Noir fiction for the modern reader.

EVERY SHALLOW CUT by Tom Piccirilli (2011)

Review by Mike Dennis

What’s the deal with Tom Piccirilli? Doesn’t he realize too much backstory is fatal to any novel? That it absolutely has to be woven in to the story, not dumped up front? Doesn’t he realize you need ample dialogue to move everything along? The reader will, you know, get awfully bored reading all that narrative. There are, after all, rigid rules all writers must follow.

Well, maybe he doesn’t realize the existence of these rules, because if he did, he might not have written Every Shallow Cut (ChiZine Publications, 2011), a shattering novella of our times.

On second thought, maybe he does know about the rules, but broke them anyway, which makes him a far better author than most people realize.

Incredibly, the entire first half of this compact book (I read the paperback in its unusually small format) is nearly all backstory, with Piccirilli pulling a reverse, deftly weaving in the actual story while he recites the grim history of his nameless central character. Dialogue is virtually absent throughout this first half as well, leaving the reader to turn the page solely on the strength of the author’s bleeding prose, as he plunges us into a hard-edged tale of a man whose life has evaporated, who has lost everything in our troubled economic times.

This character is the quintessential noir protagonist. From the first page, he’s in deep shit, largely because of his own bad choices, and it only goes downhill from there. And as with all of us when we make bad decisions, the fiddler must be paid. Yes, Piccirilli follows the noir playbook perfectly.

But somehow, Every Shallow Cut transcends noir and its conventions. It leaps up and slaps you in the face and screams at you that maybe we’re all in deep shit, and maybe our decisions have nothing to do with it. Maybe we all have a screw quietly loosening somewhere in the darkest corners of our souls which, given the right circumstances, could eventually cause all of us to become unspooled.

In addition to the central character, none of the characters has a name, and this fits the story well, because, like it or not, names carry connotations which help bring fictional characters into sharp focus. Piccirilli’s characters are meant to remain cloudy in our mind’s eye, as if seen through a window streaked over with grime. This way, they are almost interchangeable with people we might know, maybe even with ourselves. Even the cover is hard to read. This all adds up to very little distance between the reader and the characters, making the reader uncomfortable and providing a more powerful emotional wallop.

Piccirilli is an excellent author, having written over twenty novels, along with numerous short stories and novellas, and this is not the first of his books that I’ve read. It is, however, the best. I’ve wondered why he’s not better known, why his books don’t sell in such numbers as to propel him into permanent status on bestseller lists. It might be because the American reading public is not ready for the likes of Every Shallow Cut. It’s a masterpiece far ahead of its time.

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.

The folks over at DailyCheapReads.com have featured the first novel in my Key West Nocturnes series, Setup On Front Street, today. You can check it out here.

I’ve watched this site become very popular among readers over the last year or so. Daily references to it can usually be found on the Kindle Boards Writers Café. Indie authors are often lined up to secure a spot on it. They’ve worked hard over there at building their reputation. So please check them out. You won’t be disappointed.

And when you’re there, please leave a brief comment.

THAT DAMNED COYOTE HILL by Heath Lowrance (2011)

Reviewed by Mike Dennis

Enigmatic stranger rides into town, kicks ass, rides out.

You’ve seen it a thousand times, right? Didn’t most Randolph Scott movies follow that story line? Some might say that terse little synopsis sums up Heath Lowrance’s short story, That Damned Coyote Hill. But if they said that, they’d fall way short of nailing the essence of this riveting western-horror-noir tale that defies all known genre boundaries. You’ve never seen that story line unfold like this.

Set in the Old West town of Coyote Hill, Lowrance’s stranger shows up in a driving rain as two fight promoters are issuing challenges on behalf of their fighter. Money changes hands, cowboys step up to face the fighter, aptly named Goliath Bunker, and the spectators look on, all of them oddly mute. Hawthorne, the laconic, Charles Bronson-ish stranger, steps forward and everything changes. I’ll just leave it at that.

Lowrance, who shot onto my radar with his terrific debut novel, The Bastard Hand, has shown he’s not afraid to take chances, to take the reader into parts utterly unknown. The beginning of The Bastard Hand threw me a real curve ball, catching me totally off guard, but his prose kept me turning the page. I know this about him now, so I’ll delve into anything he writes, knowing he can transport me to uncharted areas of fiction. And That Damned Coyote Hill fulfills that promise. Lowrance has vowed to keep the Hawthorne stories coming, and when he does, I’ll be there to pick up the next one.

A great story, highly recommended.

Once again, James Scott Bell has reeled me in to his topic du jour over at The Kill Zone. Today he waxed eloquent about the treacherous path from idea to story. Seems he had an idea for a full chapter some years ago, so he wrote it down. Then he set it aside as other projects commanded his attention. Eventually, though, he went back to it and extracted a novella from it. That brought to mind a similar experience of mine.

Approximately 25 years ago, a friend of mine said, “When I write my novel, I’m going to start off with this line: I moved into the Napoleon House on the day XXXXX died.” (I forget the guy’s name who died, but he was well-known around the Napoleon House in New Orleans) The line struck me as a good one. I loved the idea of tying a new-day-dawning event with someone’s death. I was well into my first novel at the time, but this line stayed with me.

Fast forward to 2009. I’m ready to start a new novel. I’m casting about for ideas. I know that, since I can’t really make up stories in advance, I’m going to have to wing it, as always, letting my characters tell the story while I merely write it down. That line, which had festered in the outer swamps of my memory, awaiting reclamation, finally showed itself and I jumped on it.

I changed it around a little, turning it into, “I got back to Key West on the day Aldo Ray died.”

Of course, I now had to add tens of thousands of additional words to complete that story, and I had no idea what those words would be, but the line got me going. I asked myself, “Who’s coming back to Key West, why is he coming back, and what’s the deal with Aldo Ray?” Ray was a movie actor from the 1950s, usually assigned to tough guy roles, so I took it from there and before you could say “Key West noir”, the book had taken flight.

Which brings me to the title.

I had actually completed the first draft without a title. I had absolutely no hints as to what this novel would be called. I was getting desperate and my title-idea well was virtually dry. Fortunately, I was playing professional poker at the time at Bellagio in Las Vegas and that would be my salvation.

In Las Vegas cardrooms, if a player wants a new deck, he/she requests it from the dealer. The dealer then calls out to the floorman for a setup, which is casino parlance for a little box containing two new decks of cards. One day, a player at my table made such a request and the dealer hollered out, “Setup on fourteen!”, since we were playing at table fourteen at the time. Something snapped inside me and I mentally transformed that to “Setup On Front Street“, and I had my title.

I’m just glad we weren’t sitting at table five or something. I’d probably still be searching.

Big Al, over at BooksAndPals.blogspot.com, has reviewed my short story collection, Bloodstains On The Wall, and given it 4 stars (out of a possible 5). You can check it out here. It’s clear to me from his review that he totally gets noir and has therefore earned a place in my pantheon of Guys With Great Insight. If you have a moment, please go there and leave a brief comment.

And while you’re there, check out some of his other reviews, equally insightful, including a now-classic review of The Greek Seaman by Jacqueline Howett. That one has so far attracted 309 comments. That’s not a misprint. 309! Believe me when I tell you, all of cyberspace was buzzing about this review and the subsequent comments. It’s worth a look.

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.