Noir fiction for the modern reader.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that a few weeks ago, I went to Sleuthfest up in Fort Lauderdale. Deerfield Beach, actually. While I was there, I connected with an agent and two publishers, each of which wanted to see a sample of the work that I pitched to them. I know, I know, these agents and publishers all say that while they’re at these conventions, then they go back to New York and send out the form-rejection emails the minute they walk in their office.

This was a little different, though. Not because I really believe that they were so enraptured by my pitch, but because I pitched a different novel to each one of them.

I’ve got these three noir novels, all set in Key West, and they’re all pretty much ready to go. I’d really like the three-book set to be picked up, but I know I’m dreaming. It’s not a trilogy in the usual sense, in that there’s no overall story arc through all three books, but several secondary characters and locales pop up in all three, lending an underlying continuity to it. They span 20 years, from 1991-2011, and I’m currently working on a fourth that’s set around the Millennium.

Now, here’s my problem. If even one of them, especially Akashic Books, picks me up, then I’ll go for it. (I say especially Akashic because they have some great books and they specialize in the noir subgenre, which is where I do all my writing) So it’ll be two years probably before the book comes out. Okay, I get it. I’m just not sure I want to wait four more years for the other two, which will sit around gathering dust all that time. The siren of the digital world is calling me. And I feel my resistance, which has been high for years, is now withering.

Yes, I’ve read all the Konrath-Hocking-Eisler stories and I know who’s tearing up the digital bestseller lists. It’s pretty persuasive stuff, you know? Get your novel formatted, edited, and with a good cover, and you’re up on Kindle within a couple of weeks, selling books. Then, as the script goes, head for the blogs, shout it from your website, get on Facebook and Goodreads, get a few decent reviews, and before you can say “$2.99″, you’ll be selling 1000 books a month.

At least, that’s how it appears to go for the majority of the authors I read about on the Kindle Boards and elsewhere. Really. A lot of these authors have published their sales figures, and most of them started in 2009 or 2010, and now they’re selling thousands of books. Some of them even say they haven’t done much promotion: “just an interview on a blog or two and not much else”, one said. Another one went from zero to 1000 books a day in three weeks! The room is spinning.

Okay, I know these are the exceptions. Trouble is, I’m way down there in the “rule” territory. I’ve got my self-published short story collection, Bloodstains On The Wall, up on Kindle, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords, priced at 99¢ and it’s going nowhere. My novel, The Take, was put up by my publisher and priced by them as well (at $4.99), so I’m not privy to the sales figures, but I can easily say it’s also nowhere. This is after months of working all day, every day, on blogs, getting reviews, Facebook, etc, etc.

I’m 100% positive the reason it’s not selling has nothing to do with the writing. I mean, those who have read them have liked them, and I’m not talking about friends and family, either. I mean, they can’t say the writing isn’t any good when nobody’s read it, right? No, I believe they’re not selling because I haven’t yet snapped to the promotional tricks the successful authors are using to break out of the pack.

Another big difference between me and all of them is genre. In fact, come to think of it, this may be the real reason. For the most part, they’re all writing the Sci-Fi, Fantasy-Dragons, YA, Vampire-Zombie, Paranormal Romance kind of stuff that kids with Kindles want to read. I’m doing noir. Can’t you hear them now? “Noir? Noir? What’s that?”

Well, I’m still tempted. If these three novel submissions don’t pan out, I’m putting all three up on Kindle at once. I mean, selling a few copies digitally is better than selling no copies while waiting for the “gatekeepers” to let me in. Isn’t it?

Or is it?

The folks over at TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com were kind enough to post a review of Bloodstains On The Wall. You can check it out here (scroll down a little when you get there). And afterward, please leave a comment of some kind. It’ll mean a lot to me and to them. Thanks.

For all those of you who attended last year’s Bouchercon, or if you plan on going this year, you should’ve received your Anthony ballots by now. There’s a little category on there for “Best First Novel,” encompassing those first novels published in 2010. There’s space for you to write in five novels.

Now, I know most of us haven’t read five first novels that were published last year, so if you find yourself with an empty slot or two in that category, how about jotting down my little noir opus called The Take? I know this seems a little brazen, but hey, who’s gonna blow my horn if I don’t do it first?

Besides, you only get one chance at a best first novel.

Vicki Hendricks gave it a blurb (which you can read here), so I figure I must’ve done something right. Right?

The cheap chicks over at DailyCheapReads.com were kind enough to feature my collection of noir short stories, Bloodstains On The Wall, on their site the day before yesterday. Check it out here. They even called it “great late night reading”. You may be assured I will use that hot blurb. A big thanks goes out to them. They’ve got a great site. Go have a look at it.

