I know, I know… you’ve all heard plenty about the Vegas Dead. But it’s CANADA BOOK DAY! I’m a Canadian book-maker! And guess what? Living Dead at Zigfreidt & Roy is back and better than ever! Now with the inclusion of FOUR… count em’… FOUR EXTRA STORIES!!!

For one measly fucking dollar, you are going to get:

The last round up at the end of the world, when one tough ol’ hombre takes on the legions of the Living Dead in Living Dead at Zigfreidt & Roy…

The shambling depravity and heartless greed of the office pirate in His Dark Flag…

The meanest SoCal punk God that ever stepped foot in Arkadelphia, South Some-Goddamn-Place in Henry Rollins and the Better Butter Bacon Burger…

…then tremble as the most voracious fiends of a West Texas midnight spill blood, guts and mayhem all over the plains as Chupacabra Attack!! in Rosie’s Chicken & Biscuits…

And feel the power of the double-ply as one lowly Death Star janitor seeks a better life among the stars in Dark Flush of the Sith!!

That’s five stories. FIVE! For a buck! It probably took me months to write and review and edit and put these things together. You get all of my hard work, questionable humor and demented nonsense for ONE DOLLAR!!  Available once again on Smashwords, Amazon and soon to be distributed to other online sellers and bookstores for the Nook, Kobo and iBooks!

GET IT ON AMAZON!

GET IT ON SMASHWORDS!

Well, this morning I took the big jump and started sending HOT SINATRA out to the presses. As usual, I let superstition and whimsy decide my fates. I stumbled across a post for the Discover Mystery contest with Poisoned PenPress. Submissions end April 30. I just happened to get back my last round of beta reads last week. No such thing as coincidence, right? So I tossed my hat into the ring. We’ll find out what happens by May 31.

The next step, if I don’t win, is having it pro-formatted, line edited and either keep submitting to small presses, or fire  it up myself. In either case, here is the synopsis:

Moss Cole is a private detective. The kind you thought only existed in old movies and afternoon reruns. He’s looking for a stolen Sinatra record… one that may be a figment of one cantankerous old bastards imagination. Of course, if that were true, Moss wouldn’t have so many people busting down his door and threatening his life. He’s smart, talented, sometimes even charming. You’d think he could find a better gig than carrying on his grandfather’s legacy as a ‘Dick’.
A vivacious redhead, a foul-mouthed Irish rock star and half the crazies in L.A. add up to business as usual, when all Cole wants is some fresh coffee and a Hot Sinatra…

And don’t forget… you can get the first three chapters up under the “Lending Library” tab at the top of the page over there… yeah… right over there… second from the right… thaaaaaat’s the ticket…

Here’s what I’ve been working on today. I scrawled the original story down in a notebook about 4 years ago, and I’ve decided to polish it up, since the season just started and I’ve yet to do a baseball story. Which is weird, being that my shelves are teeming with books on baseball, a pretty much complete set of W.P. Kinsella (one of my top 5), and all the classics from The Natural to Eight Men Out.

“The mild morning haze had burned off with the workday traffic. The lunch hour came and went, ushering in a hellish heatwave that was supposed to last for weeks. The city already seemed lousy with misery and discomfort. The pavement held the shimmer of fever like a creek of pure hell. You could easily imagine your shoes melting to the sidewalk as the heavy weight of a red-hot afternoon smothered you down. The sky was a cool, clear blue, belying the anger of the sun, probably why so many people chose the hollow respite of the ballpark. Lay back, high in the stands, under the shelter of the overhanging “roof”, and you could well forget for a half hour that your car seats were turning to molten lava and your air conditioner had offered itself up in sacrifice to the Gods of Summer. You’d be wrong, but how often does that matter? If being human means anything, it’s the ability to delude ourselves in a vain attempt to avoid pain or death. Fact is, the small stadium held the heat in, pulling it together, concentrating it like a convection oven. Damp sweat and the stench of fryer grease pressing down in an invisible pea-soup fog, and stealing the breath of the few straggling fans littering the stands.

 

Joseph ‘Big Toots’ Fortulla was sweating like a Tuscan boar in the ravages of an August drought. As Toots picked his way down the metal stands, he saw bare arms, sweaty necks, and sunburnt legs propped up and draped over seats, poking out of all manner of khaki, denim and tropical print shorts. Every man, woman and child looking as if they’d dropped into those seats from pure exhaustion. Toots could feel their eyes on him as he passed. He was a curious sight. Toots was remarkable, and widely known, for three things – his violent temper, his questionable business practices, and for always being clad in a perfectly tailored, double-breasted pinstripe suit in the darkest midnight blue that had ever been put to wool.”

–Big Toots Requiem by Axel Howerton