Noir fiction for the modern reader.

CRIME NIGHT 

at the CORK & STOGIE

1218 Duval St, Key West

On Wednesday, November 9, 2011, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. the Cork & Stogie hosts a dark and scream-filled night of crime and punishment when four of Key West’s finest crime story writers read from and discuss their work. Our writer line-up:

Jonathan Woods, author of Bad Juju and the forthcoming 

A Death in Mexico 

“Hallucinatory, hilarious, imaginative noir.” – New York Magazine

“A skilled writer, he…emulates Chandler and Hammett with his own off-kilter view of this world.” – Key West Citizen / Solares Hill

Michael Haskins, author of Chasin’ the Wind and Free Range Institution

“A spicy conch chowder flavored with dashes of small-town politics, Cuban intrigue…and island attitude.” – Florida Keys News Bureau

Mike Dennis, author of Set Up on Front Street and The Take

“Dennis writes true noir.” – Vicki Hendricks, author of Miami Purity

Jessica Argyle, author of Arrest Me (Before I Write Again)

“Very good on the male point of view (even the dead) and excellent on
foreshadowing (“there really was a theme developing, no doubt about
it…”). I enjoyed every minute.” – Mark Howell, editor Solares Hill

From left: Michael Haskins, Jessica Argyle, Mike Dennis, Jonathan Woods

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

Setup On Front Street is now out. It’s my latest novel, a noir tale from the shadows of Key West. But before you rush to buy a copy…

Here’s the deal with this book. It’s the first in a trio of novels set in Key West. What I want to do is lift the veil off this town and reveal it as a true noir city, on a par with Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Miami. You won’t find any margarita-guzzling goofballs in these pages, no clichéd characters.

People have told me not to do this, that readers actually want all that quirky stuff. They tell me readers want to open a book about Key West and feel like they’ve stepped into a Jimmy Buffett song. Word is, readers won’t accept Key West as having a dark center. Well, maybe they’re right, but I’m hoping they’re wrong. I’ve lived here for the better part of 20 years and I can easily say it’s a noir city. Rest assured you will find no Margaritaville stereotypes between these covers. Just noir, baby!

This is not a trilogy in that there’s no continuing story arc. Each novel is a standalone. But there are recurring secondary characters and locales, and of course, Key West itself is a great character in each book.

Now here’s a brief description:

Key West, 1991. Don Roy Doyle is back in town. Tough and quick-witted, he’s fresh out of prison, where he served three years for a diamond swindle. Now he’s back to collect his share of the proceeds, about $200,000, but the money has vanished.

A local family dynasty which has controlled the island’s politics for generations, a cop with a grudge, the FBI, and the Russian mob all have a stake in the action. They’re convinced Cuba is on the verge of “opening up”, and they all want Doyle gone.

In this tightly-knit town, who can be trusted? And how long can Doyle stay alive?

SETUP ON FRONT STREET takes you inside the world of Key West noir, a world tucked way back in the shadows, where the tourists never go.

The print version is $12.95, the ebook is $2.99. Print will be up in a few days. The ebook is available now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Also, if you would be so kind, please go to the CreateSpace Preview Gallery, where there is a gripping excerpt from this novel, and leave a rating. It just takes a second.

There’s an excellent website called whatbookisthat.com, which is primarily a review site. They review many different genres, and I was very pleased when they agreed to have a look at my noir novel, The Take. They gave it an A- and I’m delighted. You can check it out here and when you do, please leave a comment. It will really, really help out.

The folks over at PowderBurnFlash.com have been kind enough to publish one of my very short stories, called Ringtone. It’s there now. Go there and leave a comment. They’ve published some great crime/noir flash fiction and I’m very pleased to be included on their site.

Christopher Bunn has featured a very professional interview with yours truly on his website, Scribbles and Tunes. You can check it out here. And do me a favor. While you’re there, leave a comment, okay? It would mean a lot to me and to Christopher. He does a great job featuring indie authors and we should support him.

And yes, this interview includes an MP-3 of my lone hit record from the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Mary Pat Hyland has posted an excerpt from my noir short story Block over on her fine website, The Hylander Diner. Block is one of the “three stories from the dark side” which can be found in my very noir collection called Bloodstains On The Wall. Check out the excerpt here, then leave a comment. Mary Pat’s one of the “good guys”, and I’d like us to support her and her website.

Then, of course, after reading the excerpt, if you are so totally electrified, you can get the entire book here in either digital (99¢) or paperback ($9.95).

A kind of last-minute thing happened whereby I’ll be appearing on KONK-AM this morning at 10:30 EDT. I’m going to be discussing my books, especially the just-about-to-be-released Key West noir novel, Setup On Front Street. I know, I know, it’s only 20 minutes from now, but you can check out a live video feed of it by going here. If you don’t read this in time, no problem. The shows are archived, so you can watch it later, then have friends over to analyze the show, then post about it on Facebook, then write an essay on it, then see which other kids on your block watched it, then prepare for next April 27 to throw an anniversary party.

Nadine Earnshaw has featured an interview with me on her great website Indie Ebooks, along with a nice excerpt from Bloodstains On The Wall. Check it out, and while you’re there, look over the entire site. She’s got lots of different genres…something for everyone.

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up, but I had misplaced the cord that connects my camera to my laptop, enabling me to dump the photos into iPhotos. The pictures in the first Cuba post were taken with my cellphone.

Anyway, on with the show!

This was the first photo I took in Cuba. We were pulling out of José Martí International Airport in Havana, and I snapped this guy outside his house next to his 1957 Chevy.   

We headed for Viñales, a little town some 100 miles southwest of Havana. Along the way, every few miles, I saw people standing along the side of the highway. Sometimes there would be a half-dozen or more, sometimes only one or two. Our guide explained that they were “hitchhikers”. These “hitchhikers”, it turns out, play a key role in Cuba’s economy.

For decades, the government took all the crops grown in Cuba, paying the farmers a pittance. They had confiscated all the land, so the crops were theirs. Naturally, agricultural production nosedived, as the farmers figured, “Why should I bust my ass in the fields when I don’t get to keep any of what I grow?” So a few years ago, the government eased up. They set quotas for the farmers, and anything the farmer grew beyond that quota, he got to keep.

Well, production shot up as the farmers were finally able to glean some meager reward for their labor. They fed their families and what was left over, they sold to “middlemen”, operating in the black market. These middlemen would come to each farm, buy up what they could carry–say, 40 pounds of rice–then hitchhike to the nearest city, where they had an established route of customers. Knocking on doors in urban neighborhoods, they would sell the rice one pound at a time, for less than what it cost in the state-owned stores. After whacking it up with the local government officials, themselves paid very poorly and looking for extra income, these middlemen make out quite nicely. Everybody gets a taste.

When we got to our hotel, I took a deep breath as I stepped out onto the balcony of my room and saw this:

After getting my breath back, I headed straight for the bar, where to my joy, they had Cuban baseball on TV:

I had this one shot of me against the stunning backdrop, the beauty that is Cuba.

The next day, we went to a tobacco farm. The Viñales Valley is the most fertile soil in the world for growing tobacco. It’s where all the best Cuban cigars come from. We took the bus into town, then walked about two miles through the countryside to the farm. On the outskirts of town, I saw this car. I couldn’t resist the photo:

We’ll pick this up next time. The tobacco farm was pretty cool and we heard some great music that same night.