"A Host of Shadows" nominated for the Stoker

Harry Shannon here, just learned this morning that my collection "A Host of Shadows" was nominated by the Horror Writer's Association for the Stoker Award. The book, twenty-five short stories with an introduction by Rick Hautala and an afterword, is available via Amazon Kindle here:

http://www.amazon.com/A-Host-of-Shadows-ebook/dp/B00472O8OQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1287166647&sr=1-2http://www.darkregions.com/products/A-Host-of-Shadows-by-Harry-Shannon.html

The trade paperback and hardcover versions can be purchased directly from the publisher, Dark Regions Press, via this link:

http://www.darkregions.com/products/A-Host-of-Shadows-by-Harry-Shannon.html

And now back to your regular programming.

The latest Julius Katz convert

It's always a nice surprise when an author you respect picks up one of your books on his own and starts saying nice things about it. That's what happened recently with Timothy Hallinan (The Queen of Patpong) and my Julius Katz Mysteries, with Tim posting some really nice stuff about JKM on Dorothy-L and writing the following review on Amazon:

"Julius Katz and Archie are the best thing since Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and I think Rex Stout walks on water and the original Nero Wolfe books are pretty close to perfect. Dave Zeltserman has found a way to update this classic relationship to the 21st century, and then build crackling mysteries around it. Both the stories in this volume are a delight, and at this price they're probably the best deal on Amazon."

Twitter

Harry Shannon, here. While home working on the 4th Mick Callahan novel, broke down and allowed myself to be persuaded to learn to...Tweet. I am hereby twittering, tweeting, twooting. Whatever. If you suspense fans also Twoot, Thwack or otherwise Twit as well, come find me so I can learn how to do this properly.

http://twitter.com/#!/HarryShannon


PS And don't forget to join Top Suspense as well!

The Living DEAD

The early response to THE DEAD MAN has been enthusiastic and extremely positive. Here's a sampling from the blogosphere.
The Post-Modern Pulps blog says:

 Mix one part lurid crime thriller, one part Stephen King-esque weird supernatural horror, add in a dash of colorful sex and a few sprinkles of gratuitous violence, then shake well over ice and pour into a tall frosty mug of icy death. You've just mixed up Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin's new short novel series, THE DEAD MAN.
The Man-Eating Bookworm Blog says:

THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL is a tight, well written, supernatural thriller. Right from the first page I was hooked, drawn into an intriguing story that kept me turning the pages until I was finished.[...]FACE OF EVIL satisfies all on it's own, while being a terrific opener that promises a epic tale to come. I'm excited for the next book

Right What You Know blog says:

This was another book that I read during my lunch break. Please don't tell my boss, as I read more of this on the first day than my lunch break technically allowed. Needless to say this book is far too engrossing for its own good. I highly recommend reading it when you have more than a half hour lunch break. Face of Evil can be regarded as a stand-alone novella, but it does set things up nicely for more to come. This is primarily a thriller with aspects of horror, with a generous smattering of the paranormal. I'm not really a horror fan, I don't really need those details, but here it isn't overriding and the paranormal/horror aspects add nicely to the tension. [...]I can't wait for the rest of this series.

And Jaime Anastasiow blogs:

This was a hold your breath, fly by the seat of your pants, page-turner. And every time I turned the page there was a new surprise. Very much in the style of Stephen King: the natural and supernatural exist in the same realm.

Thanks to all of those bloggers, and to the many others I didn't mention here, for your great reviews!

HEY KIDS -- FREE E-BOOKS!

Max Allan Collins speaking (or anyway typing).

I do two very different series for publisher Kensington in collaboration with two very different writers.

The Trash 'n' Treasures series follows young divorcee Brandy Borne and her theatrical diva mother Vivian through smalltown mysteries that EQMM critic Jon Breen claims is "the funniest cozy series going." Who are we to argue? "We" are me and my wife Barbara Collins, and our joint byline is Barbara Allan. Our new antiques mystery, ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF, will be out in hardcover (and on e-book) very soon.

AND...starting March 1 and going through March 3rd, you can get a free download of the first Trash ‘n’ Treasures mystery, ANTIQUES ROADKILL, at all e-book retailers. Readers of mine who prefer hardboiled fare and have ignored these books accordingly now have an opportunity to see what they’ve been missing, and for free.

The other Kensington series I do is with my longtime CSI collaborator, Matthew Clemens. The concept of the J.C. Harrow/"Killer TV" series is basically: what if CSI were a reality TV show? Harrow, an ex-Iowa sheriff, becomes a reality TV star and gathers a superstar forensics team in order to track down the madman who murdered his family.

