Coming Soon: Bullets and Other Hurting Things: A Tribute to Bill Crider - Rick Ollerman, ed.

From the Down & Out Books website:

In a career spanning nearly four decades, Bill Crider published more than sixty crime fiction, westerns, horror, men’s adventure and YA novels. In this collection 20 of today’s best and brightest, all friends and fans of Bill’s, come together with original stories to pay tribute to his memory. Authors include: William Kent Krueger, Bill Pronzini, Joe R. Lansdale, Patricia Abbott, Ben Boulden, Michael Bracken, Jen Conley, Brendan DuBois, Charlaine Harris, David Housewright, Kasey Lansdale, Angela Crider Neary, James Reasoner, James Sallis, Terry Shames, S. A. Solomon, Sara Paretsky, Robert J. Randisi, SJ Rozan, and Eryk Pruitt.

William Kent Krueger (Ordinary Grace, the Cork O’Connor series) brings us a story of romance and grift. Bill Pronzini (the Nameless Detective and Carpenter & Quincannon series) offers a taut episode of a midnight raid. Joe R. Lansdale (The Bottoms, the Hap and Leonard series) tells a tale of two hit men working through their differences. James Sallis (Drive, the Lew Griffin series) shows us how a deadly figure once helped out a man called Bill. Charlaine Harris (the Sookie Stackhouse and Midnight, Texas series) reminds us to be careful of what we wish for. Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski series) shows how truly deadly a terrible storm can be.

These and fourteen more stories are offered here in the appreciation of our friend and colleague, Bill Crider. These stories were written for him.

I'm so happy this book is coming out. Bill was one of my best friends for more than 40 years, and I still find myself thinking nearly every day, "I need to ask Bill about that" or "I have to tell Bill about that." The story I wrote for this anthology is a sequel to "Comingor", the first story ever published under my name, and my second published story overall, 43 years ago. It's set in the same part of Texas as Bill's Dan Rhodes novels, in the next county to the east, in fact. I also think it's one of the best stories I've written. I'm looking forward to seeing what all the other authors came up with. The book is available for pre-order on the Down & Out Books website and will be showing up in all the other usual places later on.

The Digest Enthusiast, Book Seven - Richard Krauss, ed.

THE DIGEST ENTHUSIAST continues to be one of my favorite current publications, and the recently released Book Seven is no exception. Once again it provides an in-depth look at a variety of digest publications from past and present, leading off with a lengthy interview with Rick Ollerman, editor of DOWN & OUT: THE MAGAZINE, as well as the author of several well-received suspense novels and many top-notch introductions and essays from Stark House reprints of classic hardboiled, noir, and mystery fiction. The interview covers all these aspects of Ollerman’s career and is very informative and entertaining.

Other highlights for me include Peter Infantino’s continuing issue-by-issue survey of the iconic crime digest MANHUNT; a look at all the stories by Robert Edmond Alter (an author I really like) published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, also by Infantino; Josh Pachter’s look back at ESPIONAGE MAGAZINE, a publiction with which he had a personal connection (and which I remember buying faithfully off the magazine rack at the local grocery store); and an article by Joe Wehrle Jr. on the Telzey Amberdon science fiction stories by James H. Schmitz, some of which I’ve read, and this article makes me want to collect and read the rest of them. All in all, THE DIGEST ENTHUSIAST is well worth your time and money if you have any interest in these magazines at all, and if you don’t, it just might change your mind. Highly recommended.

Coming Soon: Girl in a Big Brass Bed/The Spy Who Was 3 Feet Tall/Code Name Gadget - Peter Rabe

GIRL IN A BIG BRASS BED
Lobbe wants his painting back. Goering confiscated it when the Nazis raided Rotterdam. But now, years later, it has been located, and the German government wants to return it. So Lobbe sends his assistant Manny deWitt to Munich to fetch it. The painting is Vermeer's Apple Girl, Lobbe's prized possession. The mission seems easy enough. But as deWitt soon discovers, those who have the misfortune to come in contact with the elusive Vermeer seem to experience an early and unpleasant death. The sooner he gets the painting and gets out, the better. If only it were that simple.

THE SPY WHO WAS 3 FEET TALL
This time Lobbe sends Manny to a recently emerged African nation called Motana. It's deWitt s job to negotiate the contract to build a road through the country. As usual, Lobbe doesn't muddy the waters with too much information for deWitt. But this time, everyone seems to be up on the project but him. Yum Lee, the Chinese emissary who also wants the contract, is one step ahead of him. Inge, Lobbe's delightful niece, is strictly undercover. And then there's his ubiquitous taxi driver, Baby, who is much more (or less) than what he seems. Just what the hell is so important about this road anyway?

CODE NAME GADGET
As gadgets go, it was supposedly a fairly large one, large enough to fill a medium-sized factory. Manny's mission is to buy it for his boss Lobbe before the competition beats him to it. The mission takes him to England under the eccentric guidance of a pilot named Max Garten, and into the unexpected arms of Meghan Bushmill. Together, the three of them form a kind of team as they try to figure out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys and if it even makes any difference anymore. Because whoever has the gadget can destroy the world, and even Lobbe may not be able to buy his way out of that one.

I had copies of all these books in their original editions back in my younger days and never got around to reading any of them. (Sadly, an all too common occurrence where me and books are concerned.) Now I can remedy that because Stark House is reprinting them in one big volume with a great introduction by Rick Ollerman. I'm really looking forward to these.

Hardboiled, Noir, and Gold Medals: Essays on Crime Fiction Writers from the 50s Through the 90s - Rick Ollerman

Rick Ollerman's detailed critical essays, written about both modern and classic crime writers, have an electric-charged verve so brilliant the modern reader is compelled to develop a new understanding, a new appreciation, even a new witnessing of the writers and their most important and influential works. The context is always truthful to the era of creation, but it is fully developed with a modern understanding that brings new revelation to seemingly old topics. Which is a hard way of saying, Mr. Ollerman writes about crime fiction and its crafters brilliantly. --Benjamin Boulden, critic/essayist

An introduction by Rick Ollerman is always a promise of insightful, informative, and entertaining details about the author or topic. His essays are as valuable as the restored fiction that follows. --Alan Cranis, Bookgasm

Reading one of Rick Ollerman's essays is like sitting in a master class on the writer. Having all of the essays in one collection is like getting a master's degree. This is an important book and a must-have for anybody who cares about good criticism, about the writers discussed, and about crime fiction in general. --Bill Crider, mystery author

Anybody who's read many books from Stark House Press knows that Rick Ollerman's great introductions are often worth the price of the book by themselves. Now all of those essays have been collected in this volume, along with a number of new ones written for this book. If you have any interest in hardboiled and noir fiction, this is a collection that you'll find yourself dipping into again and again. Great stuff, and highly recommended.