2024-04-24 12:00
Flamingo Roadby Sasscer HillMinotaur Books, 2017
Flamingo Road, Sasscer
Hill’s first (of two) featuring former Baltimore PD officer Fia McKee, is a
satisfying by-the-numbers detecti… Read More
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Dark City Underground Blog
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dark city underground is a book blog. it is eclectic. it features works and authors from various categories.
2024-04-22 16:21
Introduction to Heretic: Storiesby Philip José Farmer
The critic Leslie Fiedler called Philip
José Farmer “the greatest science fiction writer ever”… Read More
2024-04-15 12:00
from ED GORMAN’S Desk
City
That Never Sleeps
from Nov. 16, 2009
directed by JOHN H. AUER / written by STEVE
FISHER / starring: GIG YOUNG, MALA POWERS, WILLIAM TALMAN, E… Read More
2024-04-11 12:00
Pretty Girl Goneby David HousewrightMinotaur Books, 2006
Pretty Girl Gone, David
Housewright’s entertaining third Rushmore McKenzie mystery, finds McKenzie doing
a favor for his o… Read More
2024-04-08 12:00
This nice profile of
Roger E. Mosley (1938 – 2022) appeared in the June 5, 1983, issue of the Salt
Lake Tribune. By every account I have read—and this piece contin… Read More
2024-04-03 12:00
The
Summonsby Peter LoveseySoho Crime, 2004
Peter Lovesey’s third Peter Diamond
detective novel, The Summons—originally published in 1995 by Mysterious
Press&mda&hell…Read More
2024-04-01 12:14
Over the past few years I abandoned using
notebooks to keep track of the books I read in favor of Goodreads. A practice
that came about out of laziness more than anything else, but this year… Read More
2024-03-27 12:00
Half Crimeby Rusty BarnesRedneck Press, 2024
Rusty Barnes’s Half Crime collects nine
original stories about small crimes, human frailties, and sorrow. The tales lea… Read More
2024-03-25 12:00
Tin Cityby David HousewrightMinotaur Books, 2005
Tin City is David Housewright’s excellent
second mystery featuring unlicensed private eye Rushmore McKenzie. When aske… Read More
2024-03-20 12:00
In for the Killby John LutzPinnacle, 2007
There was a time not so long ago when serial
killer police procedurals were everywhere. From film to television to fiction. Per… Read More
2024-03-18 12:00
from ED GORMAN’S Desk
Richard
NeelyNov. 10, 2005
The first time I ever spoke to Richard
Neely, suspense novelist extraordinaire, he kept trying to place my name. &l… Read More
2024-03-13 12:04
Top Secret Killby James P. CodyBrash Books, 2024
Top Secret Kill—originally
published as a paperback original by Berkley-Medallion in 1974—is the first of
four titles in the s… Read More
2024-03-11 12:52
Did you say, Cannon? Yeah, I did, and this
sweet write-up about William Conrad appeared in the December 16, 1973, issue
of TV Week, included in the Salt Lake Tribune. While it… Read More
2024-03-06 13:00
The Sleeping Cityby Marty HollandStark House, 2023
The Sleeping City is a hardboiled
novella-length crime tale by Marty Holland originally published in the Fall
1952 issue of Thrilling… Read More
2024-03-04 13:00
This autobiographical
essay by science fiction writer Edmond Hamilton appeared in the April 1956
issue of Imagination alongside Hamilton’s novella, “The… Read More
2024-02-28 13:00
“Is Betsey Blake Still Alive?”by Robert BlochIvy Books, 1987
A couple things I like: 1) stories written by
Robert Bloch; and 2) stories about Hollywood. So it was inevitable I… Read More
2024-02-26 13:00
A Night at the Shoreby Tony KnightonBrash Books, 2024
Tony Knighton’s third Nameless Thief crime
novel, A Night at the Shore, is a fast-driving, exciting, and downright
cool heist… Read More
2024-02-21 13:00
The Devil May Careby David HousewrightMinotaur Books, 2014
David Housewright’s eleventh Rushmore
McKenzie mystery, The Devil May Care, is a thinking man’s thriller with
