Some Updates

Me and my BFF James Ellroy, who I met at the Tattered Cover down in Denver a month or so ago.

I'm the featured author over on New Mystery Reader. Interview/review of SHADOW SEASON can be found at: http://newmysteryreader.com/Tom_Piccirilli.htm

Nerd of Noir did a sweet review of SHADOW SEASON over at the popular BSC site: http://www.bscreview.com/2009/12/shadow-season-by-tom-piccirilli-review/

DEADLY PLEASURES MYSTERY MAGAZINE has voted THE COLDEST MILE one of their favorite novels of 2009: http://www.deadlypleasures.com/yearsbest.html

Here's an interview with the one and only Ed Gorman, focusing on his latest, and he says last, Sam McCain novel TICKET TO RIDE: http://thebigadios.yuku.com/topic/995?page=-1

As for what's upcoming: Finished up a novella recently entitled COLD COMFORTS that will be available through Delirium Books' digital releases next month. Currently working on an X-Mas crime-themed novella for Tasmanic's FESTIVE FEAR 2 anthology, due out next Christmas. Also turned in the latest draft of my novel THE UNDERNEATH to my editor at Bantam. Look for it hopefully late in '10.

How's the end of '09 shaping up for you kids?

Plenty o' Pulp Goodness

Over at PULP SERENADE, hardboiled/noir/crime fiction critic Cullen Gallagher has a lengthy write-up of SHADOW SEASON where he says, in part: "Shadow Season was one of those books that I connected with from the very first line, and went on to read in a single afternoon. It’s an uncompromisingly dark story masterfully told that speaks well beyond its gripping scenario. Piccarilli allows us to connect with the characters on a level that feels very private, perhaps all the more so because of the main protagonist’s blindness: together, we share in his darkness. Piccirilli’s refined artistry as a writer, particularly his expressive phrasing and impeccable pacing, are on display throughout Shadow Season."

While you're there, definitely take a gander at Cullen's previous interviews, reviews, and critiques of some great fiction & film noir.

Jedidiah Ayres of HARDBOILED WONDERLAND took some time out of his busy schedule blogging about all things hardboiled and hip to do a lengthy interview with yours truly. Find it right here: Hardboiled Wonderland: TP Your Bookshelf

Uber-hep author Seth Harwood, author of JACK WAKES UP, chats with me about my writing process on Bantam's blog Blood on the Page.

Shroud Magazine also has a terrific review of my upcoming Cemetery Dance collection FUTILE EFFORTS, due out, hopefully sometime early next year.

"To say the fiction of Tom Piccirilli often defies convention or genre labeling would be a grand understatement. Better to say Piccirilli creates his own literary space, in which inhabits beings of a dark but strangely beautiful grotesqueness, characters that offer readers twisted, warped reflections of themselves. The work contained in his upcoming Cemetery Dance collection “Futile Efforts” certainly does that and more. They run the gamut, proving what most already know: that Tom Piccirilli is a skilled and versatile wordsmith: a dark fantasist with the heart of a crime/Noir writer, a sculptor of oddities, and a gifted poet, also. However, for all Piccirilli's strange, melancholic grace, the sharp edge of steel isn't far behind."

SHADOW SEASON out today!

My new novel SHADOW SEASON hits bookstores today. Race across the face of the earth, people, and get your copy of SHADOW SEASON today. Hope you love the fuckall out of the book. If you do, and you blog about it, write a review on Amazon.com or B&N.com,buy extra copies for your mama & daddy... & the kiddies, spread the word, then you will be blessed by heaven and all the riches you so rightly deserve will be yours for the plucking.

You can find a new piece by Jeff VanderMeer on the Amazon blogs here: http://bit.ly/2UcuXg

Here's an interview with me up at The Big Adios focused on the writing of the book: http://thebigadios.yuku.com/topic/959

And a few really nice reviews:

"In Piccirilli's brooding, character-driven chiller, former New York City cop Finn, recently blinded, wallows in his new role as an English teacher at a posh girls' boarding school. A storm looms as Finn and a skeleton staff remain to supervise a handful of girls staying at the school during winter break. Piccirilli (The Fever Kill) harps on his theme of isolation with palpable glee as Finn, surrounded by self-absorbed adolescents and mysterious, brutally violent attackers roaming the campus, grapples with blindness amid a sonar-dulling snowstorm in a remote area with no cellphone service. Terrified of solitude and driven by his cop instincts, Finn embarks on a wrenching journey that exposes the raw emotion of a man nearly destroyed by disability and circumstance."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The Christmas recess has just begun at St. Valarian's, a private secondary school for girls in upstate New York. A handful of students and staff are still on campus as a nasty blizzard gathers strength. Finn, a blind and deeply conflicted former NYPD detective, teaches literature at the school and longs to murder Ray, his former police partner. Making his way across campus through the storm, Finn encounters a teenage girl, a townie, who warns him that an "ill will" is coming for him. Soon, students and staff are dying, and Finn must defend himself and the survivors. Shadow Season has enough mystery, suspense, dread, and mayhem to satisfy nearly every crime fan. Characters are well developed, but most maintain a hint of mystery. Finn's students, variously precocious, willful, mocking, and provocative, are totally believable. The blizzard ratchets up tension, as does our eagerness to learn why Finn wants to kill Ray. The portentous "ill will" may be a bit over the top, but the novel is terrific entertainment."- Thomas Gaughan, Booklist

