please welcome Sandra Seamans. As I’ve mentioned many times on this blog, one of the things about the crime fiction scene in the US I’m most envious of, is the incredibly vibrant network on on-line websites and print magazines that specialise in short crime fiction.

Not only do they produce some top notch crime fiction, they’re a great place for new and emerging crime writers to start cutting their teeth on their craft. This short fiction is also read by other authors, agents, and publishers. A number of crime writers have gone from submitting to these sites to getting their first publishing deal. 

Sandra has been published on a number of these sites. A collection of her stories, Cold Rifts, is published by Snubnose Press. Her blog, My Little Corner, is a great source of information about the US crime fiction scene, particular the short fiction scene. Read her post then check it out. You’ll see what I mean.

You’ve taken classes, got a handle on putting words together and you’ve written the most brilliant story in the world.  Yeah.  We’ve all felt that way about our first story and that’s what makes us fear the next step in the process. … Read more