Noir fiction for the modern reader.

The third entry in my Key West Nocturnes Series, Man-Slaughter, is now available. It’s a very noir tale of a man on the run with few choices open to him. Here’s a brief description:

It’s hot in the Florida Keys in August. For Teddy Myles, it’s even hotter as he tries to outrun both the law and his partners in crime. He flees to Key West to set up a new identity and an escape to the Caribbean. But he meets up with Gail, a sexy local, who has other things in mind for him.

Soon he finds himself trapped into pulling one more job, this one for over a million. His former partners are tracking him, the cops are onto him, and a hurricane is coming.

Time is running out, but will it be on his side?

As you can see, the front cover is sensational, another knockout punch from designer Jeroen ten Berge. And as you can also see, it carries a blurb from Max Allan Collins. Needless to say, I’m thrilled at this.

For those of you who are familiar with this series, this novel takes place in the present, and features some of the same secondary characters and locales as the first two books in the series. Of course, like the others, it’s set in the shadows of Key West, where the tourists never go, and like each of the others, it features a different central character.

Next up is the fourth installment in this series, The Guns Of Miami, which probably won’t be released until sometime in 2013.

Man-Slaughter is available as an eBook. The paperback version can be found here.

No less an author than Jeffery Deaver has seen fit to give a blurb to The Ghosts Of Havana. What he said was:

“The Ghosts Of Havana will keep you riveted. Author Dennis nails both noir tone and thriller plotting perfectly!”

I mean to tell you, it doesn’t get much better than that. A blurb like that from Deaver, who ranks as the #1 thriller author in America, and maybe the world, means a lot to a struggling writer like myself. His credentials would take forever to unfurl, but his latest novel is Carte Blanche (007 James Bond), written at the behest of Ian Fleming Publications. He has over 25 novels to his credit and numerous short stories, as well as a slew of awards.

If you want to read books you can’t put down, buy a couple of his. And while you’re at it, pick up a copy of The Ghosts Of Havana.

Thanks, Jeff.

My new short story, The Session, just went live on Kindle. Here’s a brief description:

Jeff Dryden is a top recording session guitarist in LA. Makes big money. Has a beautiful wife and a big house. Life is good.

But one night, he’s awakened by a phone call from a record producer who needs him for a session right away. The money is good, so he agrees, but this late-night session will dredge up long-buried memories and dreams, and wind up changing his life forever.

THE SESSION calls together Mike Dennis’ past as a professional musician and his present as a noir fiction author in a harrowing portrayal of a man who can’t quite grab the brass ring.

This is a good story, if I do say so myself. And it’s only 99¢. Come on, what are you waiting for. Go here and pick it up.

Make no mistake, Jeroen ten Berge, my cover designer, is well worth the wait. I contacted him over a month ago to do the cover for my new novelette, Temptation Town, and he said it would take awhile before he could get around to it. He did the covers for Setup On Front Street and The Ghosts Of Havana, which I consider masterpieces of book cover design, so I agreed to wait. In the interim, I designed a makeshift cover myself so I could upload it to Kindle. But the real deal has arrived. I’m sure you’ll agree, it’s sensational.

It’s a novelette, about 12,000 words, and the first in my hardboiled Jack Barnett / Las Vegas series. He’s a reluctant ex-private investigator who … oh, never mind. Buy the book. It’s only $2.99 on Kindle and the print version goes live on CreateSpace some time next week. It’s priced at a modest $9.95. It also comes with an exclusive preview of the next Barnett installment, a short story called Hard Cash.

My new novelette, a hardboiled Las Vegas tale called Temptation Town, is now live on Kindle. It’s the first in the Jack Barnett series about a reluctant ex-private investigator laying low in Sin City. Here’s a brief description:

Jack Barnett has had it with the private eye business. They took his license away in LA, and fearing criminal prosecution, he split town in the middle of the night for Las Vegas, where anyone can become anonymous.