My latest literary effort is now an ebook, available on Amazon’s Kindle store, as well as Smashwords. It’s a collection of short stories called Bloodstains On The Wall. The collection consists of three stories, all from different corners of the world of noir. Here’s a brief description of each:

1. FULLY LOADED It’s 1984 and Biloxi, Mississippi has seen better days. Sherry Lamar, used car saleswoman extraordinaire, is feeling the pinch. Then one day, a stranger walks onto her small car lot and ushers her into a world of steamy sex and murder.

2. THE DEVIL DRIVES A BIG MERCEDES A seven-year-old boy is playing with his two younger sisters when a minor accident occurs. One of the sisters is to blame, but she blames the boy and their mother believes her, punishing the boy. This starts him on a downward spiral into self-doubt and later, depravity, that will last his entire life.

3. BLOCK A famous crime fiction novelist thinks the current book she’s working on will revive her sagging fortunes. Halfway through it, however, she develops writer’s block and is unable to continue her story, until a mysterious early-morning phone caller claims to have the answers.

In two of the three stories, the central character is a woman. I didn’t plan it that way, but that’s how they spoke to me.

The knockout cover was designed by Ronnell Porter and the formatting was done by Jenna Lundeen.

The entire collection of three stories is available now on Amazon for, get this, only 99¢. How can you not order one?

Over at The Kill Zone today, James Scott Bell blogged about his influences in his writing, and he reeled off an impressive list of authors and how each one affected him. While commenting on his piece, it occurred to me to think about that subject and who my influences were.

As I wrote in Jim’s blog, the first real novel I ever read (or can remember reading) was Moby-Dick. Naturally, we all had to read it in school and we trudged through it as best we could, but something about that book stayed with me, so about a year later, I reread it on my own. I then realized for the first time what could be done with a story, how it can be taken to the farthest reaches of the human experience, how incredible it was that someone could open with something so deceptively simple as “Call me Ishmael” and then follow those three little words with one of the most powerful tales ever conceived.

Anyway, being as young as I was, I’m sure I missed a lot of what Herman Melville was trying to say, but I got enough to fuel my desire to read more. I read other novels of his, but of course, none of them measured up to Moby-Dick.

So I read a few more books and pretty soon I started seeing James Michener’s Hawaii in everyone’s hands. I went ahead and read it and was astounded by the scope of the tale, from the actual formation of the island chain itself up to the tangled politics of statehood. Again, I read several other Michener novels, and while a couple of them were excellent, Hawaii remained at the top of the heap.

Ayn Rand showed me how personal one’s writing could become as The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged insinuated themselves into my being. To this day, I curse the Hollywood powers that cast Gary Cooper as Howard Roark, because Cooper clearly did not get the character at all. His key scene at the end, a very long courtroom speech (which Rand insisted go into the movie word for word as a condition of her signing the rights deal) was completely out of his range and he just did not understand anything Roark was saying. It was a good thing I’d read the book first.

Love Rand or hate her, The Fountainhead is still a great novel and a milestone in storytelling.

My father read a couple of Mike Hammer novels by Mickey Spillane, so I got them as hand-me-downs. Spillane’s visceral, in-your-face style proved to be the other side of the hardboiled coin from Raymond Chandler’s cool detachment. They could take a routine plot and spin it so you would think the story has never been told before. And in doing so, Spillane’s New York and Chandler’s LA burst off the pages at me in ways I will never forget.

I discovered Jim Thompson almost by accident. I read an article about a movie that Anjelica Huston was going to make called The Grifters, based on Thompson’s 1963 novel. Huston said that the novel was a page-turner, with dark and desperate characters. Somewhere in this article, I believe, was the first time I’d ever hear the word “noir” applied to novels. They said the movie, despite being shot in color, was a perfect example of film noir, and that Thompson’s book was an equally perfect example of noir fiction. Being an aficionado of film noir, I rushed out to buy the book, fortunate that Black Lizard had re-released the work of a bunch of the old noir authors. Of course, The Grifters was great, both the novel and the movie, and I loaded up on Thompson immediately afterward. No one, and I mean no one, has ever penetrated the inner workings of the criminal mind as thoroughly as Jim Thompson.

Well, naturally, from there it was only a short hop over to David Goodis, Charles Willeford, Lawrence Block, and Gil Brewer. Noir city, baby.

Somewhere in there, James Ellroy drifted into my sights. I read his LA Quartet and saw how highly stylish and rhythmic an author could be without ever losing control of the story, keeping the reader’s eyes glued to the page. I still look forward to every Ellroy novel.

