Brian Drake's Blog (28)

Another Quarry?

We are excited to note that 2010 will be a big one for fans of Max Allan Collins. While looking at the Hard Case Crime website tonight, I spotted the cover shot of yet another new Quarry novel, this one entitled Quarry's Ex. This is terrific news and the only bad thing is that we must wait until October before the book drops. What the heck are we going to read until then? Oh, right, Collins has the new Mike Hammer book coming out, among other things. We should be okay.



But we must… Continue

Added by Brian Drake on January 15, 2010 at 2:25pm — 1 Comment

Raymond Chandler's "Red Wind"

You don’t get very far as a reader of hard-boiled literature without hearing how “great” Chandler’s “Red Wind” is. The first paragraph gets all the attention and is, I think, the highlight of the story. It reads:



There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the… Continue

Added by Brian Drake on January 3, 2010 at 12:48pm — 1 Comment

Mickey Spillane Favorites

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 27, 2009 at 3:59pm — No Comments

The Whirlwind Concludes + Erle Stanley Gardner

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 22, 2009 at 5:28am — No Comments

Road to Paradise by Max Allan Collins

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 18, 2009 at 11:05am — No Comments

Coming up for air.....

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 12, 2009 at 1:39pm — No Comments

Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, or: Here Comes Another Thompson Revival

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 9, 2009 at 6:16am — No Comments

Moving Right Along...

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

Added by Brian Drake on December 4, 2009 at 4:22pm — No Comments

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