Jul 29, 2009

Chicago Comic Con - Wizard World


Next weekend we'll be in Chicago at the Chicago Comic Con. We have a booth this year, #1433.

We will have for sale:

The latest Crimespree Magazine, with Brian Azzarello on the cover
Crimespree T Shirts, including the GOT BULLETS? shirt.
UNCAGE ME, and anthology featuring Brian Azzarello, Victor Gischler and Gregg Hurwitz, in addition to a load of great crime writers.
Subscribing to the magazine will get you free gifts, books and other items.

We're also going to have some free comic books from DC/Vertigo to give away and some other cool stuff.


We will be sharing the booth with JA Konrath/Jack Kilborn, Tim Broderick and RD Hall.
All three of these guys have great books.

JA Konrath will be giving away copies of his horror novel AFRAID.

Tim will have his graphic novels for sale, as will RD.

We will also have some guest signings going on. Stopping by the booth will be Brian Azzarello, Mark Kidwell, Jason Aaron, B. Clay Moore, Raymond Benson, Marcus Sakey and maybe a few surprise guests.

We're really looking forward to the show and hope to see a lot of friends, and hopefully meet some people we don't know yet!

So if you are at the show please stop by and say hi!

Jul 28, 2009

Sandman Slim - cool new book

Vanished by Joseph Finder

coming
Aug 18th 2009
from
St. Martin’s Press

Joseph Finder is a name familiar to most readers, as well he should be. In VANISHED, we are introduced to Nick Heller. Remember the name. Heller is Finder’s new series character and I predict he will very shortly be mentioned in the same breath as Reacher and Bosch.
Our introduction to Nick comes as he is working a case in LA for a global security company. He’s tracking down a missing shipment for a transport company, and even though he solves the case he wants to know more. My kind of protagonist. He returns to home base in Washington DC when he gets a distress call from his nephew. Nick and his brother Roger don’t get along very well anymore, but he loves his nephew Gabe. Gabe’s parents were attacked, brother Roger is missing and sister in law Lauren was left in a coma. Heller looks into the disappearance and very quickly realizes something is really off. Unexplained extra phones, wiped clean laptop, and a lot of misdirection. Someone with a long reach is behind this and Heller will do anything to keep his family safe.
I finished the first chapter and actually said “Damn” out loud. Pack a lunch and bring some caffeine, because once you start this journey into Heller’s world you ain’t leaving till the book is done. The skills Finder brings to this book are like watching an all star team step onto a field to take on a little league team.

As an added bonus there is an 8-page promotional comic written by Brian Azzarello that ties into the story. (Look Here for details)I never thought I would say this, but, if you only read one book this summer, make it VANISHED.
Jon Jordan

Buy Vanished by Joesph Finder


If you send me a photo of you holding this book, I'll pick a 5 winners to get a copy of THE COWL, a comic that ties into the story.

Jul 26, 2009

Vince gets down with Slap Chop.

As disturbing as it is, I find myself going back to watch it again and again.

Jul 19, 2009

Centrifical Force


It’s a time to reflect for me. Walter Cronkite is no longer with us. And yet for two and a half generations of us he will always be there. He was there for my grandparents. He was there for my parents & he is most definitely there for me.

While others talk about how Mr. Cronkite was a nightly fixture; the family gathering together for the evening news (most definitely), or his awe and sorrow of history in the making (JFK’s death, Bobby’s death, Martin Luther King’s Death, McCartney, man walking on the moon, Watergate), many talk of their favorite memories. I love this homage in the Washington Post & I love Ted Koppel’s short but succulent piece.

Walter Cronkite was a part of my daily life from birth to high school graduation. He was a day to day Anchor for fair-minded telling of the news; a man who in his nightly orating of the day’s news stories gave us all a commonality of information. My parents still tell the story of how on the day JFK died, for the first time, at the age of seven months, I failed to cry at my normal times and looked up at them with compassion. While I believe that to be an overstatement on their part, I’ve seen the footage. He sounded different that day; sad and unbelieving. Aside from my Mom and Dad, Uncle Walter was the only voice I heard every day, and he was shook. I’m sure that seven month old baby knew something was up.

His retirement from daily T.V. , was for me, more jarring than when Johnny left the air. My television viewing lost its only common denominator. From then on I did flip the dial, look for what I interpreted the news to be. I believe it to be fairly telling of my own perspective and news as told today that my three must sources every day are The Guardian, Reuters and Perez Hilton. This is not something I’m proud of, it’s just the way it is.