a bi… Read More
2024-02-19 13:00
Women Wrote the Future, Vol. 1: Tales from Galaxy is an extravaganza of great science fiction written by
women and published in Galaxy in the 1950s. It is available
now… Read More
2024-02-14 13:00
Turnaboutby Jeremiah HealyLeisure Books, 2005 Turnabout—which was originally
published by Five Star in 2001—is an appealing, slow-paced, and surprising
crime novel by the au… Read More
2024-02-12 13:02
In the late hours I
tell myself I’m a reader, not a collector, which is (mostly) true and so I’ve
never had a problem repairing books for the purpose of making them readab… Read More
2024-02-07 13:00
This morning I realized I needed some Harry O love. I found this marvelous little article
published in the January 20, 1974, issue of TV Week, included in the Salt Lake
Tribun… Read More
2024-02-05 13:00
In at the Killby Emmett McDowellStark House Press, 2023*
In at the Kill—which began
life as one-half of an Ace Double in 1960 (paired with McDowell’s own Bloodline
to Murder)… Read More
2024-01-31 13:00
Heroby Thomas PerryMysterious Press, 2024
Hero, Thomas Perry’s latest thriller,
is a shotgun blast from the first page to the last. Justine Poole is a security
agent for Los Angeles… Read More
2024-01-25 13:00
“On Texas Street”by Ernest HaycoxLittle,
Brown & Co., 1942
Originally appearing in the Dec. 1932 issue
of Collier’s, “On Texas Street” is an appealing li… Read More
2024-01-22 13:00
This autobiographical
essay by science fiction writer Frank M. Robinson appeared in the June 1955
issue of Imagination alongside Robinson’s novelette, “Wanted: One… Read More
2024-01-17 13:00
Cause of Deathby Patricia CornwellBerkley, 1997
Patricia Cornwell’s seventh Dr. Kay
Scarpetta novel, originally published by G. P. Putnam in 1996, is a blander
production than her e… Read More
2024-01-15 13:00
S. S. Van Dine Sets Down Twenty Rules
for Writing Detective Stories
The American Magazine, Sep. 1928
_________
“There simply must be a corpse in a
detective novel, and the… Read More
2024-01-10 13:00
The Poker Clubby Ed GormanLeisure Books, 2000
The Poker Club, by Ed Gorman,
originally published as a limited and signed edition hardcover by Cemetery
Dance in 1999, is an expansion of Go… Read More
2024-01-08 13:00
This
autobiographical essay by science fiction writer Robert Heinlein appeared in
the Nov. 1953 issue of Imagination alongside Heinlein’s short story, “Sky
Lift”… Read More
2024-01-03 13:00
Dust Devilsby James ReasonerThe Book Place, 2011
James Reasoner’s marvelous crime thriller, Dust
Devils—published by Point Blank Press in 2007—received a starred review… Read More
2023-12-20 13:00
O Little
Town of Donutsby Ron
Peer with Mitzi Lynton2022
O Little Town of Donuts, by
screenwriter Ron Peer with Mitzi Lynton, is a sweet-hearted
story about good feelings, love, and Chris… Read More
2023-12-18 13:00
Two new collections of
Norbert Davis’s pulp stories dropped last week—Do a Dame a Favor &
Other Stories and Walk Across My Grave & Other Stories—from an
up… Read More
2023-12-13 13:00
Texas Windby James ReasonerThe
Book Place, 2010
James Reasoner’s first novel, Texas Wind,
is a great hardboiled private eye tale set in Fort Worth, Texas in the
late-1970s. It was ori… Read More
2023-12-11 13:00
Sometimes
I need to know what was on television during the week of September 9, 1974. This
is from the Logan Herald Journal, (Utah) Sep. 9, 1974. KUTV Channel 2 was—at l… Read More
2023-12-06 13:00
The Tithing Herdby J. R. LindermuthSundown Press, 2017The Tithing Herd, by J.
R. Lindermuth, is a traditional Western with a bevy of action, solid
characterization, and a literate and… Read More
2023-12-04 13:00
This light-hearted,
but informative autobiographical essay by Evan Hunter appeared in the Dec.
