Spring is Sprung, The Grass is Riz...
For those of you wondering where the Spring issue of The Thrilling Detective Web Site is, don't bother.. . it's here.Call the neighbours, wake up the kids, tell Granma to put her bifocals on.
And we're only a few weeks late, not a few months, so we're definitely doing a little better. Not better enough to actually, regularly blog -- I see my last blog here was about the last issue, but trust me, I'm feeling good about now.
We've got some new stories for you, and a big hunk of a think-piece I'm still trying to get my head around, but it's good to be back.
Of course, none of this would be possible without my partner-in-crime, fiction editor, Gerald So, and the contributors for this issue, all of whom once again waited -- and waited and waited -- for me to get my act together.
As always, Gerald has acted as gatekeeper, only letting in the worthy. This go-round we kick off with "Love is for Suckers" by Robert Petyo, about a private eye who isn't sure anymore who's watching who and who's zoomin' who. Next up is "Terra Bella" by Robert Stevens, a decidely bucolic tale that shows there's more than cowshit that smells bad in the sticks. Our old pal Jim Winter returns with "Love Don't Mean a Thing," a nasty little tale of love, hate and revenge, featuring his long-time series gumshoe Nick Kepler.
Also in this issue we have "East of A," a classic Payton Sherwood reprint by Russell Atwood that originally appeared in the June 1996 issue of EQMM. And we wrap up things with an excerpt from The Big Wake-Up, the upcoming novel by Mark Coggins, featuring his San Francisco eye August Riordan.
But that's not all -- we've also got a great non-fiction piece making its Thrilling Detective debut. "A Man Must Do What He Must: Hammett's Pragmatism" is an unapologetic think-piece by Josef Hoffmann that makes no bones about its thesis: Hammett wasn't a Communist; he was a pragmatist.
And, uh, there'sa whole shit load of other stuff coming, including about three or four months of bits and pieces that have accumulated in my in box. Be patient -- I'll get to it.
And of course we're always looking for contributions. Reviews, editorials, trivua, comments, blah blah blah. Don't worry, I don't bite.
Well, hardly...
posted by Kevin Burton Smith at 5:51 PM
4 Comments:
At last! I was waiting for it, was starting to despair actually. I think I have been through all the good titles in the local library, I needed to get my teeth on something else than serial killers stories (I can't stand those). I also love the new issues for their cover. This one is classy.
Classy? And yet many of the MIKE SHAYNE covers in its last few years were actually pretty tacky...
Still, I have a ton of them tucked away in a friend's attic in Montreal.
The PQ years were actually very good for us Anglo Montrealers who prowled used bookstores. At one point in the mid-eighties, there were four or five used bookstores within a few blocks on Sherbrooke in NDG, and another six or seven between Peel and Atwater. Oh, and Russell books across from the Gazette was a great spot for old Fawcett and Dell paperbacks... Shell Scotts and Mike Shaynes from the fifties and sixties for a quarter apiece! And Mike Shayne Mystery Magazines and Manhunts for a dime!!!!
Classy might not have been the best term, it might actually have been the most inacurate one I could come up with, but I love the cover anyway.
Well, I'm glad you think the PQ time was not all bad, although I doubt they had anything to do with it. The PQ years were also very good for crime fiction in Quebec, although it had nothing to do with them: we got Omertà, the greatest (and maybe one and only) crime tv series in our television history in the 90s, we also had a gang war that and simultaneous police hunt that could have inspired generations of crime writers.
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