All Blog Posts Tagged 'burke' (14)

December's Good Reads

(Also posted at One Bite at a Time.) My reading year ended with a bang. Mischief, Ed McBain – A good, old-school, everyone gets into the act 87th Precinct story, featuring the Deaf Man. Meyer and Hawes get the mystery of abandoned Alzheimer’s patients, Parker and Kling have to work the killings of graffiti artists, and Carella and Brown have to figure out what the hell the Deaf Man is up to. All the stories end with less than p… Continue

Added by Dana King on January 1, 2010 at 11:46am — No Comments

Why I Don't Watch TV Cop Shows

(Also posted at One Bite at a Time.) I haven’t watched a TV cop show since The Wire went off the air, except for a random viewing of Numb3rs when The Sole Heir is visiting. This excerpt from James Lee Burke’s In the Moon of Red Ponies explains why better than I could. Most television cop shows make use of the following story line: A likeable individual is raped or assaulted, or a hardworking family loses one of… Continue

Added by Dana King on November 12, 2009 at 2:44am — 5 Comments

Are You Going to Believe Me, or Your Private Eyes?

(Also posted in One Bite at a Time.) I’ve been lucky over the past few weeks to have read three books that reminded me why I got interested in crime fiction and writing in the first place: first person private investigator stories. Libby Fischer Hellmann’s Easy Innocence takes the attitudes of an affluent suburb and shows consequences not often considered. Her detective, Georgia D… Continue

Added by Dana King on September 19, 2009 at 2:38am — 5 Comments

August Reads

August was a slow month for reading recommendations. Part of this was because my schedule was full and didn’t allow for as much reading time as I like. Another part was because I read several crappy books in August. Here are two worth following up on. Crime Always Pays, by Declan Burke. Not available to the public yet, I was lucky enough to score an advance electronic copy. The sequel to last year’s acclaimed The Big O, Crime Always Pays picks up just a few hours later, while thin… Continue

Added by Dana King on September 5, 2009 at 4:32am — No Comments

Really, real fiction... and Welsh detectives

The new blog I've started with fellow crime writers Christopher G. Moore, Colin Cotterill and Barbara Nadel has a new post from me today. It's about why I came to write so-called genre fiction. It starts like this: Writers have it all wrong. They think they need to learn about other writers. I studied English literature at Oxford University and I read all I could find of the sort of literary criticism that makes a novel seem like a piece of East German economic analysis. Three years later, I ha… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 16, 2009 at 9:10pm — 4 Comments

“What happened to the third little pig, Daddy?”: Bob Burke on pig detectives and his Writing Life

Anyone who’s perused the crime fiction section of their bookstore knows t… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 14, 2009 at 8:59pm — 2 Comments

Review: Crime fiction's first PI Pig

The Third Pig Detective Agency by Bob Burke published by The Friday Project i… Continue

Added by Matt Rees on July 10, 2009 at 1:43am — No Comments

Review: Last Car To Elysian Fields, James Lee Burke

James Lee Burke is arguably one of America’s greatest hardboiled detective authors, and Last Car to Elysian Fields not only does that reputation justice, it strengthens his position as a crime writer with an immense literary range that borders on the poetic. Detective Dave Robicheaux is ask… Continue

Added by Richard Kunzmann on April 15, 2009 at 7:03pm — No Comments

Dead End Road Interview in the Big Thrill

For those of you interested in my last thriller Dead-End Road and the Harry Mason / Jacob Tshabalala series in general, have a look at this month's issue of the Big Thrill Magazine. And for those writers who haven't yet joined, or the readers who haven't yet subscribed, check out the whole magazine. It's packed with tons of goodies. Here's the URL: http://www.thrillerwriters.org/2009/02/dead-end-road-by-richard-kunzmann.html The interview discusses why I came to focus on vigilant… Continue

Added by Richard Kunzmann on March 2, 2009 at 3:44am — No Comments

Bouchercon meta-fiction

Before heading off to Bouchercon this year I started to write a bit of fiction about the trip. I present the beginning of it here and will post the rest of it over the next few weeks. Remember, it's fiction. It's all made up. All of it. The Ten Rules When I wrote my novel, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, I used Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing, and I’m pretty sure that Declan Burke used them when he wrote his novel, The Big O, so it was natural when we teamed up t… Continue

Added by John McFetridge on November 25, 2008 at 4:23am — No Comments

Crime Always Pays

This week on Crime Always Pays: John McFetridge (right) launches ‘the Toronto Series’ on-line; Charles Salzberg Q&A’d; a review of Alan Glynn’s THE DARK FIELDS; some decent reviews for THE BIG O; free copies of Paul Charles’ THE BEAU… Continue

Added by Declan Burke on October 2, 2008 at 8:09pm — No Comments

Alafair Burke at The Poisoned Pen

When Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen Bookstore, introduced Alafair Burke to the audience, she said they had both graduated from Stanford. They went on to mention other authors who went to Stanford - Michele Martinez, Diane Mott Davidson, Tess Gerritsen, Twist Phelan, an… Continue

Added by Lesa Holstine on September 9, 2008 at 12:30am — No Comments

Crime Always Pays

This week on Crime Always Pays: Catherine O’Flynn’s WHAT WAS LOST, Declan Burke’s THE BIG O and Tana French’s THE LIKENESS reviewed; free copies of KO Dahl’s THE FOURTH MAN and THE MAN IN THE WINDOW; A GONZO NOIR gets its own blog; Andrew Taylor on the genesis of BLEEDING HEART SQUARE; KT McCaffrey on soundtracks and writing; Ed Lynskey Q&A’d; and – wait for it! – a first look at Will Hoyle’s BELLA MORTE! Continue

Added by Declan Burke on June 18, 2008 at 9:15pm — No Comments

James Lee Burke

Every time I read something by James Lee Burke I tell myself, “You really need to read more James Lee Burke.” This year I’m finally getting around to it, and it’s made my reading time richer and more rewarding. I just finished PEGASUS DESCENDING after reading CADILLAC JUKEBOX in March and JOLIE BLON’S BOUNCE in December. I don’t like him more each time anymore; he’s who I come back to when I want to be reminded why I love to read. His characters walk in off the cane break as fully-formed people… Continue

Added by Dana King on May 6, 2008 at 11:29am — 4 Comments