These are very scary serial killer thrillers and have been lauded by the likes of David Morrell and James Rollins.

AND...you can get a free download of the first J.C. Harrow “Killer TV” novel, YOU CAN’T STOP ME, also from March 1 through March 3rd . Again, readers of mine who ignored this novel when it was published, because it was a CSI-type book and not a Quarry or Nate Heller or ROAD TO PERDITION title, can get a free look. Matt and I had a great response on YOU CAN’T STOP ME, and the early reaction to our about-to-appear sequel, NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU, is even stronger.

Please take advantage of this generous offer from Kensington, and spread the word to any of your e-book-reading friends.

How can we do this, you ask? Volume, volume, volume!

The Dead Man LIVES!

I'm pleased to announce the publication of  THE DEAD MAN: FACE OF EVIL,  the first in an original ebook series of short novels that blends the horror of Stephen King's THE GUNSLINGER with the action/adventure of Don Pendleton's THE EXECUTIONER...

Matthew Cahill is an ordinary man leading a simple life...until a shocking accident changes everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld of unspeakable evil and horrific violence that nobody else does...


For Cahill, each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about...a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.


The second book in the series will be out next month...to be followed by more all-new adventures in THE DEAD MAN saga by some of the most talented and successful mystery, western, horror and sci-fi authors out there today... including Top Suspense authors Bill Crider and Joel Goldman, as well as James Reasoner, Matt Witten,  James Daniels, Burl Barer and David McAfee.

The book is now available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. For those of you without e-readers, trade paperback editions of the book will be available soon.

DEAD MAN - Free Advance Reader Copies

Lee Goldberg here...

I loved those  men's "action adventure" series novels of the 60s, 70s, and 80s... like THE DESTROYER, MACK BOLAN and THE DEATH MERCHANT.  Those series are virtually extinct now... 

...which is why I've teamed up with eight other writers on THE DEAD MAN, an original ebook series of short novels that blends the horror of Stephen King's THE GUNSLINGER with the action/adventure of Don Pendleton's THE EXECUTIONER...

Matthew Cahill is an ordinary man leading a simple life...until a shocking accident changes everything. Now he can see a nightmarish netherworld of unspeakable evil and horrific violence that nobody else does...
For Cahill, each day is a journey into a dark world he knows nothing about...a quest for the answers to who he is and what he has become...and a fight to save us, and his soul, from the clutches of pure evil.

FACE OF EVIL, the first book in the series, was written by me & William Rabkin and will be released on February 20th, to be followed in coming months by more all-new adventures of THE DEAD MAN by some of the most talented and successful mystery, western, horror and scifi authors out there today, including Top Suspense master Bill Crider and Joel Goldman as well as James Reasoner, Matt Witten,  James Daniels, Burl Barer and David McAfee.

To generate word-of-mouth and reviews, I’d like email you a FREE COPY of the novel in whatever format you prefer (epub, PDF, prc). Here’s all you have to do:

1. Send me an email at lee@leegoldberg.com with the subject FREE DEAD MAN BOOK and give me your name and the address of your website or blog (don’t have one? That’s okay. Read on).
2. Agree to post a review, positive or negative (but with no spoilers!) on your blog, website, Goodreads page, Facebook page, or the Amazon listing for THE DEAD MAN in the next 60 days. (You don't have to buy the book on Amazon to review it there, you only need to have an account).
3. Email me a copy of the review or a link to the post.
We're going to stop at 150 copies, so if you're interested, you'd better hurry. If past experience is any indication, these copies will go very fast.

Double Header

Lee Goldberg here...

Now you can get both of my acclaimed "Charlie Willis" crime novels -- MY GUN HAS BULLETS and DEAD SPACE --  combined together in DOUBLE HEADER for just $4.99. That's two books, complete and uncut, for the price of one.

MY GUN HAS BULLETS

When Beverly Hills Police Officer Charlie Willis pulls over a speeding Rolls Royce hell-bent for Neiman Marcus, he's surprised to see Esther Radcliffe, the geriatric star of the TV series "Miss Agatha," behind the wheel. He's even more surprised when she guns him down and keeps on driving. A few hours later, he wakes up in the intensive care unit...to find a William Morris agent, a network president, and the head of Pinnacle Studios standing at the foot of his bed. They have a proposal for him: in exchange for conveniently forgetting who shot him, they'll make him the star of his own series, "My Gun Has Bullets." So Charlie trades in his real badge for a fake one...and so begins an uproarious but deadly romp through the wonderful world of TV make-believe...with real bullets.

