Crime Factory: The First Shift rules!
Crime Factory: The First Shift (New Pulp Press) is fat with fiction, thirty-some noir stories from:Dennis Tafoya, Andrew Nette, Jedidiah Ayres, Roger Smith, Josh Converse, Charlie Stella, Greg Bardsley, Hilary Davidson, Kieran Shea, Nate Flexer, Cameron Ashley, Patti Abbot, Chad Eagleton, Ken Bruen, Jimmy Callaway, Dave Zeltserman, Steve Weddle, Craig McDonald, Keith Rawson, Leigh Redhead, Anonymous-9, Jonathan Woods, Liam Jose, Dave White, Chris F. Holm, Frank Bill, Adrian McKinty, and Scott Wolven.
I've read Tafoya's, Smith's, and Stella's contributions so far. Tafoya and Smith are established Detectives Beyond Borders favorites, and Stella became a new one with his story "The Decider," an act of workplace wish fulfillment that management might want to keep out of workers' hands.
Smith's "Half-Jack" is marked by this memorable phrase that isn't even part of the main action: "...the carefully coded conversation of the sex-addicted." And Tafoya's story, "Stinger," opens the collection thus: "They met in Arraignment, and she knew he was the one."
And I still have twenty-five stories left to read. This is going to be fun.
© Peter Rozovsky 2011
Labels: Charlie Stella, Dennis Tafoya, Roger Smith, short stories
posted by Peter Rozovsky at 2:21 AM
24 Comments:
Peter
I don't know who exactly came up with that cover but I really love it.
I should try to find out whose menacingly receeding hairline that is.
I've since read a few more stories. Adrian McKinty's combines squash and snobbery in some interesting ways. It's noir without quite the expected noir ending.
Peter
It would be fantastic if that was one of the authors but I bet its not, its probably just a stock image.
You didnt think my story was noirish enough, eh? Shame, I had hoped to invent an entire new genre of squash noir. I guess that attempt will die in the corner like a well aimed lob.
Peter,
The artist is graphic artist Lou Beach. We were lucky to get him. I'm glad to hear you're enjoying the anthology.
This cover could be a companion piece to the cover of the US ed. of Ray Banks's The Big Blind.
I know I was particularly excited to have Lou Beach design the cover as he also designed the cover of "Weird Al" Yankovic's tremendous "Dare to Be Stupid" record.
Au contraire, Adrian. Not that you transcended the genre, or any of that shite, but to make a story read like noir without the expected noir trappings is quite an achievement. Don't want to say much more for fear of giving anything away, though. The collection starts well, but readers who start from the end won't be disappointed, either.
Elisabeth, those covers could start a sub genre of bad-hair noir. Thing is, I know a guy who has his hair cut like the man on the Ray Banks cover,
The Banks novel is newly rereleased in a new version by Allan Guthrie's new Blasted Heath company under the title Dead Money. i should be posting about that in the next few days.
Keith and Jimmy: The anthology is a bloody feast. I know that for the next week or so, I'll have two or three good stories to read every day. Thanks, gents Thanks, too, for the info on Lou Beach and the Weird Al Yankovic connection.
Once I have your attention, I have one gripe about the collection. I bought it as a Kindle e-book, and the lack of a clickable table of contents is a nuisance. Especially in a collection of stories (or articles), readers might not want to start at the beginning and read in order. Any chance of updating or reformatting the book with such a table of contents?
Adrian, I must have replied to your initial comment early in the afternoon, before I was fully awake, For some reason I had not quite processed that it was you who had left the first comment in this string. Had I had my wits about me, I would have referred to "your" story rather than to "Adrian McKinty's" in my reply. Yeesh, I need to drink more coffee.
Peter
No apologies necessary. I'm glad you liked the story. It was such a strange little concept that I wasnt sure Cam and Keith would go for it.
I too respect the Weird Al connection. I dont know much about that album except for the classic Like A Surgeon, which as Weird Al tells it was suggested to him as a sarcastic joke by Madonna.
It was one of the odder little concepts I've come across, and it's to Cam's and Keith's credit that they got it. At first, I thought, "What is this?" Then I thought, It's got the feeling of being doomed and trapped that classic noir has, and it has bits of passing, seemingly innocuous description early that come back to haunt the protagonist late. All that, and neatly pressed squash gear, too. Noir wears whites!
Wasn't a hard choice to make. Odder the better, I say. Makes for a stronger book. It's a great, great story that I'm saddened hasn't been singled out for more praise. -- Cam
Just because it has no blood, no torture, and no three-day alcoholic binges that end with the protagonist lying in a puddle of piss and beer, his mouth caked with dried vomit, some people will think it's not noir.
Adrian's story is one of the highlight pieces of the anthology, thus the reason for it's placement as one of the closers in the book. And with the Kindle formatting, that was entirely in the hands of the distributor, so sorry about that.
And my sort-of homeboy, Dennis Tafoya, opens the book. I enjoyed being able to recognize some of the locations in his excellent story, even if they're not where I normally hang out.
this sounds great!
Another nice feature: The book offers some lesser-known names along with the stars, which makes it a fine opportunity to discover some new writers.
Even though I shall never get round to reading most of the writers you profile here, the names give me plenty of excellent reading matter online.
I thought you might like this:
"http://www.thrillerwriters.org/2009/04/dope-thief-by-dennis-tafoya.html"
Well, you can buy this highly affordable book and sample their writing.
Thanks for the article.
Price is not putting me off.
I have become very focused in what I read as life comes first.
Mostly factual material is what I prefer.
You could slip in a story or two between non-fiction books.
You are as persuasive as I am when it comes to encouraging friends to share something I enjoy.
However, my local library, combined with my family's ability to stock pile books daily is quite extreme, so, once I've got over the hurdle of "Down These Green Streets" which is available in the library service I'll certainly ask them to reserve some of the authors mentioned here.
The collection is doing its job if it encourages you to try new authors.
"Crime Factory: The First Shift" -- An efficient use of your book-buying dollar (or euro). In today's tougher time, you can't afford not to read it!
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