Tag Archives: Snubnose Press

My Summer appearances

SpaceAge big shopGreetings all, just wanted to drop by the site for a quick update.

One of the most popular articles on Pulp Curry so far has been ‘The death of a bookshop: a tribute to Melbourne’s Kill City Books’, which appeared here in July last year.

Given this, I thought readers might be interested in checking out a piece of mine that appeared in the Life and Style section of Melbourne’s The Age newspaper last weekend.

It’s an ode to three of Melbourne’s great bookshops, Kill City, Space Age Books and the wonderful Carlton Secondhand Books, all of which have closed. Space Age Books closed in the late eighties. Kill City shut its doors in 2005. Carlton Secondhand Books stopped operating at the end of last year.

You can find the piece on-line here.

While I’m pulling on your coat, I also have a piece in The King’s Tribune Summer Reading Special. It’s a look at one of the best local novels I read in 2013, Infamy by Lenny Bartulin, and the the status of the Western generally in Australian fiction and film. The issue is available to pre-order in hard copy from the the site.

If that’s not enough Summer reading, the Kindle edition of my crime novel set in nineties Cambodia, Ghost Money, is still available on the great Satan Amazon for just a dollar as part of Snubnose Press’s holiday sale.… 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