Tag Archives: Hot Sinatra

#HotSinatra – Now Available in FRENCH and ITALIANO!

SurLaPisteDuSinatraPerhaps some of my french-speaking amis will help spread the word… Sur la Piste du Sinatra (Hot Sinatra en francais!) is now available on Smashwords and will be launching on Amazon, B&N, Kobo, etc in the next few days:

Moss Cole est détective privé, le genre d’homme que l’on ne voit que dans les vieux films et les feuilletons de l’après-midi. Il est intelligent, talentueux, parfois même charmant. Vous vous diriez tout de suite qu’il pourrait trouver un meilleur job, plutôt que de suivre les traces de son grand-père en tant que détective.

Cole vaut mieux que cela, mais il est sur la paille et est à court d’idées. C’est pourquoi il n’a pas d’autre choix que d’enquêter sur le vol d’un vinyle de Sinatra … un vinyle qui n’est peut-être que le fruit de l‘imagination d’un vieil homme.

D’un autre côté, si ce vinyle n’existait pas, il n’aurait pas tous ces gens à ses trousses.

La mafia de Las Vegas, les Yakuzas, un cartel de la drogue mexicain, la police de Los Angeles, … Tous veulent sa peau. Sans parler de l’exubérante rousse, de la rock star irlandaise grossière et de la petite fille futée qui viennent lui mettre des bâtons dans les roues, alors qu’il voudrait simplement retrouver le vinyle et se délecter d’un bon café.

Si toutefois il reste en vie suffisamment longtemps – et en un seul morceau – pour mettre la main dessus.

HOT SINATRA (FRANCAIS)

Also available en ITALIANO!

