Free eBook: The Year I Died Seven Times Book #7

The Year I Died Seven Times by Eric Beetner has reached the final installment of this exciting serial novel and to celebrate the release BEAT to a PULP is offering #7 free for five days along with most of the other titles. A perfect time to leap on this hardboiled adventure. And see what Clare Toohey has to say about this series over at Criminal Element.

Free eBook! Dinero Del Mar by Garnett Elliott

Jack Laramie finds himself in the middle of a rural beauty contest that’s as crooked as a busted fiddle. Things get worse from there, and a chance encounter in the Corpus Christi drunk-tank leads to a new case—on Texas’s dazzling Padre Island. A big, old mansion full of scheming rich folks, lawyers, and psychics is just the beginning. Jack survives the ‘trip’ of his life, but is his craftiness a match for the privileged upper crust?

Dinero Del Mar runs about 24k words, the longest Drifter to date, and features an ending that will forever change the series. Don’t miss it!

*****

Dinero Del Mar is the fifth novella in The Drifter Detective series, following on the heels of Wayne D. Dunde’s Wide Spot in the Road, and Garnett Elliott’s The Girls of Bunker Pines, Hell Up in Houston, and the eponymous debut, The Drifter Detective.

Kevin Gleeson on Screams From My Father

Paul F. Gleeson was a successful Chicago lawyer who died in 2012, at the age of 70. He was also my father. Among his belongings we found a boxful of typed manuscripts from the 1970s and 80s. It turned out they were short stories he had written. These were great stories in the “pulp fiction” tradition, tales of crime and punishment, and strange characters committing dark deeds.

Also in the box were rejection letters from publishers. Dad was unable to get past the literary gatekeepers of those days. Discouraged, he stuck to his day job, and gave up his dream of entertaining the readers of America. The stories sat, unread, for three decades in a dusty heap.

But my sister, my two brothers, and I are making his dream come true now. We are finally sharing these stories with the world, the way he always wanted. His anthology, Screams from My Father: Stories by Paul F. Gleeson, includes these ten wickedly witty original short stories.

TEN SHORT STORIES:

"One Bet Too Many": Howard Timmins is betting his life that what happened in Vegas will stay in Vegas.

"All in the Family": A little boy and his young mother enjoy playing in the park. But they are being watched.

"Unhappy Hour": When you drink at the Literal Club, you get exactly what you order.

"What a Difference a Day Makes": How did April 10, 1861, manage to get erased from history?

"Scab": When Kellman crosses the picket line, his friends have to show him some tough love.

"Don't Touch That Dial": Martha has a surprise waiting for Carl when he gets home. Carl might have something for Martha too.

"Reunited We Fall": Crashing college reunions is a good way to score a free meal. Or become one.

"Going the Distance": What happens when a man pushes himself to the limit? And what happens when he pushes further than that?

"Lunch": What started as a lunch hour quickly devolved into a blurry swirl of intrigue and nefarious plots.

"Weight and See": Margaret has to lose weight, or die. Roger can help.

AND MORE:

Also in the book are five humorous columns by Paul Gleeson, a foreword by Kevin Gleeson, and terrific cover art by Brendan Gleeson.

Free eBooks: Hardboiled 2 & 3

Free eBooks for the next couple of days: Hardboiled 2 and Hardboiled 3.

Free ebooks!

For the next several days I'm offering two of my collections for free. Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, Vol.II and The Education of a Pulp Writer & other stories.

The Education of a Pulp Writer

The Education of a Pulp Writer & other stories* contains some of my earliest, darkest, and most demented characters on the fringe of society. These four shorts were selected from my crime fiction with a bonus story, "Kid Eddie," taken from the noir Western collection Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles written under my pen name, Edward A. Grainger.

“Blubber” -- A morbidly obese shut-in hires a cheeky “lady of the evening” college girl, leading to a deadly encounter.

“Clouds in a Bunker” – An old man holes up in a fallout shelter, preparing to end it all for himself and his long-gone dementia-ridden wife, but the police are there to foil his plan.

“Cold Gray Dawn” -- A rebuffed man plots revenge against his ex-wife and her new-born baby.

“The Education of a Pulp Writer” -- Neighbors in an apartment building don’t really know as much about each other as they think.

“Kid Eddie” -- While bringing a youthful criminal in for justice, US Marshal Cash Laramie begins to doubt the innocent-looking kid is guilty of any crime.

*This rebooted collection appeared in a slightly different form a couple of years back and is only, currently, available as an ebook.