This man who gained the trust of Americans everywhere to the point where the Q ratings were able to be invented and ruled them for his entire run was able to do so because he did believe the story was the star.

Many of us, who want the news presented to us without spin every day, who desire a broadcast without a life feature, who wonder when the antics of D List or even A List celebrities became as important and more googled than war casualties will miss our youth for the entirety of our days. You see, there was a time when one source was enough, when the paper in the morning followed by the CBS news allowed us all to interpret for ourselves what was going on.

I’ll finish with my first true memory of the CBS Nightly News. Walter Cronkite, in his rich baritone saying, “The following footage will be difficult to watch but it’s important that all of us do watch it.” This was followed by the young reporter Dan Rather in Vietnam reporting on the War and our fallibilities. I saw a man blown up and dead children. I was six. I understood what America was, as opposed to what it deigns to be. That personal perspective hasn’t changed in the last forty years even though the news most certainly has. And in no small part due to Walter Cronkite, I believe one day, we will get there. To where America wants to be as opposed to where it is.

And so, I thank you Mr. Cronkite for the basis in truth those of us who saw you day to day have, as opposed to the questioning of any newscast those who began watching the news after your retirement need to have.

Jul 16, 2009

Michael Connelly on Craig Ferguson

Craig reads great books

THE CHARLIE CHAN SAGA CONTINUES!!!


These are great looking books and the first two they did last year were great fun to read. It's really nice to see them back in print.


Here's the official release


Academy Chicago Re-releases Next Two Titles in Charlie Chan Mystery Series

AVAILABLE NOW:
Behind That Curtain, The Black Camel, The House Without a Key and The Chinese Parrot

“It takes a special kind of wit to resurrect Charlie Chan, as Academy Chicago has done…”
–Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review


Earl Derr Biggers’ crackling six-volume series featuring the clever, chubby Chinese Detective of the Honolulu Police Department continues with the re-release of Behind That Curtain and The Black Camel.

In the third installment, BEHIND THAT CURTAIN (Paperback, 324pp., $14.95, 9780897335843), Charlie Chan finds himself back in San Francisco working with an inspector from Scotland Yard to investigate a series of murders in which each victim is found wearing ominous Chinese slippers.

In THE BLACK CAMEL (Paperback, 337pp., $14.95, 9780897335850), Charlie Chan is aided by a mysterious fortune teller named Tarneverro the Great to solve the murder of a glamorous Hollywood movie star who has been killed on location in Honolulu.

The two remaining Charlie Chan novels will be published this fall by Academy Chicago.


PRAISE FOR ACADEMY CHICAGO’S CHARLIE CHAN RE-RELEASES

“It takes a special kind of wit to resurrect Charlie Chan, as Academy Chicago has done…ingenious puzzle mysteries written by Earl Derr Biggers in the 1920s.” –Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Reading these books is a definite pleasure. Author Biggers is a smooth strategist, clever plotter and keen observer, and the novels give the same escapist tingle as the best of Agatha Christie.” –Burl Burlingame, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

“…the early Chan novels combine solid entertainment value with a quest..to portray both Hawaii’s culture and Asian Americans’ place with in said culture in a positive light.” –Sarah Weinman, Los Angeles Times

“…old-fashioned mystery fun…” –ForeWord Magazine

CHARLIE CHAN NOVELS COMING SOON FROM ACADEMY CHICAGO PUBLISHERS


COMING IN FALL 2009

#5 Charlie Chan Carries On
(September, Paperback, 252pp., $14.95, 9780-89733-594-2)

#6 Keeper of the Keys
(September, Paperback, 220pp., $14.95, 978-0-89733-595-9)

Jul 13, 2009

MURDER AND MAYHEM IN MUSKEGO




MURDER AND MAYHEM IN MUSEKEGO 5

NOVEMBER 14TH

MUSEKEGO PUBLIC LIBRARY

Registration is now open

This year’s line up is as follows:

Megan Abbott
Tasha Alexander
Brian Azzarello
Deb Baker
Cara Black
Michael Black
Jan Burke
James O. Born
C. J. Box
Joanna Slan Campbell
David Case
Sean Chercover
Blake Crouch
Shirley Dammsgaard
Jeffery Deaver
Barry Eisler
Jamie Freveletti
Brent Ghelfi
Andrew Grant
Libby Fischer Hellman
Julie Hyzy
Laura Lippman
Joe Konrath
Michael Koryta
Sam Reaves
Linda Richards
Sandra Ruttan
Marcus Sakey
Tom Schreck
F. Paul Wilson


There will be a Friday night meet and greet with a panel on the 13th at the library.

