The good, the bad, and the dorky

It's been a Hell of a long week.

The day job's been killing me.

Writing's been good, but there never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done that I want to. (But isn't that the way it always is?) Plus the daughter has been feeling a little under the weather off and on all week (Ah, the perils of public pools and preschool.) so the combination of these three factors have made the week drag ass for me.

But it's Friday, (the start of what I consider my real work week.) the weekend is almost

completely free of any organized activities (outside of the obligatory Saturday night dinner with friends and taking the wife's car in for an oil change.) so I figured I'd start off the weekend with a quick visit to old Bloody Knucks before I wade into the hard stuff.

Alright, before I start passing along all the good links and fun news, I figured I'd pass along a bit of bullshit that made me shake my head and mutter, "that sucks." Declan Burke has decided to close up shop on his perennial Irish crime fiction blog, Crime Always Pays. This is particularly sad for me because Dec introduced me to a whole slew of crime novelists and when it comes right down to it, the entire online crime writing community. Dec's blog was always a fun little sublet of the web filled with cool reviews, unique interviews, and goofy contests. But I more than understand Mr. Burke's motivations, writing and family will always come first and if I had to make the same decision, I don't think I'd give a second thought to cutting old Bloody Knucks loose to free up some time. But all the same, hat's off to you and my glass is raised: Thanks for the fun read and all the free books you floated my way. (It still puts a smile on my face when I pulled up to my mailbox on my birthday last year and found all four volumes of David Peace's Red Riding Quartet waiting for me.)

Okay, now on to the fun stuff.

The Private Eye Writer's of America announced the short list for the Shamus award and you can

find all of the nominees right HERE. (Hat tip to Mr. Bill Crider for the listing.) The Shamus awards will be presented at this year's Bouchercon.

Now, for those of you out there who know me know that I'm not the biggest fan of the P.I. genre, but I have to say I was pretty happy to see Dave White's sophmore effort, the Evil that Men Do, included in the best paperback original category. Outside of Ken Bruen's Jack Taylor series and Reed Farrell Coleman's Moe Prager novels, I just don't go near P.I. novels. But Dave's Jackson Donne novels are some seriously engaging books. I read Dave's first, When one Man Dies, in a couple of hours and then went out and immediately picked up the Evil that Men Do. The books are good shit, so if you haven't

picked them up yet, get yourself to Amazon or the McBookstore closest to you (I found both at my local Borders.) and find out what all the hubbub is about. Also, you can find Dave along with the rest of the Twitter mob over at Do Some Damage.

Next up, short stories, and trust me folks, there have been a whole shitload of them over the past week. (Yes, it goes without saying that I'm going to pimp issue 7 of Plots with Guns right HERE. And, folks, thanks for all the great feedback on the issue. It goes without saying that I like both kinds of comments, positive and negative or even in the Meh category, believe it or not this helps me out a lot on what I'm writing and how I'm writing. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to write the kind of story I want, but ya know I don't mind hearing what you really think.)

First up:

Survival Instincts by Sandra Seamans over at PulpPusher (I personally think this is Sandra's strongest effort to date, straight up menacing.)

More stories over at A Twist of Noir than you can shake a dead cat at:

My favorite CrimeDawg from down under Cameron Ashley

New shit from Jason Hunt and David Price, plus a bunch more that I just don't have the time or patience to list. But it goes to show you what a hot zine (and, yeah, still my favorite of the post

Demolition zines.) ATON is with all the great material that comes through it.

Eastern Standard Crime is also starting to shape up and find its own voice, although, I still think it would have benefited from going with the original PDF format to set itself apart from the herd.

But, hey, a good story is still a good story, right?

Also, incase you didn't notice, the Mystery Dawg himself Aldo Calcagno has slightly changed the formats of his zines PowderBurn Flash and Darkest Before the Dawn. PBF is now Bi-weekly and DBtD is weekly, which I actually think is a good idea on Aldo's part because it allows the reader more time to catch and comment on the stories being featured. What I'm really looking forward to from Aldo is season 3 of CrimeWaV.com, he's promising it's going to be the strongest season ever.

I can't wait, Aldo, so bringing it on, brother!

Okay, so I'm going to switch up gears a little bit for this edition of old Bloody Knucks and focus on a format that I normally don't cover, Comic Books. Like most crime writer's

(at least the male ones.) I am a former comic book geek. I collected comics for 13 years and had well over 3000 books in my collection when I quit cold turkey (Okay, I'm not completely over it, I'll still pick up omnibus editions here and there.) and sold the entire collection in order to fund my early life on the road. But sometimes a particular project catches my eye and makes me want to buy it and one such project is Anthony Schiavino's, Sergeant Zero. The premise and the art look cool as Hell. Plus, Anthony did the whole project DIY style, coming up with the scratch out of his own pocket in order to produce the preview issue of Sergeant Zero. So if you're looking for an exciting new Comic Book talent to spend some time with, you can check out Anthony and his work over at Pulptone.com and you can buy the Sergeant Zero preview over at Indyplanet for the better than low price of a $3.50. Make sure to check it out!

Alright, back to the Crime Fiction.

As you all know, Sophie Littlefield was here in the valley of the sun to promote her first novel, A Bad Day for Sorry. Well, needless to say, I made the 45 minute trip down to the Poisoned Pen to meet and hang out with the young lady for the evening. It was a fun evening filled with some great conversation. Now, I haven't gotten a chance to read a Bad Day for Sorry yet because my wife snapped up the copy I bought as soon as I walk through the door. She's at about the halfway point right now, so I figure I'll get to read it some time in the next week or two, and if the prologue of the novel is any indication, I get the feeling I'm going to really enjoy it. And like every Noir/crime novelist who's been coming through Phoenix lately, I had to sit down with Sophie for a Crider routine. Oh, and if you haven't already, check out Sophie's interview with my favorite Irish beach bum, Kieran Shea over at Pulppusher.

Now, it's going to be a about a month before I attend my next author event at the Poisoned Pen, but I'm telling you right now it is really going to be something special. The event I'll be attending is scheduled for September 18th and will feature Michael Connelly and Reed Farrel Coleman. It goes without saying that Mr. Coleman will be in town promoting his newest effort from Busted Flush Press, Tower. Now, I'm not one to participate in rumors, but there is one going around that a certain. . . . someone may be accompanying Mr. Coleman for the appearance. (Yeah, I know it's a rumor, but how fucking cool would that be?)

Alright, now I've been getting a few e-mails asking me where my Crider routine with Megan Abbott is? Why haven't I posted it yet? Well, here's the deal folks, I downloaded the interview to my computer and then started to upload the video onto Youtube, well, about half way through uploading the piece, the upload stalled and wouldn't continue. I shut down the page and tried doing it again and got the same result. So, what I was able to upload is a partial introduction that was interrupted by Will, the Poisoned Pen's web guy. So here's what I got:

Yeah, I know, I suck.

Anyway, folks, that's what I've got for you tonight, I hope you enjoyed it, because chances are I'm going to take a couple of weeks off from old Bloody Knucks to concentrate on some longer and collaborative projects that I've been working on. But I may pop up to do a little something when a new story hits, plus, I've kind been of itching to do another Forgotten Book Friday review along with reviewing some other books I've read this summer.

But until then, keep it sleazy.