Tag Archives: Heath Lowrance

LEE, an anthology of fiction inspired by Lee Marvin

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

LEE cover-I am a HUGE Lee Marvin fan.

Survivor of the carnage of World War Two, drinker, larger than life character, enduring icon of masculine cinema, the star of some of  my favourite films, including The Big Heat, The Killers, Point Blank, Prime Cut and The Dirty Dozen. The man who, in the words of his most recent biographer, “cemented the most purposeful and consistent portrayal of man’s violent and primal inner demons in the history of modern American cinema”.

Well over a year ago myself and fellow Marvin fanatic and Crime Factory editor in chief Cameron Ashley, were sitting in a bar drunkenly bullshitting about future projects, when we stumbled across the idea of doing an anthology of stories inspired by the life of one of our favourite movie stars.

The final product of that conversation, LEE, will be unleashed onto the world in a few weeks time. In the meantime, I thought readers might get a blast out of feasting their eyes on the cover above.

While putting together the book was not without its challenges, finding fellow crime writers who shared our passion for Marvin and who where prepared to put pen to paper to celebrate him and his movies, was not one of them. … Read more

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Lee Marvin, Roger Smith

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Noir Con or bust guest post #1: Heath Lowrance

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I’d be asking several US writers and bloggers I dig to guest post on Pulp Curry in the lead-up to my visit to the US to attend Noir Con in Philadelphia in early November. It’s a way of giving regular Pulp Curry readers a little taste of the crime writing scene in the US.

First up is Heath Lowrance, whose latest book City of Heretics has just come out through  Snubnose Press, the same publisher as my debut novel Ghost Money.

City of Heretics is about an aging con named Crowe, just out of prison and back in Memphis, ready for some payback against the criminals who got him sent up. Before Crowe can enjoy his revenge he has to track down a brutal murderer cutting a swath through the city—ultimately leading Crowe to confront a bizarre secret society of serial killers masquerading as a Christian splinter-group. 

It’s not the first time Lowrance has appeared on Pulp Curry. I reviewed his debut novel The Bastard Hand on this site last year. Lowrance writes across a number of genres, including crime fiction and Westerns. He’s one of those writers who combine the knack for telling a good hard boiled with excellent writing.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Noir Con, Noir fiction, Snubnose Press, Ted Lewis

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Interview: Brian Lindenmuth, editor, Snubnose Press

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Andrew Nette| 6 Comments

Several weeks ago I posted a piece about my upcoming crime novel, Ghost Money and the fact it was being published digitally in the US. 

Given the interest that post generated and the debate in Australia about digital publishing and pricing generally, I asked my publisher, Brian Lindenmuth from Snubnose Press, whether he’d answer a few questions about the first anniversary of Snubnose, the controversy around e-book pricing and what kind of crime fiction he’s looking for.

And a heads up for those reading who are sitting on a crime fiction manuscript, for the first time in 2012, Snubnose are open for submissions. Check out the site for details.

What is Snubnose Press and what kind of crime fiction do you publish?

Snubnose Press is the ebook imprint of Spinetingler Magazine.  Spinetingler has been around since 2005 and we wanted to branch out into new areas.  While we are mainly a crime fiction press we are open to other types of work. For example one of our more recent releases, The Duplicate by Helen Fitzgerald, isn’t a crime fiction novel. The crime fiction that we do publish tends towards the darker side of the spectrum.

Why did you set up as a small digital press? How did you think you could add value in the current publishing climate?… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Interviews, Noir fiction, Snubnose Press

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My manuscript finds a home

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 9 Comments

This is the blog entry I’ve been hoping to post on Pulp Curry for a long time now.

My unpublished manuscript, currently titled Cambodia Darkness and Light, has found a home.

It’s going to be published as an e-book in the United States next year by the good folks at Snubnose Press.

Haven’t heard of them?

Hmmm, perhaps that not surprising, especially if you are in Australia. But you’re going to. And soon.

Snubnose is a small outfit that specialises in crime fiction e-books, but they have big plans.

They have a great slate of authors planned for publication in 2012, including Heath Lowrance (whose first book The Bastard Hard I reviewed on this site several months ago), Nik Korpon, Chad Rohrbacher, fellow Aussie Helen Fitzgerald and Dan O’Shea, just to name a few of them.

That’s some serious emerging and established indie crime writing talent and I’m thrilled to be able to count myself among them.

It’s also great to get a crack at the US e-book market, which is far bigger than it is in Australia and growing at a rapid pace.

Of course, you’ll also be able to get the e-book here.

The blurb on the Snubnose site describes my book as “a hard-boiled novel about a Vietnamese-Australian ex-cop searching for a missing businessman in mid-90s Cambodia that brings to mind the novels of Martin Limón.”

… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction and film from Cambodia, Snubnose Press

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Psycho preacher alert: Heath Lowrance’s The Bastard Hand

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Ever since seeing Robert Mitchum as Harry Powell in the 1955 classic, Night of the Hunter, I’ve had a thing for itinerant unbalanced evangelical preachers.

Which is one reason I enjoyed Detroit-based writer Heath Lowrance’s debut novel, The Bastard Hand, so much.

The book is narrated by Charlie, a drifter fresh out of a psychiatric care where he was put after killing a policeman. He’s having a few problems adjusting to post-institutional life, little things, like the fact his hands glow with the power of God in the presence of wrongdoers.

After getting mugged within hours of arriving in Memphis, Charlie befriends a Baptist Reverend called Phineas Childe, agreeing to accompany him to the town of Cuba Landing, where the Reverend will be working.

Although Childe is no match for Mitchum’s Powell in the killing stakes, he is nonetheless a lying, drinking, womanizing, sleazy opportunist who manages to be charming and menacing at the same time.

Lowrance takes the reader on a wild ride through the corruption and deceit that bubbles away beneath the surface of Cuba Landing. Along the way we meet some great characters, including a couple of backwoods moonshiners, a bent mayor and his cop flunky, and a stick up gang of crack heads.

The Bastard Hand is by turns a lurid hard-boiled suspense novel and an elegant piss take of evangelical religion and small town mores.… Read more

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Posted in Book Reviews, Crime fiction, Noir fiction, Robert Mitchum

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