1953 issue of Imagination alongside Hunter’s novelette, “First… Read More
2023-11-29 13:00
Homicide: Saigonby Stephen MertzWolfpack
Publishing, 2021 Homicide: Saigon, by
action maestro Stephen Mertz, is as fast as a bullet and as much fun as a
summer afternoon. It is 1970. Th… Read More
2023-11-27 13:00
Introduction
to Tales of the Macabre by Jim Kjelgaard
[now available from Vintage Lists in the Tales of the Macabre /
The Black Fawn collection]
Jim Kjelgaard was a regular contributor of… Read More
2023-11-22 16:45
There
are a couple new reviews of mine out in the world. Unfortunately, none of them
are here, so I figured I’d point them out anyone interested enough to jump to a
few websites. … Read More
2023-11-20 22:15
Something a little different at the
blog this evening—and forgive my shameless familial promotion—but… My sweet and kind and
beautiful wife has a… Read More
2023-11-16 13:00
A marvelously self-effacing
biographical essay from Philip K. Dick. It appeared in the February 1953
issue of Imagination alongside his short story, “Piper in the… Read More
2023-11-07 13:00
Crown Vic
is
different from what novelist and screenwriter Lee Goldberg is known for writing
– easy going, well-plotted, and general audience mysteries like his brilliant Eve
Ronin ser… Read More
2023-11-04 18:10
An interview, of a sort mostly about fishing
and outdoor fun, with Jim Kjelgaard that appeared in the Nov. 10, 1945 issue of
the pulp magazine Short Stories with Kjelgaard’s short-shor… Read More
2023-10-11 18:00
A new collection of four crime
novelettes from pulp maestro Cleve F. Adams is available at Amazon, as both a
paperback and Kindle, titled Punk & Other Stories. Inside is a
brief… Read More
2023-08-28 11:00
Lion &
Lamb,
the latest collaboration between James Patterson and Duane Swierczynski, is a fun
and light-hearted mystery set in the City of Brotherly Love. When the E… Read More
2022-10-09 12:45
If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can ha… Read More
2022-10-03 17:24
Something wonderful happened at a used bookstore in Middlebury, Vermont… But first a little background and explanation is in order. My family and I moved to Vermon… Read More
2022-09-29 12:00
The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine – Fall 2022, No. 173 – is available at a newsstand near you. Inside you’ll find a wonderful selection of feature articles, listed… Read More
2022-09-25 13:00
I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. … Read More
2022-08-14 11:00
Some men spend their lives looking for ways to punish themselves for having been born. &nbs&hellip…Read More
2022-08-08 11:00
One of my favorite childhood writers was Jim Kjelgaard. I spent hours reading about boys and dogs and the wilderness in his outdoor adventure novels. He wrote genre classics Big Red, W… Read More
2022-08-07 11:00
Fear is a survival instinct; fear in its way is a comfort for it means that somewhere hope is alive. [Th… Read More
2022-08-01 11:00
The summer rolls on. Here in Salt Lake City, July 2022, was the hottest month ever recorded. The string of 100-degree days was astonishing (and depressing), but there are always family, frie… Read More
2022-07-31 11:00
Please not yet. Those are the three eternal words. Please not yet. [John D. MacDonald] &n&hellip…Read More
2022-07-29 17:00
This 1971 interview with mystery writer Rex Stout, written by Israel Shenker for The New York Times and published in the Salt Lake Tribune on Dec. 5, 1971, is an interesting look at Stout&rs&hell…Read More
2022-07-18 11:00
I’m a sucker for old genre magazines (fiction and non-fiction alike) and one of my favorites is the horror rag, Cemetery Dance. While perusing the Spring 1992 issue, which includes sto… Read More
2022-07-17 11:00
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be… Read More
2022-07-11 11:00
Here in Salt Lake City, the summer is hotter than ever with little chance of cooling anytime soon. At least we have air conditioning, good books, and beauty (the painting above, rather than… Read More
2022-07-07 11:00
The Lemon Man, the debut novel of Irish writer Keith Bruton, is a fast-paced and humorous crime story about a Dublin hitman named Patrick Callen. Callen earned his nickname, “the lemon… Read More
2022-07-04 11:00
It’s summer here in the Northern hemisphere, and where there is summer, there always seems (ironically, since there are more hours of light) to be less time in the day. With that in mi… Read More
2022-07-03 11:00
There’s a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night’s. [Ed Gorman] &n&hellip…Read More
2022-06-30 11:00
Say It Was Murder, by Stephen Mertz, is an innovative and modern vision of the old-fashioned private eye novel. McShan – no first name offered – is an operative for a large detec… Read More
2022-06-27 11:00
A Quartet of Vintage Horror Ads A friend sent an issue of Mystery Scene from September 1986. The content is fascinating for readers with an interest in pretty much anything being… Read More
2022-06-26 11:00
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.  &hell…Read More
2022-06-23 11:00
The 1970s were a great decade for adventure novels. A wave of writers, mostly British, were writing suspense adventure, usually featuring a common man in very uncommon trouble. The most popu… Read More
2022-06-20 17:30
This Red-Handed Wretch:Bill Hickman and The Murder of Richard Yates by Ben Boulden In the dying minutes of October 18, 1857, the notorious lawman, lawyer, and admitted murderer, William Ad… Read More
2022-06-19 11:00
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can’t see from the center.  &hellip…Read More
2022-06-16 11:00