Pluck This!

My buddy Thomas Pluck is featured as part of the Montclair Times Bookshelf. Check out Pluck pens pulp fiction warriors.

Available Now: Hardboiled 2

BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 follows the blood-soaked trail left behind by the 2011 award-winning collection edited by David Cranmer and Scott D. Parker, pumping out another thirteen knuckle-breaking, crime tales. With writers from the 1930s and 40s golden era of pulp (Paul S. Powers and Charles Boeckman) and modern hardboiled masters (Robert J. Randisi and Wayne D. Dundee), this wild bunch is set to blaze a rat-a-tat sweep across the pulp fiction landscape. Keeping the body count high are top-shelf stories from Jedidiah Ayres, Eric Beetner, Jen Conley, Matthew C. Funk, Edward A. Grainger, BV Lawson, Tom Roberts, Kieran Shea, and Jay Stringer.

Hardboiled 2

The BEAT to a PULP: Hardboiled 2 cover is revealed here.

and check out this Hardcore Hardboileder post by Jedidiah Ayres.

Devil Wings Over France

Dave "Dead-Stick" Malloy grinned as he saw the flare from the exhaust stacks of the Fokker's engine through the ring of the Aldis sight. He had already fired a couple of bursts through his twin Vickers to warm the barrels of the deadly machine guns. Now his fingers punched the trips and sent leaden death flickering through the darkness.

This is just the opening to DEVIL WINGS OVER FRANCE and if you're like me, you'll have to keep reading this exciting novella.

Vin of Venus

Vin, bereft of half his limbs and his memory, struggles between two worlds--the mist-shrouded, verdant hell of ancient Venus and the mean streets of modern Europe--battling both alien monstrosities and underworld villains on his quest to recover his identity. Along the way he is aided by an unlikely cast of allies, as well as the mysterious, ruby-encrusted bracelet that serves as the only link between his heroic past and grim present. Written in classic pulp-style, VIN OF VENUS mixes Hardboiled and Sword and Planet elements in a genre-bending series of action tales.

"Vin of Venus" by Garnett Elliott, Paul Brazill, and David Cranmer is available on Amazon for $0.99.

Matt Hilton review: Swords, Planets and Hard-boiled Heroes.

Randy Johnson's review can be found here.

BEAT to a PULP #134 A Glutton for Punishment by Thomas Pluck

Thomas Pluck lives in New Jersey with his wife Sarah and practices mixed martial arts. His stories have appeared in Shotgun Honey and The Flash Fiction Offensive, and he has upcoming fiction in Crimefactory Magazine, Crimespree, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He is currently at work on a novel.

But he has taken time out to be at BEAT to a PULP with "A Glutton for Punishment."

In Praise of Pulp Fiction

Hard Case Crime featured yesterday in Life.

Death Sentence

Cullen Gallagher with another top post at Pulp Serenade.

Spring Fire

Update: The beauty of the internet is when legends stop by and say hello.

Spring Fire, is a 1952 paperback novel written by Marijane Meaker, under the pseudonym "Vin Packer". It is often considered to be the first lesbian pulp novel, although it also addresses issues of conformity in 1950s American society. The novel tells the story of Susan "Mitch" Mitchell, an awkward, lonely freshman at a Midwestern college who falls in love with Leda, her popular but troubled sorority sister. Published by Gold Medal Books, Spring Fire sold 1.5 million copies through at least three printings. Wikipedia

Happy Birthday wishes today to Ms. Meaker.

Badass Women

Badass Women of the Pulp Era.

H. Beam Piper

H. Beam Piper (March 23, 1904 – c. November 6, 1964) was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of "Paratime" alternate history tales. Wikipedia

Pulp

J.J. Abrams Brings 'Pulp' To TV.

Black Mask Stories

I ordered THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF BLACK MASK STORIES for myself for Christmas, and it was a bit late because it was delivered to another address. But it arrived today, and, thusly, I now celebrate Christmas on January 10th.

Good lord, what a collection. Chandler, Hammett, MacDonald, Woolrich, Halliday, Daly, Dent, Coxe, and, as the cover says, "much much more."

Mr. Penzler outdid himself on this one.

BTAP #101: First Man Falling by Garnett Elliott

We have a double feature at BEAT to a PULP this week. In a boxing blitz, Garnett Elliott follows Kieran Shea, who graced BTAP with its 100th story, with a tale of egos and retaliation in First Man Falling.


The BEAT to a PULP: Round One anthology is now available at Amazon.