Saturday will be a series of panels and interviews and registration includes lunch.

Each year this event gets more and more popular so register early!

TO REGISTER YOU CAN GO RIGHT HERE:
http://www.murderandmayheminmuskego.com/murderandmayheminmuskegoregistration.htm

Jul 8, 2009

Crimespree Issue 31

Our latest issue, 31, is at the binders as I type and will be shipping the week of July 13th.

We're really happy with this issue and a big part of that starts on the cover. I'm the first to admit that I love everything written by Brian Azzarello, but July is pretty significant. he has the last trade collection of 100 Bullets out, a short story in Uncage Me, the latest anthology from Jen Jordan (order Uncage Me now!) and his run on Batman in the Wednesday comics has just started. He also has some exciting things coming up and he talks about it right here in Crimespree with our pal Sean Chercover.
Now, as much as I love these guys, I like hanging out with them and I love seeing them around, I would really rather have them both writing all the time so I have more to read, so it was a difficult decision to ask them both to stop writing long enough to do this, but the end result is really something special.

We also have a whole lot of other Crimespree goodness in this issue for you.
Here's the line up:
Editorial By Jen Jordan
News Bites
Ayo Onatade talks about Crimefest
Married Amateur Sleuths by EJ Rand
FICTION- Bullies By Bryon Leigh

BRIAN AZZARELLO Interview by Sean Chercover

Malice Domestic Through New Eyes by Joanna Campbell Slan
FICTION –Murder in the University By Larry Lefkowitz
Interview with Frankie Y Bailey by Jon Jordan
Blake Crouch interviewed By Hank Wagner
The New Black; Sean Black by Interview by Russel D McLean
Footprints: Gerald A Browne byRuth Jordan
Craig’s Joint by Craig McDonald
Dialogue With Declan by Declan Burke
Reed Farrel Coleman
Mickey Mouse Meets Gangster by Christy Hintz
Rosemary Harris Interview by Amy Alessio
Crime and Idiocy-All Nude Edition by Jen Jordan
Eye On Hollywood by Jeremy Lynch
DVD Reviews
Lisa Unger Interview by Jon Jordan
Sunshine and Crime by Michael Lister
Getting Tough for a Change by Chester Campbell
Audio Books coverage
Buzz Bin (what’s on the shelves)
Crimespree on Tap a new feature with authors talking about libations this month by Nate Flexer
Book Reviews

If you don't subscribe you can do that right here:
Subscribe to Crimespree

We're not sitting on our backsides either now that this one is done. I'm in the process of doing 6 interviews, including Mike Carey, Robert Ward, Rick Geary, and more. Ruth is also interviewing Gerald Browne!

We'll be at Bouchercon.
August 6th -9th
We'll also be at Chicago Comic Con, also known as Wizard World Chicago with some of our friends, including Brian Azzarello, Tim Broderick, Jack Kilborn, RD Hall, Mark Kidwell, B. Clay Moore and Jason Aaron and Raymond Benson and Marcus Sakey. We'll have a booth over in the Exhibitor area right as you walk in.

Jul 6, 2009

Ben LeRoy and Alison Janssen Leave Bleak House Books

That's right, ben and Alison are gone from Bleak House books.

But they aren't going very far, they are starting a new publishing house called Tyrus.

And the website for Tyrus is right here

Check out their site for more information.

Congrats and best of luck to two wonderful people!

Jul 4, 2009

Lawrence Block on Craig Ferguson.

Here is a clip of Lawrence Block's appearance on The Late, Late show with Craig Ferguson. This clip aired May 18th, 2009.

Jul 1, 2009

Contest

We have a few extra arcs and we're going to use them as prizes.

The next five people to subscribe or renew could win one of the following:

DILLINGER'S WILD RIDE - non fiction
Steve Martini - GUARDIAN OF LIES
Allan Guthrie - THE SLAMMER
Chris Grabenstein - MIND SCRAMBLER
Libby Hellman (editor) - CHICAGO BLUES


First five and then these are out the door.

Subscribe here