The Funhouse was a paperback original published in 1980 as by Owen West. A pseudonym Dean Koontz used for this novel and again for The Mask(1981). It’s based on the screenplay for the… Read More
2022-06-13 16:15
Ian Fleming’s flamboyant superspy James Bond made a commercial splash with his first appearance in the 1953 novel, Casino Royale. Jonathon Cape published a first run of 5,000 cop… Read More
2022-06-12 11:00
We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?  &hellip…Read More
2022-06-06 11:00
We’re taking a regularly scheduled break this week, June 6 – 11, 2022, but we’ll be back with a mystery post – there are three articles vying for the privilege… Read More
2022-06-05 11:00
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth i… Read More
2022-06-02 11:00
Ed Gorman’s work is reliably good. At its best it is clear, concise, meaningful, and (best of all) entertaining. The people he creates have a melancholy hope. A hope that often goes un… Read More
2022-05-30 11:00
Reprobate by Ben Boulden _____ Ma, sainted all these years since, advised me about life as she crossed that sacred veil between this world and the next. Her voice w… Read More
2022-05-26 11:00
If you say Dan J. Marlowe’s name, it echoes with the hardboiled, but his prose and style is just as tough:“I’ll be leaving one of these days, and the day I do they’ll… Read More
2022-05-23 11:00
“More on Moron”: The Reader Speaks in Thrilling Wonder Stories by Ben Boulden At its best, the modern world is marvelous. (We won’t discuss the downside of modernity f… Read More
2022-05-22 11:00
“The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.” [Edith Wharton] … Read More
2022-05-19 11:00
The latest issue of Mystery Scene Magazine – Summer 2022, No. 172 – is available at a newsstand near you. Inside is a great selection of feature articles, listed below, along wit… Read More
2022-05-16 11:00
Alistair MacLean’s rise to worldwide bestseller status came in dizzying fashion. His first novel, H.M.S. Ulyssess – which I happen to think is also his best – was pub… Read More
2022-05-15 11:00
The problem, often not discovered until late in life, is that when you look for things in life like love, meaning, motivation, it implies they are sitting behind a tree or under a rock… Read More
2022-05-12 15:46
Gilbert Ralston’s 1973 novel Dakota Warpath, reissued this year as Dakota by Brash Books, is the first of a five book private eye series featuring the Piegan-Shoshoni Native American C… Read More
2022-05-09 16:52
Misogyny & Murder: Betty Webb’s Polygamy Mysteries by Ben Boulden Mystery writer and journalist Betty Webb made a literary splash when her second Lena Jones detective novel… Read More
2022-05-08 11:00
A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. I… Read More
2022-05-02 11:00
We’re taking a regularly scheduled break this week, May 2 – 7, 2022, but we’ll be back with a post about Betty Webb’s Lena Jones mysteries about modern polygamy, tent… Read More
2022-05-01 11:00
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. … Read More
2022-04-28 13:36
Graham Ison’s seventh DCI Harry Brock and DS Dave Poole mystery, Breach of Privilege(2009), is a brisk Scotland Yard procedural with a high investigative IQ, minimal characteriza… Read More
2022-04-25 11:00
Jim Kjelgaard’s Adventure Magazine Storiesby Ben Boulden Jim Kjelgaard (pronounced kel-guard) is best remembered for his young adult adventures featuring dogs, young boys, and always s… Read More
2022-04-24 11:00
Remember this: there is no compromise where a man’s personal integrity and honor are concerned, no way to retreat and regroup. Your first line of defense is your last, and once y… Read More
2022-04-21 11:00
Robert Silverberg’s The Book of Skulls was published in 1972 to wide approval. It was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards (without taking any of the prizes home). It&rsquo&hell…Read More
2022-04-18 11:00
A Little About Jack Higgins: A Life in Writingby Ben Boulden Jack Higgins is a familiar name to most readers. His thrillers have routinely appeared on international bestseller lists since hi… Read More
2022-04-17 11:00
It takes two people to make you, and one people to die. That’s how the world is going to end.  &hellip…Read More
2022-04-14 10:30
Santa Rita is a small town with a big city problem: a serial rapist is working its streets. When the prime suspect for the rapes, Martin Torrey, is murdered – a bullet to the back of h… Read More
2022-04-11 18:28
John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee, an Essay in Book Cover Art John D. MacDonald (JDM) was one of the best-selling writers working in crime and mystery fiction in post-World War 2 America… Read More
2022-04-10 10:30
Cosmology is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it’s no wonder. We’re storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation? [Brian Gr… Read More
2022-04-07 10:00
“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat!”– Stephen King ______ Richard Laymon’s Midnight’s Lair was first published, as by Richard Kel… Read More
2022-04-04 11:00
Brash Books has released both of Gary Stewart’s Gabe Utley private eye novels – The Tenth Virgin (1983) and The Zarahemla Vision (1986) – in trade paperback and in ebook fo… Read More
2022-04-03 10:00
Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined. … Read More
2022-03-28 10:30
We’re taking a regularly scheduled break this week, March 28 – April 2, 2022, but we’ll be back with a mystery post, even to me, on Monday, Apr. 4, and a review of Richard… Read More
2022-03-27 10:30
It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them. … Read More
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