He swears off the business, but his money runs low and when a man offers him $5000 to find his missing daughter, he agrees. He soon wishes he hadn’t when the haunting memory of a woman from his past gets in the way.

Temptation Town is a hardboiled novelette, the first of the Jack Barnett series from Mike Dennis. Set in the steaming underbelly of Las Vegas, these tales of a reluctant ex-private investigator drag the reader down the darkest streets of Sin City, USA.

The book also comes with an exclusive preview of the next installment in the Barnett series, a short story called Hard Cash.

It’s available now in ebook form (it’ll be out in paperback in a few weeks) and you can get it here. Please pick up a copy. And then leave a brief review on Amazon. It would really mean a lot to me.

One more thing. The cover you see is not the final cover. It’s currently being designed by my cover designer, Jeroen ten Berge, but it won’t be ready for a few weeks yet. So I whipped this cover up to serve as an interim piece. If you buy the book between now and the time I get the final cover, and if you can’t live without it, I’ll send you a copy of the finished cover when I get it.

Now how can you refuse that deal?

Yes, you’ve heard the buzz! You’ve seen the TV ads! You’ve felt the thrill! Now, at long last, my new novel, The Ghosts Of Havana, is available on Kindle, Nook, and iPad. Paperback will follow soon.

It’s a tense tale of old vendettas, the second book in my Key West Nocturnes series, where I lift the veil off Key West, revealing it as a true noir city. Here’s a brief description of The Ghosts Of Havana.

A young woman is brutally murdered in the back of a Key West nightclub. Robbie, the club’s owner, and Elena, the victim’s sister, believe that a local strip club operator is to blame. However, they soon learn that larger, far more sinister forces are behind the killing, and they become ensnared in a deadly race to a safe deposit box in Las Vegas, whose contents hold the key to decades-old secrets and threaten national security.

The second exciting novel in Mike Dennis’ Key West Nocturnes series, The Ghosts Of Havana continues to lift the veil off Key West, revealing it as a true noir city, on a par with Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Miami.

This book can fairly be called a noir thriller, if there is such a thing. It’s currently available on Kindle, Nook, and iPad for $3.99. The paperback, which is a couple of weeks away, will be $14.95. All formats come with a sneak preview of Man-Slaughter, the third novel in the series.

Please, everyone rush to Amazon, specifically here, or B&N’s Nook page (here), and buy the book. You won’t be sorry. And neither will I.

Okey-doke, fiction lovers, here’s a first. I’ve recorded an audiobook version of Setup On Front Street. I’m posting chapter 1 right here. As soon as I can figure out how to put it over on the side there with all the fancy covers and everything, I’ll do it, but for now, you’ll just have to get it from this post.

I’m also going to put it on Amazon so you may download it onto your “approved electronic device”. Howzat!! (Naturally, this will occur after many curse-filled hours of struggling with technological beasts)

Oh, and for some reason I cannot fathom, I’m unable to attach anything here over 2 MB. The full chapter, which runs, like, all of four pages in the book, is way too big, so I had to break it up into three consecutive parts. There might be another way to do it, but I’m just learning about all this, so please be patient.

In the meantime, here, in three installments, is the first gripping chapter of Setup On Front Street.

SETUP ON FRONT STREET / Chapter 1 / Part 1

SETUP ON FRONT STREET / Chapter 1 / Part 2

SETUP ON FRONT STREET / Chapter 1 / Part 3

The folks over at LoveThyAuthor.com have reviewed Setup On Front Street, and have seen fit to give it 4.7 stars (out of a possible 5). You can check out the review here. When you go there, please check out the rest of the site. It’s pretty impressive. And if you have a moment, please leave a brief comment. Thanks.

For a very limited time only, Setup On Front Street, my noir novel set in Key West, will be on sale in ebook form for only 99¢. Normally, it’s $2.99, but starting tomorrow (or the day after, depending on when Amazon approves the price change), it drops to 99 big ones. The print version remains at $12.95.

The print version of Setup On Front Street went live today. It’s available on CreateSpace and Amazon now. Price: $12.95 (cheap).