Dana King's Blog (144)

Wild Bill: Cast of Characters

(Wild Bill will be available for Amazon Kindle On August 29; other formats to follow. )

Not to sound arrogant or conceited, but Wild Bill shares qualities with the greatest American fiction, writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner, and Twain. Words. Sentences, Paragraphs. Chapters. Grammar, for Chrissake.

And characters. Lots of them. Here’s the lowdown on a few.

Willard “Wild Bill” Hickox. Born…

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Added by Dana King on August 23, 2011 at 8:51am — 2 Comments

Wild Bill Available for Kindle August 29

My first e-book, Wild Bill, will be available for Kindle on Amazon.com, Monday, August 28. I’ll spare you all the flackery a corporate minion would inflict upon you about what a glorious work of unsurpassed genius it is and let you make up your own mind, based on the description that will appear in Amazon:

Will Hickox is a decorated FBI veteran with a legendary ability to cultivate informants, much closer to retirement than to the days when he earned the nickname “Wild…

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Added by Dana King on August 19, 2011 at 4:40am — No Comments

July's Best Reads

I’m having a good time taking the summer off from writing, though I can feel the itch starting to grow behind my right ear. Reading goes on year-round. Here are my favorite reads for July.

Shadow of the Dahlia, Jack Bludis. Bludis is another one of those writers I’ve been aware of for a while. When an interview in Allan Guthrie’s Criminal-E blog activated the Kindle Impulse Purchase section of my brain, I downloaded…

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Added by Dana King on August 1, 2011 at 7:08am — No Comments

Absolute Zero Cool

My friendship with Declan Burke predates this blog. I met him via an interview after I had reviewed his novelThe Big O, the appeal of which has not diminished with the passage of three years. He is a splendid person, a good friend and confederate, and has bucked me up more times than I care to remember as having needed to be bucked up.

His new book, Absolute Zero Cool, was officially released on July 7, though the big party will…

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Added by Dana King on July 18, 2011 at 2:45am — No Comments

June's Best Reads

I read some kick ass books in June.

Added by Dana King on July 1, 2011 at 11:23pm — No Comments

Recommended Reads

My unfortunate winter reading slump has ended, and I have some catch-up recommendations over on my blog, One Bite at a Time. The books recommended include authors Scott Phillips, Evan Wright, Declan Hughes, Leighton Gage, Timothy Hallinan, John McNally, and Charles Portis.

Stop over and leave a comment. Disagreement encouraged.

Added by Dana King on May 2, 2011 at 2:29am — No Comments

A Writer's Life

Once again, The Onion knows more about what we do than most of us are willing to admit.

Added by Dana King on April 15, 2011 at 2:30am — 2 Comments

Crashed

I’ve been a devotee of Timothy Hallinan’s work since I was asked to review A Nail Through the Heart, the first of his Poke Rafferty series. The Rafferty books started strong and got better, capped (so far) by last year’s The Queen of Patpong. Knowing how much effort Hallinan puts into the Rafferty books, and the emotional fatigue that must have been induced in writing Queen, it was no surprise when he opted for something lighter for his next project.

Junior…

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Added by Dana King on April 11, 2011 at 11:09pm — 2 Comments

What is Success?

Some thoughts on success in writing, at least for me. Feel free to drop on by One Bite at a Time and leave a comment.

Added by Dana King on December 21, 2010 at 9:41am — 2 Comments

An Interview With Steve Weddle

"You just don't have the kind of day I was having and not kill someone."


Now, what red-blooded lover of noir could read that and not want to know what comes next, or more about the writer? If you…
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Added by Dana King on December 2, 2010 at 11:57am — No Comments

634 at A Twist of Noir

Christopher Grant's A Twist of Noir blog is running an interesting series. To commemorate the blog's increasing presence as a venue for short noir fiction, stories 600-700 were commissioned to come in at the same number of words as the story's order in ATON's oeuvre. My contribution occupies spot 634.


In a fit of imagination rare even for someone of my creative ilk, I titled my story…
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Added by Dana King on November 30, 2010 at 10:38pm — 1 Comment

Grind Joint





I started a new project this week and have a readable draft of the first chapter. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated. (I promise not to post the whole thing like it was a friggin serial; I’m just curious to see if people would want to read more after reading this.)…



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Added by Dana King on September 30, 2010 at 12:26pm — 1 Comment

Hitter at A Twist of Noir





A new short story, “Hitter,” has been posted at A

Twist of Noir
. Stop on over and check out the other good stuff there.…





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Added by Dana King on September 21, 2010 at 11:34am — 4 Comments

Why Movies Suck

(Also posted at One Bite at a Time)



Here's a tidbit from the Trivia page of IMDB's entry for the movie Get Shorty:



MGM didn't want to extensively use Elmore Leonard-inspired dialogue in the

film, and pushed Barry Sonnenfeld and Scott Frank to make many passages

more generic than the book's, but once John Travolta signed on to… Continue

Added by Dana King on August 18, 2010 at 11:26am — 1 Comment

Summer Reading



My summer hiatus has extended into all realms of writing, including passing along recommendations. Not that what appears in this blog will make or break a book, but making even one person

aware of a good book is worth the time, since the publishers sure as hell aren’t

going to do it.…



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Added by Dana King on August 2, 2010 at 3:00am — No Comments

Incoming Flack





I’ve been fortunate to write over a hundred reviews for New Mystery Reader over the past five years. During that time, I have been ever luckier to deal almost exclusively with NMR’s patient and long-suffering editor, Stephanie Padilla.Stephanie has made sure books got to me and interviews were set up, so I rarely had to deal with the major publishers’ publicists. For that I am eternally…

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Added by Dana King on June 26, 2010 at 11:25am — 3 Comments

Go Visit The Kill Zone

John Gilstrap has started an excellent discussion over at The Kill Zone blog. His post is good; some of the comments are even better. (mine excepted.) Well worth a look.

http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2010/05/such-anger.html


Added by Dana King on May 29, 2010 at 2:27am — 1 Comment

Blood, Guts, and Whiskey Launches May 25

Thuglit’s third anthology, Blood, Guts, and Whiskey, will be available to the public on May 25th, two weeks from today. Todd Robinson’s first two collections (Hardcore Hardboiled, and Sex, Thugs, and Rock and Roll) were widely acclaimed, each containing award-winning stories. The newest arrival promises to be just as good, as the appearance of several writers of renown (Sean Doolittle, Craig MacDonald, Stuart Neville, Dave Zeltserman, to name a few alphabetically) figures to balance out…
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Added by Dana King on May 12, 2010 at 4:51am — No Comments

April's Reads

April found me in a bit of a literary funk. Little writing or reading

was done while I went into the man-cave to recharge my batteries. I'm

feeling better now, and have made myself a promise that should help to

fend off future episodes.



I'm not reading any more shitty books.



I always prided myself on reading a book all the through to the end,

whether I was asked to review it or not. Bad books can teach, if only to

show what not to do, or how not to do… Continue

Added by Dana King on May 2, 2010 at 6:49am — 1 Comment

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