"It will make you cackle like a sitcom laugh track. Goldberg keeps the gags coming right up to the end."-Entertainment Weekly

"A very funny novel...a pinch of Carl Hiaasen, a dash of Donald Westlake, and a heaping portion of avarice and inanity Hollywood Style. It's boffo!"- Booklist

DEAD SPACE

Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show-a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

"[It] reads like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It's wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate," Vancouver Sun (Canada)

"The novel's satiric slant is strong enough to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

"This sharp roman a clef goes where no Hollywood satire has gone before...it's a stingingly funny novel." -Entertainment Weekly

BONUS MATERIAL: This special Kindle edition includes a sample chapter from  THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE.

Boston Globe reviews Outsourced

Boston Globe says in part about Outsourced:

The book’s another feather in the noirish cap of Zeltserman, though it was actually written in 2004 before “Pariah’’ and “Killer,’’ two volumes of his excellent ex-con trilogy (third being “Small Crimes’’), and the even better supernaturally tinged “The Caretaker of Lorne Field.’’

And here again, Zeltserman manages to tell a riveting story in the straightforward, personality-driven manner at which he’s so accomplished. There’s no purple in his prose even though he obviously has learned lessons of the genre from masters like Jim Thompson. His characters aren’t as hard-bitten, which perhaps is why it’s easier to identify with them.

...

You can outsource software engineering, but so far at least you can’t outsource crime writing as good as Zeltserman’s.

The review can be found here.

Introducing Outsourced by Dave Zeltserman

From the publisher (Serpent's Tail):

Following from his ultra-noir trilogy—Small Crimes, Pariah, and Killer—is Outsourced, Dave Zeltserman's most commercial book to date.

A classic heist thriller pitched somewhere between Ocean's Eleven and Dog Day Afternoon, it's the story of a group of software engineers who lose their jobs due to an industry push to outsourcing. Desperate, and seeing their middle-class lives crumbling apart, they come up with a brilliant plan to use their computing skills to rob a bank. But not even a systems analyst can foresee every eventuality, so the group falls afoul of the Russian Mafia . . .

Movie rights have been sold for Outsourced, and the film will be produced by the team behind the hugely successful Resident Evil films.

Outsourced was released in 2010 in the UK and is now out in the US. Here's what reviewers have been saying:

"A small gem of crime fiction" Booklist

"Bodies mount up as the double dealing and revenge gather apace. The blurb on the book describes it as a "fast-paced, edge-of-your seat crime novel," and it really does live up to the hype. Add this to your holiday reading list for a piece of escapism." Morning Star

"Dave Zeltserman's OUTSOURCED is a speedy, gritty, hardboiled bank robbery tale that bops and weaves along as a group of out-of-work computer programmers decide to get their hands dirty and find they like it a lot. As with Zeltserman's previous novels SMALL CRIMES, PARIAH, and KILLER, his greatest storytelling skill is in the small true, emotional details that every reader will understand. He will definitely keep you flipping pages as fast you can, and once you finish one book you'll be racing on to the next." Tom Piccirilli, author of Shadow Season and The Cold Spot

"A dark, lightening-paced read" Financial Times

"Back in the “real” world, Dave Zeltserman’s Outsourced is a dryly witty take on the heist caper genre with a gaggle of reluctantly redundant software engineers planning the perfect bank robbery. He brings together crazed hitmen, Russian mafiosi, Iraqi antiques smugglers and domestic angst in a fast-paced action romp that has the inestimable advantage (or not) that its characters are actually human." Peter Millar, London Times

"DAVE Zeltserman is one of the new, highly original voices in crime fiction, his writing spare, disciplined and concrete. His plots are as original as anyone writing hard-boiled fiction with an attractive noir edge, and always grimly entertaining. Like his characters. Outsourced, already being turned into a movie, follows an all-too-human bunch of outsourced software engineers who have no job prospects and no long-term insurance but do possess a plan. They are going to use their computing skills to rob a bank, and Zeltserman delivers a finely paced, witty and stylish take on the heist caper novel. More than most authors churning out mysteries, Zeltserman is fully steeped in the conventions of crime fiction. He remains absolutely his own hard man." The Australian

"It's a bleak book with a bleak ending, one you're likely to keep reading past your bedtime to get to. Zeltserman had a breakout year in 2010, and this book will just add to his growing reputation." Bill Crider, author of Murder In The Air

"OUTSOURCED is brilliantly paced and reminiscent of A SIMPLE PLAN with the supposed non-criminals slowly descending into desperation and violence, and Zeltserman gives the characters (Dan, in particularly) a kind of heartbreaking vulnerability as well. Another great crime novel from Zeltserman." Paul Tremblay, author of The Little Sleep