Also, northern Colorado's biggest newspaper, The Coloradoan, had this to say: "This is an intense thriller not for sissies. The complex main character tears into savage situations described with authenticity as he grinds through each crisis while dealing with his blindness.You will appreciate the portrayal of the main character Finn's so-called disability, which really isn't one given the way he knows how to utilize it. The entire plot never lets the reader take a breath and never lets up on the gut-wrenching emotional safari into Finn's world of blackness.The dialogue, plot and the multi-layered character reveals itself to you with hammer blows page after page. Highly recommended for thriller fans who appreciate a quality read."

How You Waste a Whole Day Trying to Track Down A Comic Book (and Fail Miserably)

The longer I live out here in Loveland, Colorado, the more I miss New York. In NY I could toss a stick and hit 20 comic shops. Out here, there’s two within an hour’s drive.

Punisher #75, featuring stories written by Greg Hurwitz, Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Huston, Peter Milligan, and myself, hit the stands today. I started the day out all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as I’m ever likely to get anyway, and decided to hit the local comic shop to nab a couple copies. I’m a comics geek. This is a big moment for me. Right on.

Got to the shop about 20 minutes before they opened at 12:30, so I drove over to a second hand bookstore and scrounged around the dusty stacks for a while. Zipped back over to the shop at 12:45. Still not open. With growing irritation, I killed another half hour at a different bookstore.

Tried the comic shop one more time at 1:15, 45 minutes after they supposedly opened today. Still closed. Fuck ‘em, they’ve lost my business.

So I drove up to Fort Collins and tried the one comic shop they have in town. Took me a half hour to get there and another ten minutes to park down in Old Town where there’s all kinds of tight road work happening.

The place is owned by a husband and wife team. Stepped in and spotted the wife putting new comics on the wall. Asked her about Punisher #75.

She said, "That’s not out today."

"Ah, yes, it is."

"No, you’re wrong. No matter what they say on their website, it’s due out next week."

She seemed very certain of herself. Was it possible I’d made a mistake? My editor at Marvel specifically told me it was due out today. But he edits dozens of comics a month. Maybe he was wrong or I got confused on the dates?

The husband pops up from behind the counter and says, "No, it’s here."

"Great!" I say.

"But they’re all damaged copies."

"All damaged?"

"Yes, they’re really fucked up."

"Can I see a copy anyway?"

The guy reaches down into a box and flings the issue at me as if he’s disgusted with its condition. It has the slightest bend at the corner. It probably got bent when he zealously hurled it at me. It’s damn near pristine. I tell him, "This is fine. I’ll take five copies."

He looks at me like I’m out of my bird. "Well, I’m not going to sell it to you!"

"Why not?"

"I’ve already reported them damaged. I have to mail it back. I’ll have more copies next week. Come back then."

I leave the store in somewhat of a daze. Fuck ‘em, they’ve lost my business.

I decide to try the first shop one last time. Maybe someone just overslept. Maybe they took an early lunch. Maybe their car stalled on the side of I-25. I head back to the shop and sure enough, now it’s open. All I needed was faith.

I walk in and check the new comics rack. No Punisher #75. This no longer surprises me. This is something of a foregone conclusion. I ask the owner about the new comics.

"We don’t get new comics on Wednesday."

"But new comics come out on Wednesday. Everyone knows that."

"Yeah, they’re out, but we don’t get them. We get ours on Thursday."

"Why?"

"Otherwise we’d have to drive down to Denver to get them."

This makes no sense to me. Comics are delivered to comic shops. "Why?"

"It’s just how we do it."

Well, in point of fact, it’s just how they don’t do it. If they were doing it, if they were actively pursuing something to its goddamn conclusion, they’d have the comics.

"Okay," I tell the guy. "Pull five copies aside for me."

"I can’t."

"You can’t?"

"I don’t know if I’ll have five extras."

"Okay, pull one extra."

"I can’t."

"You can’t?"

"I don’t know if I’ll have even one extra."

"How about if I come back tomorrow and check and if you have any extras I’ll buy them from you?"

