Posts Tagged ‘Trash ‘n’ Treasures’

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Decatur Book Fair Report

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011
How I can get away with talking to a good-looking young blonde: sign ANTIQUES ROADKILL to her with Barb snapping the pic.
Who says I’m not an outdoorsman?
What Barb does at a book fair.
Pontificating in public with Persia Walker on noir panel.
Jim Traylor of GA and MAC of IA work on their upcoming collaboration, SPILLANE ON SCREEN (for McFarland).

The Decatur Book Fair was a lot of fun, and felt more like a mini-vacation than a book tour stop. Barb and I met some wonderful readers – new and old – at the event, and the panel with Persia Walker was well-attended, with great audience questions. Persia is as lovely as her writing style, which is plenty lovely, and her subject matter is historical noir, so we were a good fit. Barb was not on the panel, but there were Trash ‘n’ Treasures fans afoot and we signed several copies of the paperback versions. Also, if you go the Atlanta area, try Fox Brothers for barbecue. The only barbecue we’ve had that rivals or possibly tops Pappy’s in my son’s St. Louis haunts.

The Titan relaunch of Hard Case Crime is getting lots of web attention, including Publisher’s Weekly itself.

Online venues are excited about Hard Case’s return. Check out this nice write-up.

Even the Associated Press noticed the Hard Case revival, and went so far as to interview an obscure Iowa author for a quote or two.

And THE CONSUMMATA already has several nice reader reviews at Goodreads.

As I’ve mentioned here, I am one of the writers for the new Fangoria radio series, DREADTIME STORIES. I’ve done three scripts for the series so far, with the first set to air next week (“Reincarnal,” which I’m also going to be adapting into a film script, possibly for my long-awaited…by me, anyway…return to film directing). Check out the first show here (and see the announcement for “Reincarnal”).

M.A.C.

[Nate speaking: Just a quick reminder — Max and Barb are appearing at the Centuries & Sleuths bookstore in Chicago this Thursday (Sept. 8) at 7PM for a signing and Q&A.]

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San Mateo

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

Okay, so I shouldn’t have angered the Travel Gods. This — with the exception of the event itself (see below) — was one horrible day. LAX was slow and mobbed, the plane ride featured babies or children fore and aft and sideways (including, as Barb so delicately put it, “poopie diapers”); the San Francisco airport was jammed with passengers awaiting delayed planes, the ride on the airport train was unpleasantly packed, and the room of car rental counters looked like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The car we rented was a “free upgrade” because they were out of what we’d reserved — this was a Volvo model I knew nothing about with a radio that picked up nothing but foreign language talk shows. We were booked in a downtown San Fran hotel and found ourselves in a morass of cars, taxis, trolleys, buses, construction and detours. After an hour and forty-five minutes, we could never find the hotel. We called them and told them where we were (seemingly perhaps a few blocks away) but they couldn’t guide us there. They could, however, refuse to cancel our reservation. We hobbled to San Mateo, were fooled by a road sign that labeled East Third as West Third, sending us on a half hour wild goose chase. The book store folks (we stopped in around four) were great but advised us downtown San Mateo had no hotel. So we returned to the freeway, found a Doubletree hotel where we were charged top dollar for a “deluxe” room (no difference from any other standard room in similar hotels), had a lousy-even-for-a-hotel meal, wrestled with the parking lot requiring the hotel key (which it refused to recognize), then back to the bookstore.

The event, at least, was great. A nice turnout at M is For Mystery with some real fans who brought all kinds of stuff for us to sign — a nice fan named Mike even dragged along all the Dick Tracy IDW hardcovers for signatures! — and lots of BYE BYE, BABY and quite a few ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF were sold. Barb gave a great Barbara Allan/ANTIQUES talk, and I was so tired, fried and loopy that I said lots of things in public that I shouldn’t have, which seemed to entertain the public.

Saturday morning (at 5 a.m.) we will be up and out, and with any luck headed back to Iowa, where East is East and West is West, and where only the farmers are up at 5 a.m.

M.A.C.

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San Diego

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

We arrived in San Diego to typically lovely weather, rented a car and drove straight to El Indio restaurant. I am a Guy Fieri/Diners, Drive-ins and Dives disciple and fully expected to be blown away…and wasn’t. We have much better Mexican food back in Muscatine (the guacamole was an outrage). We made up for it with a visit to Ghiradelli’s for hot fudge sundaes, normally a treat that occurs only on Comic Con visits.

