Noir fiction for the modern reader.

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.

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?