“Raggiunge il livello fantastico di Raymond Chandler.”
“Un romanzo di Sam Spade immerso nelle atmosfere di un film ‘Rat Pack’.”
“Se ti diletta scavare nelle psicologie di personaggi bizzarri e vivere l’azione selvaggia di Elmore Leonard, allora Hot Sinatra è il libro che fa per te!”
~~~~~
Moss Cole è un investigatore privato, uno di quelli che si pensa possano esistere solo nei vecchi film o nelle repliche che mandano in onda a notte inoltrata.

È intelligente, ha talento e magari potrà risultare addirittura affascinante. Forse avrebbe dovuto cercare un’occupazione migliore di quella di suo nonno, “Detective al soldo del miglior offerente”.

Ma Cole non ha il becco di un quattrino, si sente vuoto di idee e persino il suo stato di forma lascia a desiderare. Si lancia, così, alla ricerca di un disco di Sinatra rubato… un disco che potrebbe essere finanche frutto del delirio di un vecchio.

Ma se così fosse, perché alla sua porta continuano a bussare in tanti?

Dovrà vedersela con la mafia italiana di Las Vegas, la Yakuza giapponese, un cartello della droga messicano e un intero reparto della polizia di Los Angeles, tutti accomunati dall’unico scopo di seppellirlo sotto due metri di terra. Una procace dai capelli rossi, un irlandese sboccato di professione rock star e una bimba spigliata e dolce rischiano di ostacolare le indagini di Cole che, in realtà, desidera solo bere una buona tazza di caffè e scovare il maledetto disco di Sinatra.

Riuscirà a salvare la pelle –e a restare tutto d’un pezzo— il tempo sufficiente per ritrovarlo?

HOT SINATRA (ITALIANO)

Excerpt – Nocturnal Omissions – Bloody Valentine continues!

As promised, a short extraction of my WIP for #AStoryAMonth , this one geared specifically to honour Women in Horror Month.

ClubbingThe music is pumping. Thundering. Stomping through my body and amplifying the trembling beating of my heart. Each step vibrates through my bones, undulating, reverberating out from the inside. Shockwaves pounding out to rock hard nipples and flushed genitalia. Every soft spot on my body feels full and raw, every inch of me is wet. I can feel my brain floating in it, untethered and dizzy from the relentless sway and bounce, a ship tossed in a raging tsunami of spinal sauce and ten-ton beats. I don’t know it anymore, but my feet are moving. My legs. My hips. I don’t feel them, but there they go, bobbing and weaving like a goddamn champ, moving to the endless rise of the music. Bigger, higher, faster, stronger. Where else can it go? The roof is holding it in against all perceived laws of physics. It should be tearing at the seams, spinning off into the night as the tornado of sound and rythm and pure fucking sonic fury whips us all up into the stars. The purple is hitting me hard now.

I see familiar faces through the strobe light fog. They wave and shout and smile and nod. YEAH! they say, you fucking GO!. Screaming what I’m feeling in my knees.

DJ Rothstein at the decks. He gives me the high sign as I ping-pong through the crowd, live-wire red and lightning fast, a pinball machine on light-speed. I know I’m headed into the inevitable. I know I’m almost there, but it seems like a lifetime and a split-second, a flash of eternity on a dirty mirror.

Then it’s over. Cardiac Arrest. Rothstein drops the needle flat. Straight cut. Rothstein with his spiky hair and his green muppet parka. He drops a slow-jam for the drunk office girls and lipstick lesbians. My heart is skipping beats like a mambo. Purple shines off of every surface.

I fail to notice that I’ve reached my checkpoint. Mission achieved. Level unlocked. I’m smiling goon-like into the ocean of sweat and flesh. Arturo’s voice growls in my ear as he pulls me down into his booth. The residual spirit sweats of the last song are running warm down my thighs. I hope that’s what it is. I see the Senator’s blood. I hear his voice when Arturo groans Hey Girl, like a low-rent over-flamboyant Ryan Gosling. Ever the charmer-out-of-time, six months to eighteen years late on every joke, lost on every reference. Doesnt stop him from being The Man. I had a problem. Arturo would have an answer. I needed Arturo to have an answer.

He packed me into the booth, already preloaded with high-rent call girls and horny upscale dudes in Armani and Brooks Brothers. He waved a hand and  the waitress appeared like a ghost, phasing into existence through the wastelands of my periphery.

© Axel Howerton 2014

And don’t forget to check out the BLOODY VALENTINE blog hop for all of the excellent participating writers and fiends.

And, if you comment here, or on the previous post (where you can leave your personal anecdotes on your worst V-Day or worst date experiences), you can win one of SIX prizes of either my best-selling hardboiled comedy novel HOT SINATRA, or the super exclusive, available-only-here companion collection, DECONSTRUCTING MOSS

The Bloody Valentine blog hop and FREE books!

Mega-talented author and pal, A.F. Stewart is throwing her annual VD shindig (Valentine’s Day, you bastards) and I’ve been invited to share a little madness and get in on the topic of Bad Bad Love.

Head over to ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK to meet some of the other Dark Lovelies involved (including many of the usual suspects, like Amy K. Marshall, Nina D’Arcangela, Clarissa Johal, Barbara Custer and Chris Verstraete)

Though you should be sure to check out ALL of the players!

As usual, I am running like a decapitated chicken ass-backwards through an endless maze of crazed convolution, so bear with me. I will be back later with a new poem, an extraction from this months ASAM (geared especially towards “Women in Horror Month”) and giving away a few e-book copies of Hot Sinatra and the EXCLUSIVE only-get-it-here companion collection Deconstructing Moss (which is as goddamned romantic as you can get).

DeconstructingMossCover

Speaking of Women in Horror month, check out this list on The Examiner of top Female Horror Writers (including a ton of friends and colleagues like The McHugh and the aforementioned D’Arcangela, as well as Carole Gill, Mercedes Yardley, Leigh M. Lane, Lori Lopez and the incredible Billie Sue Mosiman. My list would include C.W. LaSart, Red Tash and the incomparable Amy Marshall, but that’s me 😉

So until I return, why not drop me a little anecdote about your WORST date, WORST V-Day or WORST anti-love connection.

SIX of you are going to WIN BIG!

Axel Howerton LIVE! at CPL Writers Weekend!

DONT FORGET!!!WEB-Writers-weekend-2014

As many of you know, I am not exactly renowned for making a lot of public appearances. Today I’m venturing out into the real word without cover of my wife and kids, to help get the word out about the Crime Writers of Canada and the Calgary Public Library.

I will be attending the CPL Writers Weekend today and will be manning the Crime Writers of Canada table for most of the afternoon. Susan Calder, author of Deadly Fall will also be in attendance.

Come on by! Find out about the CWC, and enter to win copies of HOT SINATRA and other books by my fellow Southern Alberta crime writers! COME ON DOWN!