"Okay."

Score: The World 1, Pic 0.

Hopefully you will have much better luck than I did.

While I was there I did manage to nab a copy of issue one of Ed Brubaker’s CRIMINAL: THE SINNERS. Another noir/hardboiled storyline that will rock your socks off. If you haven’t picked up the earlier CRIMINAL comics or graphic novels, do so immediately. The man knows how to write a hard tale, and Sean Phillips, the artist, is also flat-out amazing. Best of all, Ed even gives a nod to SHADOW SEASON at the back of the issue.

More Yackity Yack (I'm Talkin' Back)

Another new interview up over at THE BIG ADIOS. This one, oddly enough, is actually WITH me.

Been trapped in the mire of two projects that WILL NOT FUCKING QUIT! And jonesing to start another that I can't get around to yet. Driving me out of my head. Literally. Well, kind of literally. Wound up suffering through two occular migraines this afternoon. Only nominal pain but my head fills up with flashing kaleidoscopic lights. Bizarre and freaky, and nothing to do but lie down in a dark room and wait for it to stop.

And what goes on with you?

Update: Where ya been, Pic?

Since you asked, I'll tell ya:

Been busy as hell, kids. Sorry it's been so long since I've done a blog, but the work's been rougher than usual lately. Finished two major projects, including revisions on my next novel, tentatively titled THE UNDERNEATH (but that might change to THE LAST KIND WORDS or who the hell knows, maybe something else. Which do you like better?) Knocked out three short stories for various anthologies, and I'm currently in the midst of a noirish ghost story, or maybe it's a supernatural noir, I'm not certain.

Here's a few places you can catch up with some of what's been going on--

You can check out the brief article about me now up at the International Thriller Writers zine THE BIG THRILL.

New review of SHADOW SEASON over at Horror World.

Another new interview can be found on Ed Gorman's blog.

The German edition of THE MIDNIGHT ROAD retitled SMERZ (PAIN) is out now and can be ordered via the German Amazon.

Also, over on THE BIG ADIOS you can find new interviews with the likes of:

Russell Atwood, author of EAST OF A and LOSERS LIVE LONGER.

Seth Harwood, author of the uber-hip crime novel JACK WAKES UP.

Joe Schreiber, horror author of CHASING THE DEAD, EAT THE DARK, and NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS. His latest is a real chiller.

**

And REMEMBER, it's T-minus 21 days (that's right, three frickin' weeks) until SHADOW SEASON hits the shelves.

And PUNISHER #75 should be out in the next week or two. Nab a copy and let me know what you think of my first comic book story. Unless you hate it, then you don't need to share.

Update: Interview & Starred PW Review

Sorry I've been in complete hype mode on the blog recently. I know that can be wearying for readers, but after months of trying to build buzz and start the always sluggish process of pushing a new novel, it's a huge relief when the publication date finally approaches. SHADOW SEASON streets in about six weeks on October 27th.

Received a sweet starred review in PW this morning: "In Piccirilli's brooding, character-driven chiller, former New York City cop Finn, recently blinded, wallows in his new role as an English teacher at a posh girls' boarding school. A storm looms as Finn and a skeleton staff remain to supervise a handful of girls staying at the school during winter break. Piccirilli (The Fever Kill) harps on his theme of isolation with palpable glee as Finn, surrounded by self-absorbed adolescents and mysterious, brutally violent attackers roaming the campus, grapples with blindness amid a sonar-dulling snowstorm in a remote area with no cellphone service. Terrified of solitude and driven by his cop instincts, Finn embarks on a wrenching journey that exposes the raw emotion of a man nearly destroyed by disability and circumstance."

You can check out a new interview with me over at HORROR WORLD.

Books you need to read:

Seth Harwood's JACK WAKES UP, a fine action-packed Hollywood-hip ripsnorter about a one-hit wonder action actor who is thrust into living the life of his once big screen persona by the murder of a friend and one big drug deal that causes strife and mayhem a'plenty.

Joe Schrieber's mystery chiller NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS, about a man who returns home for his father's funeral only to discover that his Dad had started writing a dark fantasy novel about a haunted house. When the house turns out to be real, our protagonist attempts to finish his father's book and learn whatever secrets his Dad, and the house, might have long held.

BLUE CANOE by T.M. Wright. Damn fine surrealistic novel in the grand Wright tradition about a man who may or may not be dead, living in what may or may not be the afterlife, recalling memories that may or may not be real. It's an evocative, haunting, sweet tale that packs an emotion wallop. With an introduction by yours truly.

Also:

You can also find a new interview up at THE BIG ADIOS with Ken Bruen & Reed Farrel Coleman talking about their collaboration on the one-of-a-kind TOWER.