There have been many others, of course, like Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, and Andrew Vachss, but you know, this blog has to end sometime, so I guess it’ll be now.

Booklist, the prestigious review magazine, has reviewed The Take in their latest online edition. In case you don’t understand why I’m doing cartwheels in my living room before popping champagne, it’s because Booklist receives submissions of over 60,000 novels each year, but reviews fewer than 1500. Most of the books they review are in the broad mystery genre, which of course encompasses the noir subgenre of The Take, but nevertheless, I’m ecstatic.

Now, apparently the reviewer does not quite get the world of noir and its population of characters with less than stellar IQs. And he certainly didn’t think he was reading The Maltese Falcon, but hey, I’m not complaining. He liked my novel and that’s good enough for me.

The review is also going to appear in their newsletter, which goes out to some 90,000 librarians. And if they don’t start ordering the book for their libraries, I’m calling Charlie Stella to get Jimmy Bench-Press after them.

You can read the full review here.

YOU’LL DIE NEXT by Harry Whittington

Review by Mike Dennis

Henry Wilson’s got it made. He’s sitting in his little kitchen eating popovers, carbing out on the sugar juices stirring in his mouth. Meanwhile, his wife Lila is whipping up his bacon and eggs. She’s absolutely gorgeous and she fawns over him nonstop. He knows he’s homely, and he can’t believe how lucky he is that a guy like him could land a girl like her.

Yes, everything is perfect in Henry Wilson’s world. But then the doorbell rings right while he’s chomping on a popover and he gets up to answer it, immediately plunging him into a hell from which he may never emerge.

Harry Whittington churned out nearly 200 novels during an incredible career that spanned the 1950s and 60s. He was one of the first exclusively-paperback novelists, appearing on the scene almost as soon as the medium was created. His strength was plotting. “I could plot, baby. I could plot,” he used to say, and could he ever!

That talent was never so forcefully confirmed as it was in 1954′s You’ll Die Next!. In this noir tale, which comes in this 1992 edition with a splendid introduction by Bill Crider, Henry Wilson’s life becomes a nightmare, shot through with terror, and with treachery awaiting him at every turn. The reader will feel like taking a long shower after trailing Wilson through the ash heaps and filthy alleys of Whittington’s dark, animated imagination.

Like most of Whittington’s novels, it’s short. The paperback publishers of the day apparently didn’t want to waste a lot of money on ink, paper, and shipping, so they accepted a lot of work that would today be considered “too short”. None other than Anthony Boucher, however, reviewed it for The New York Times Book Review, stating he was glad it was so short because “I couldn’t have held my breath any longer in this vigorous tale whose plot is too dexterously twisted even to mention in a review.”

And twisted it is. All I’ll say is, just be careful the next time you answer the door.

THE BRAT by Gil Brewer

Review by Mike Dennis

“She was a human magnet to me and she knew it, understood it, from the instant we crossed gazes.”

That sentence could be inserted into just about any Gil Brewer novel you care to name. It just happened to be in The Brat, but a variation on that sentence appears in nearly all of them.

Brewer’s books revolve around everyday guys who become ensnared by the deadly wiles of smokin’ hot babes. When all the dust settles, the typical Brewer protagonist usually regrets the day he laid eyes on the girl, but hey, she was hot, right? What choice did he have?

Of course, the guys always had a choice, and they usually chose wrong. That’s the human condition, and that’s really what noir fiction is all about, a genre at which Brewer excelled.

You never feel like you’re reading a write-by-the-numbers book when you read one of Brewer’s novels. Even though the story lines are startlingly similar, they’re all executed with a fresh approach. The plots all seem original and Brewer’s writing forces you to turn the page.

The Brat, which is from 1957, deals with Lee Sullivan, ordinary Joe, who walks straight into a frameup job for robbery and murder. It’s a tight frame and it’s been cleverly set up by Evis, the girl referenced in the above quote, who sets his heart pounding every time he thinks about her. He eludes capture and pursues the girl, who has fled to her family’s shack deep in the Everglades, where she was raised. But does he want revenge or does he want her?

Reading this novel, you can feel the steam rising from the marshes and you’re glad you’re not there. You can feel the sweat dripping off the characters as they chase each other through the great, lonely swamp. You can feel the overheated passion that consumes Sullivan every step of the way, and you’re not even sure if he knows why he’s doing all this. This is noir, baby!

A vintage Gil Brewer effort, The Brat is highly recommended, and it reminds us of just how masterfully he told a story.