A Scribbler's Medley

ratatouille, pot-pourri, tutti frutti and other mixed bags

This issue will be bits and bobs. Mostly because I’ve been traveling and kept busy with two upcoming projects as well as little support pieces to write in response to a very good news I can’t announce yet … tease, tease!

A. The retro-noir novella I wrote with Russell Thayer is first on the calendar. It’s called Bop City Swing and will come out from Cowboy Jamboree in April. Frank Vatel designed the drop-dead sexy cover (you’ll have to wait for the reveal) and Russ and I did a final reading of the print proof. Yes, we found little nits … and we were so certain we had caught everything!

Here’s the blurb that will be used for promotional purposes

San Francisco. 1951.

Jazz is alive. On radios and turntables. In the electrifying Fillmore clubs, where hepcats bring their bebop brilliance to attentive audiences. In the posh downtown venues where big bands swing in the marble ballrooms of luxury hotels.

That’s where the story begins, with the assassination of a campaigning politician during a fundraiser.

Homicide detective, Tom Keegan, is first on the scene. He’s eager, impatient, hot on the heels of the gunman. Gunselle, killer for hire, is no longer there. She flew the coop, swept away in the rush of panicked guests.

They both want to crack the case. Tom, because he’s never seen a puzzle he didn’t want to solve, no matter what the rules say. Gunselle, because she was hired to take out the candidate and somebody beat her to it. It was a big paycheck. It hurts. In her professional pride and wallet.

The war has been over for six years, but the suffering and death, at home and abroad, linger as a horror behind the eyes of some men. And one young woman.

Bop City Swing is the brainchild of Russell Thayer, author of the Gunselle stories, and M.E. Proctor, who occasionally takes a break from Declan Shaw, her Houston PI, to don Tom Keegan’s gray fedora.

Are you excited? Russ and I are! And the reactions of our early readers/reviewers are heart-warming. We had so much fun with it that we’ve decided to do another one. Russ is already firing on all cylinders and I have some catch up to do. I owe him a few scenes. Better get to it …

(This is what comes to my mind when I picture San Francisco in the 50s… although Vertigo is from 1958. By the way, Tom Keegan’s landlady is Mrs Ferguson… Got it?)

B. The other project is the next Declan Shaw book, Catch Me on a Blue Day, scheduled for release in September. You’ll think that’s plenty of time, but I gave it to Jim to read once again and his feedback needed to be addressed. I will read the document one last time before sending it to the publisher. Blurbs have been coming in from early reviewers, so I put that together. Next steps: writing the back cover copy, press releases, support articles, and line up podcasts and interviews. Do you think this keeps me from writing? You bet it does!

This will give you an idea of what the book is all about.

“For Ella and all the innocents slain by soulless men.”

It’s the dedication of the book on the Salvadoran civil war retired reporter Carlton Marsh was writing before he committed suicide.

A shocking death. Marsh had asked Declan Shaw to come to Old Mapleton, Connecticut to help him with research. He looked forward to Declan’s visit: “See you at cocktail time, a fine whiskey’s waiting.” They talked on the phone a few hours before the man blew his head off.

Now Declan stands in the office of the local police chief. The cop would prefer to see him fly back to Houston. He’s never dealt with a private detective, but everybody knows they are trouble. If only there weren’t so many unanswered questions around Marsh’s death … the haunting first three chapters of his book, and that dedication to Ella, a girl whose murder thirty years ago brought the town to its knees. And Marsh wanted Declan to do research for his book. A dead friend’s wishes should be honored.

In Catch Me on a Blue Day, Declan is far from his regular Texas stomping grounds. He’s off balance in more ways than one, and the crimes he uncovers are of a magnitude he could not foresee. Between the sins of an old New England town and the violence of 1980s El Salvador. And the links between the two.

More to come, but you, faithful readers, have the scoop.

A new story …

In between all this, Punk Noir Magazine published a short story I submitted for their Bloody Valentine call. The word count was 100 words max. I just learned from fellow writer Douglas Lumsden that a 100-word story is called a drabble. I guess this one doesn’t qualify. It clocks at 99!

This is short, so I include it below. You’d be surprised what you can pack in such a small bite. Happy reading.

Final cut

Stabbing is intimate. A final embrace. The knife slipping in. My hand to your heart, the warmth of you. Piercing the flesh I caressed last night, when I thought we would be together forever. I feel your breath on my neck. You think I’m saying goodbye. You say these things happen. You say it could have been me, a chance encounter, eyes that meet like the clink of crystal glasses. You have a way with words. You say it cannot be helped. Stabbing is hard, it requires strength, determination. Despair. I have the despair, my love, if nothing else.

A cool interview

I was a guest on Mark Robinson’s Behind the Screams, here on Substack … have a read:

Behind the Screams #33: M.E. Proctor.

Last but not Least: Call for submissions

I am guest editor at Punk Noir for the month of March. Submissions open February 20 and close February 27, 1000 words maximum, and the theme is Windmills. Click here to read all about it.