"I've been crazy about Dave Zeltserman's books since the beginning; Fast Lane was an early Hardboiled Pick. His trilogy of Small Crimes, Pariah, and Killer should be indispensable to the reading list of any follower of modern noir fiction. This latest book simply kicks ass and is one of the most fun and twisted reads I've had in ages. His protagonist is a middle-aged software engineer who has been out of work for over a year as work is outsourced. Slowly going blind from a rare eye disease, he faces a dim (no pun intended) future in his field. But you see, Dan has a plan: he helped design the security system for a bank (the same bank which outsourced the coding work to India), and with the help of a rag tag assortment of fellow out-of-work IT guys he plans the perfect heist. Naturally, it all goes horribly wrong very quickly..." Patrick Millikin, Poisoned Pen Bookstore

"Dan Wilson is out of work and on the verge of losing his eyesight. With a mortgage to pay and a family to support, he is an ordinary guy desperate for money. He conceives a can’t-miss bank heist, enlists the help of some friends, and then—surprise!—things don’t go exactly as planned. Dave Zeltserman cleverly and effectively engineers the plot with a steady supply of action and surprises. In sum, Outsourced is thoroughly entertaining noir in a traditional vein." David Rachels, Noirboiled Notes

"In only a couple of years, Dave Zeltserman has become one of my favorite "must read" authors. Outsourced, although written four years ago and just now being published in the US, proves not only that the man has talent, but consistently delivers a slam-bang story full of real-world complications. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED." The Drowning Machine

"Outsourced is a f*cking blockbuster of a novel, the type of book that you cancel plans for, even if said plans were to drop ecstasy in a snowbound cabin with a dead ringer for Christina Hendricks. Okay, that last bit might be pushing it, but you’d at least pack Outsourced with you so you’d have something to do between rounds of furious rumpy-and/or-pumpy. The Nerd has certainly not been shy with affection for Dave Zeltserman’s work in the past, but this is the book that, if we live in a just world, should give him the audience of a Don Winslow or a Dennis Lehane." Nerd of Noir, Spinetingler Magazine

"Zeltserman was employed in the software industry for twenty-two years, and this intimate familiarity adds an authenticity to the explosive drama of the novel and, in particular, to the IT engineers who struggle within its construct. The author’s mastery at characterization is as honed here as it’s ever been, and the narrative thrust displays furious cinematic pacing. Caper and heist novels of the sort exemplified by Lionel White and Richard Stark, respectively, have spurred a number of imitators throughout the decades, but few match the thrills present in Zeltserman’s contemporary offering. Highly recommended." Ron Clinton, Spinetingler Magazine

"Outsourced is a 24/7 novel, what some would call an all-nighter. It is one of those novels that you rush to finish, such is the pace at which the story is told. Rest assured, a compelling and compulsive read. You won’t want to subcontract this beauty out at all." CompulsiveReader

"Outsourced is not only a good read, but also a sobering one that makes you wonder about the nature of the human being: if driven to the edge, would an average law-abiding citizen commit a crime in order to survive? And once having done that, can that same person face the consequences with a clear head? The answers are not easy, and Zeltserman repeatedly turns to the reader, who in the end has to answer them on his own." X2TheL

"Desperation in the face of mounting economic hardship is a theme many can sympathize with and Dan makes a convincing protagonist as readers are drawn into his life." Monsters and Critics

"The whole plot of the book is very well scripted and the ingenious plan concocted by Dan and Shrini will give any bankers who read this nightmares. As ever though plans that look good on paper rarely work so well when executed and the maelstrom of events which the robbery sets into action are both hilarious and dramatic." Crimesquad

"No one likes being laid off, but some people rebound in more creative ways than others. "Outsourced" tells the story of four software engineers who when faced with being outsourced, plan their profitable vengeance on their former employers, but soon find playing on the other side of the law has far more complications than simply being caught. A riveting thriller all too topical in today's job market, "Outsourced" is a read that shouldn't be overlooked for thriller readers." Midwest Book Review

"In Dave Zeltserman’s superb crime novel a bunch of software engineers, unemployed as a consequence of the financial crisis, plan to rob a bank. Somehow, it seems apt." Jildy Sauce

Dead on the Island by Bill Crider

Get the e-book version now! (Should be on Amazon soon, too.)

Novels - - Dead on the Island: "A Truman Smith Private Eye Novel by Bill Crider

Nominated for the Shamus Award for Best First Private Eye Novel"

A Host of Shadows on Stoker preliminary ballot

Harry Shannon here. Delighted to see my collection "A Host of Shadows" made the preliminary Stoker ballot for the Horror Writer's Association. Congratulations to all who made it this far and best of luck.

http://www.horror.org/news-2010stokerprelim.htm