The Blackstone Audio Mike Hammer plays showed up in the stocking Friday, and listening to the stories put me on a Mickey Kick like I haven’t been on in several years. Hammer was the first hard-boiled P.I. I read about back in the day, so when I started writing my own private eye stories, of course the hero vaguely resembled Hammer. I read anything I could get my hands on that had Spillane’s name on the cover—still do—but in the last few years I’ve moved on to other authors and Mickey has fallen… Continue

Well, friends, I am happy to report that my new spy novel, now entitled The Eagle Intercept, is complete at 70,000 words. For those of you just joining us, this manuscript started out as my NaNoWriMo project and almost didn't get finished (I had a hard time with the first draft) and when it was finished, was far too short (about 40,000 words). The first read-through and subsequent revision netted a ton of material I hadn't realized was there to tap, and as spy thrillers go I think it's pretty… Continue

Over the last ten years or so, work, life in general, and work has required me to move around a lot, and sometimes, as you can imagine, things get lost in the shuffle. One of those things was a book I bought in 2005 and only recently discovered that I had never read. That book was the third in the "Road" series by Max Allan Collins, one of the prose sequels to the "Road to Perdition" saga that began with the famous graphic novel of the same name.



So I set aside other reading material… Continue

I haven't posted much the last few days because I've been frantically scribbling the final pages of the new manuscript, typing them, and getting the first draft out of the computer. Today I edited and did some revision on the first 50 pages, and the excitement I'm feeling over these pages is coming out my ears.



I don't care for my title, but I can fix that later. I'm trying to a Ludlum-style "The [noun] [proper noun]" style, but it's tough. Right now I have "The Lassen Agenda" which… Continue

I just learned that in 2010 we will see a new film adaptation of Jim Thompson's "The Killer Inside Me". I have several reactions. One, an anticipation to see the final product; two, a fear that the final product will be sludge; three, boy, I sure love that book.



I first read "Killer" back in 1998 when I had decided to abandon spy fiction (reading and writing, only to return to writing it recently) and take a whirl-wind tour through hard-boiled literature. What a great place to start!… Continue

For NaNoWriMo I worked on a spy novel in the James Bond vein and not only failed to reach the 50,000 word goal, I also failed to even get close to the longer length I wanted. Now the rewriting process begins, and new material is suggesting itself, and I'm enjoying the process, but this isn't the crime novel I've dreamed of writing. I have decided to put my name on it, but I hope the market and publishers will let me dabble in both action thrillers and crime novels--heck, it works for Dan… Continue