Speaking of which, having visited San Diego for the Comic Con for countless years, seeing the exterior of the convention center populated by a handful of businessmen and not hordes of superheroes and zombies was weird. Ditto for the Gaslamp District. We only know San Diego as Comic Con-ville, and Barb and I felt like we’d wandered into one of those post-apocalyptic movies where only a handful of humans had survived.

The signing at Mysterious Galaxy went extremely well. We hadn’t been to this MG location and were mightily impressed by the mix of science-fiction. horror and mystery. What a great bookstore! Friendly, smart staff, too. We had a great turnout, and a group that appeared to have come for Heller got very interested in the ANTIQUES novels, because Barb presented herself and our series very, very well. Some Spillane interest, too. We just talked and took Q and A and had a delightful time.

A gentleman named Fred told us of a wonderful encounter with Mickey Spillane on the 1994 Comic Con trip that preceded Mickey coming to Muscatine with me for his role in my indie film, “Mommy.” Mickey was very, very sick, and I tried to talk him out of coming back for the shoot — we could bring him in at the end, I told him, after he’d recovered from a serious infection in his leg. Fred told a story of Mickey having to cut short an appearance promoting the MIKE DANGER comic book because of his illness, but then the next day (still sick!) recognizing Fred from the audience of the truncated appearance, and taking him aside for some personal time, signing Fred’s books. Typical Mick.

M.A.C.

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Thrilled to be Nominated

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

A very pleasant surprise last week (actually, two of them): the International Thriller Writers have nominated YOU CAN’T STOP ME for Best Paperback and the Mike Hammer “Long Time Dead” for Best Short Story.

Matt Clemens and I had been told that YOU CAN’T STOP ME had made the short list of ten for the ITW honor, but we were nonetheless blown away by the actual nomination. This comes at a very good time for us because, frankly, the current Harrow book isn’t burning up the bookstands, and we are (in TV terms) “on the bubble” with the fledgling series.

If you have not read either Harrow – YOU CAN’T STOP ME and the current NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU – maybe this news will be enough to get ya off the dime. I believe the Kindle prices on both books are very low – under five bucks each last time I checked.

And of course it’s very, very rewarding to have a Spillane/Collins collaboration singled out. Some people dismiss the posthumous Spillane material, without even a read, citing “purist” notions about not wanting to subject themselves to a work started by one writer and completed by another. Apparently they never read Ellery Queen.

Anyway, here is the full list of the nominees:

http://www.thebigthrill.org/2011/04/2011-thriller-awards-nominees/

As I’ve said before, one of the cool surprises the net can serve up is a new review for an old book. Here’s a nice one about the Mallory novel, NICE WEEKEND FOR A MURDER. Mallory has been getting a little love lately, out in cyberspace, so maybe one of these days we’ll get him back into print.

OurTop Suspense Group anthology keeps getting great reviews, like this one. There are occasional complaints about typos and inconsistencies story-to-story, and we’re cleaning those up as we can – it’s a home-made effort by pros, understand. You can get it in actual book form now, and it’s really a beautiful-looking book. Reads good, too.

KISS HER GOODBYE keeps racking up nice reviews – this one is from somebody who I frankly think is getting jaded (he likes GOLIATH BONE and BIG BANG better – most reviewers and readers…including Jane Spillane…think KISS HER is the best of the trio), but overall it’s another good one.

Last week Barb and I wrapped up ANTIQUES DISPOSAL and got it shipped (well, e-mailed) to Kensington. We took two days off for a getaway (to Des Moines – yes, our life is a glittering, glorious, glamorous Jet Set fantasy) and came back for a nice weekend (not for murder) with son Nate, his girl Abby and our granddog, the supremely insane Australian Blue Heeler, Toaster. Also got in a really good Crusin’ gig at the local Eagles Lodge Hall, for Eagles pooh-bahs from all over the grand state of Iowa.

It is true, by the way, that Crusin’ will be playing at Bouchercon in St. Louis this fall. We will be having a handful of mystery-writer guests who will join us on a few songs. No instrumental sit-ins (that way lies madness), but we will have some guest vocalists. The first we’ve invited: Bob Randisi. Are you out there, Parnell Hall?

M.A.C.

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