Posts Tagged ‘Black Alley’

Complex 90 Now On Kindle!

Tuesday, June 11th, 2013

After an inexplicable screw-up has finally been resolved, the new Spillane/Collins Mike Hammer novel, COMPLEX 90, is available as a Kindle e-book.

This week’s blog entry will be very short, because my son Nate was in Georgia over the weekend with his wife Abby, at a wedding, and will still be on the road when normally he would post this. So I am making his life (and, well, mine, a little) easier with this brief entry.

I will be starting the sixth and final Mike Hammer novel (of the substantial Hammer manuscripts in Mickey’s files), KING OF THE WEEDS, today. I was supposed to do that last week, but more galley proofs came in as well as some other unexpected writing chores. Chronologically, this is the penultimate novel in the saga – it was conceived to be the last Hammer, until 9/11 inspired Mickey to put it aside to write THE GOLIATH BONE. It is, in some respects, a sequel to BLACK ALLEY, the last Hammer published during Mickey’s lifetime.

Again, for those of you who want to see more, the best way to make that happen is to encourage other readers to pick up COMPLEX 90 (in whatever form) and post reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There are three more significant (if shorter) Hammer manuscripts, all from the 1950s, that could be the next three novels.

By the way, the offer of advances proofs of WHAT DOESN’T KILL HER saw the ten copies disappearing quickly, ditto the five offered review copies of ANTIQUES CHOP. Of the former, I am trying to get another five or six copies to fill the requests that trailed in. Many thanks to those of you who offered to read and review these novels – the books are going out today.

Reviews of COMPLEX 90 continue, like this A-plus one from Pullbox Review.

Finally, the very sharp UK reviewer, Mike Carlson, is less effusive but mostly positive about COMPLEX 90 here.

M.A.C.

Memorable or Favorite or Best or Greatest…?

Tuesday, May 14th, 2013
Complex 90

I am writing this in our hotel room in St. Louis, where Barb and I have spent a delightful Mother’s Day weekend with our son Nate and his bride Abby. Great food, great company, even great weather. We caught a crime movie called MUD, easily the best film I’ve seen this year, with a definite SLINGBLADE feel (and that’s a good thing) – writer/director Jeff Nichols has a real feel for the South and its rhythms, and has assembled an amazing cast. See it.

But I hate this keyboard, so this will be short. Also, I spent last week writing two lengthy articles for the Huffington Post and Flavorwire (I have one or two more to do) to promote COMPLEX 90, and am “talked” out. These will be posted in the next week or so. This is hard work that doesn’t pay, strictly PR, and the subject this time – spy novels – is not one I’m as familiar with as the previous ones I did Huff Post pieces on (detective novels and controversial comics).

What I hate about these things is that I say my piece and then get beat up over my choices. That most of the responses are from idiots doesn’t help much. I have asked that my list be labeled “memorable” spy novels (the Huff piece is movies from spy novels), to get away from this “best” or “greatest” concept that always causes dissent. Of course, these people will argue with your “favorite” choices, too, as if that weren’t inherently a personal call.

This coming week I will do some more of this freebie writing to promote the new book, and will begin prep work on KING OF THE WEEDS, the last of the substantial Spillane/Hammer manuscripts. The new novel is a sequel to BLACK ALLEY, so I’ll be spending a lot of time with it. Then I’ll spend time with Mickey’s manuscript, reading and re-reading it, making notes, marking up my work copy. Probably two weeks prep before writing begins. This is bittersweet, because KING will mark the completion of the basic goal I set for myself in taking on Mickey’s unpublished work – getting these six additional Hammers completed (and DEAD STREET and the Morgan the Raider sequel, THE CONSUMMATA). I very much want to keep going with the shorter but significant manuscripts that remain, but I am relieved and even thrilled that I’ve been able to see these major works see completion and publication.

COMPLEX 90 reviews are starting to roll in, like this great one from Crime Fiction Lover.

This is a very cool one, too, from Impedementia.

This one from Bullet Reviews is quirky but favorable.

Boing Boing has a first chapter excerpt.

David William continues his short but sweet Nate Heller reviews with sharp looks at DAMNED IN PARADISE and BLOOD AND THUNDER.

My old buddy Ed Gorman (such a great writer – you’re missing out if you’re not reading him) was nice enough to post an article I did a while back on my favorite crime novels.

Finally, here’s part two of the Gary Sandy-starring live production of ENCORE FOR MURDER.

M.A.C.