Noir fiction for the modern reader.

Well, I just bought the new James Ellroy novel, Blood’s A Rover.  Lindsey Losnedahl of the Las Vegas Review-Journal liked it, and I have to admit, I’ve been looking forward to it for some time, as I do all of his novels.  In my opinion, his LA Quartet ranks as one of the greatest achievements in all of crime fiction.  I’m even going to get him to sign this new book when he appears here in Las Vegas in a few weeks.  But things are just a little different this time around.

His last effort, The Cold Six Thousand, was the second installment in his current trilogy.  The first, American Tabloid, was, in my opinion, a masterpiece.  It stood to reason that Six Thousand, which began literally on the very day of the finale of Tabloid, would carry me through more wonderful reading sessions.  I saw myself being enveloped in Ellroy’s machine-gun writing style, swiftly transported into his cynical world of killers, drug dealers, hookers, and high-level political intrigue.

All those elements were there, all right, but about halfway through the 600+ page book, I started to lose interest.  The characters started to repeat themselves, the story bogged down in its own multiplicity of plots, and worst of all, I knew where it was all headed. Nevertheless, I plowed on, turning page after page, hoping the whole thing would resuscitate itself.  It never did, and so, I did something I have never done in all my reading life.

I put the book down seven pages before the end.

Wracked with guilt, I stuck the book in a drawer and never looked at it again until I moved a few years ago, at which time I donated it, along with many other books, to the local library.

I might add at this point that I’ve never spoken to anyone about this, and in the years since, have heard only outstanding things about The Cold Six Thousand.

Without question, I’m going to read Blood’s A Rover as though none of the above had ever happened.  I’m sure it will pick up precisely where Six Thousand left off, and I know I’m going to love it.

Aren’t I?

My short story, Pickup Across The River, has been published on the outstanding online site, A Twist Of Noir.  A crime tale set in New Orleans, it features a touristy couple who are able to make passionate love to each other, then calmly attach silencers to their semiautomatics.  A direct link to the story is on the right of this page under “E-Publications”.

While the story was partly inspired by an old country song by the great Gene Watson, called Love In The Hot Afternoon, it’s not the first thing I’ve written that sprang from a song.  Three of my novels were inspired by just bits of songs, in some cases only two or three lines.  The Take, a noir novel which was recently picked up by L&L Dreamspell Publishing and will be released in 2010, came out of just two lines in the Marty Robbins song, El Paso.  The novel is a contemporary crime story, not a western, but nevertheless, the idea for it was revealed to me in those two lines.

I’ve heard of authors whose novels have emerged from flimsier ingredients:  the sight of rain hitting the street, the way a woman sashays into a bar, a fleeting memory of a long-ago moment, a newspaper headline, even dreams.  Anyone got any such stories they’d like to tell?

I’m happy to say that one of my short stories, Block, will be published in the 2009 Wizards Of Words Anthology, due out later this month.  It’s a noirish tale with Hitchcockian overtones, spun around Lila Rakubian, crime fiction author, who finds the characters of her novel-in-progress have deserted her.

I’ll be posting the anthology’s release date as soon as I learn it.  You can also go to wizardsofwords.org for more information on stories that will be appearing by other published authors.

Welcome to my website, mikedennisnoir.com.  This is my first post, and I’m very excited to finally get this site up and running.  A boatload of thanks to Leslie Michaelis of Las Vegas, who built it from the ground up.

I’m a crime fiction writer, living in Las Vegas, who’s been toiling in the vineyards for years until L&L Dreamspell Publishing picked up one of my novels, The Take.  It’s a fast-paced little noir effort that will be out sometime in 2010.   Thanks go to Morgan St James for her energetic efforts in helping me with the preliminary editing.  You can read an excerpt of it here on this site. 

I’ve always admired the best of the crime novelists.  I’m talking about hardboiled fiction guys like Jim Thompson, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, Gil Brewer, and Raymond Chandler, among others, who between them, managed to kick the door open a crack or two, all the while operating under the stigma of  “pulp” writer.  They made it ”respectable” to write crime fiction, elitist public opinion notwithstanding.  Later, you had Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, and so many others who shoved the door all the way open so guys like me could just walk right through it.  Speaking only for myself, I owe these men a serious debt of gratitude.