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FAMILY MATTERS: WALTER MOSLEY'S GRAY DAWN
With Gray Dawn, Walter Mosley uses his famed private eye, Easy Rawlins, to examine the concept of family, the ones we are raised in and bound by blood as well as those we build and choose. He portrays the strength and struggles of both and its effect on its most grounded members. The book pulls a great hat trick of dealing with such heavy concepts while being light on its feet. Things kick into gear when Santangelo Burris hires easy to find his aunt Latisha James for his sic


THINKING OUTSIDE THE LOCKED ROOM: BILL PRONZINI'S TALES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE
I never saw myself as a fan of the locked room mystery. I thought of them as more about puzzle and plot, pushing character and style aside. As if laying a gauntlet down, one of my favorite writers, Bill Pronzini, releases Tales of the Impossible, a collection of many of those stories in the genre divided into sections of stand alones and with his series characters The Nameless Detective and Quincannon. He recently put out The Hangmen & Other Western Stories that proved the ra


"ALL HORROR STEMS FROM YOU AND YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS.": THE ESSENTIAL HORROR'S JOE R. LANSDALE
.Joe Lansdale's multi-genre career started with horror. Tachyon Books recently released The Essential Horror, celebrating both his four decades in the genre and the range he has has in. It's a dark, bloody, harrowing and even sometimes funny greatest hits that makes for perfect Halloween season reading. I asked Joe some questions about working in the genre and a recently published short story he and his son, Keith, wrote for a collection inspired by Alfred Hitchcock. SCOTT M


"...IT WAS INTERESTING WRITING HOW HE FOUGHT AND VIEWED BATTLES": AN INTERVIEW WITH CONAN: SONGS OF THE SLAIN'S TIM LEBBON
In the latest novel to continue the adventures of Robert E. Howard's Conan, Tim Lebbon looks at the man in middle age as king. In keeping a word to an ally from his past, he travels a dangerous road to save the man's family from slavers lead by Grake, a barbarian who wishes to face off with him and joined to people with magical powers who have their own reasons to kill Conan. Mr. Lebbon was kind enough to take some questions. SCOTT MONTGOMERY: H ow did you get the opportunity


MASTERS OF SUSPENSE: BIRDS, STRANGERS, AND PSYCHOS edited by MAXIM JAKUBOWSKI
Few directors have had as much cultural and artistic impact as Alfred Hitchcock. For close to a century, his films influenced as many fiction writers as filmmakers. Therefore it made sense for writer and editor Maxim Jakubowski's latest anthology to look at Hitch in Birds, Strangers, and Psychos. Some of the authors take a Hitchcock trope or concept and play with it in their own sandbox. Joe and Keith Lansdale track how a misunderstanding at a "Coat Check" escalates into a co


TEN FAVORITE ELMORE LEONARD BOOKS FROM ME AND THREE FROM PEOPLE WHO MATTER
This Saturday, October 11th, will be the hundredth year of Elmore Leonard, a writer who had influence on both western and crime writers...


THE LONG RIDE OF THE HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER: SHAWN LEVY'S CLINT:THE MAN AND THE MOVIES
Just so you know for this review, I'm a diehard Clint Eastwood fan. As both actor and director I can defend everything except Pink...


THE DEVIL AND POLITICS: KIT BURGOYNE'S THE CAPTIVE
Kit Burgoyne's The Captive's elevator pitch could be "Patty Hearst has Rosemary's Baby". NAIL, a group of British revolutionary...


FOUR DECADES OF TERROR: JOE R. LANSDALE'S THE ESSENTIAL HORROR
While Joe R. Lansdale writes in many genres, he established himself mainly with short horror fiction in the early eighties. However, as...


UNEARTHED ELMORE: ELMORE LEONARD'S PICKET LINE
Nearing Elmore Leonard's birthday, Mariner Publishing unearthed Picket Line a novella he wrote at a crossroads of his career. Still known...
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