#4: A deal on new flooring, but also, a cover reveal

Where we backtrack through the books I shouldn't have been reading at a young age

The library in my hometown might have been the one in Alexandria. It was by most standards, and generally forgotten or ignored by most, but within those extremely air-conditioned walls, away from humid eastern Kentucky summers and a family life best described as “charmlessly abusive,” I found escape.

Books were a refuge, and I retreated to them as often as I could.

I don’t remember how old I was when I moved from the kids’ section to General Fiction, and specifically Mystery, but I’d guess about twelve. The transition from the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown and The Three Investigators, from stolen bicycles and fake monsters, to realistic violence and death.

My first 87th Precinct novel was GHOSTS, my first Spenser was A CATSKILL EAGLE, and my first Lawrence Block novel was a Bernie Rhodenbarr, not a Matt Scudder.

It was around this same time I also discovered paperback men’s adventure novels.

Check that stuff out. Brawny men of action unloading bloody, high-caliber violence onto evil doers as nubile women wait to give themselves to their square-jawed saviors. Homicidal “heroes” with sobriquets like the Executioner. The Penetrator. The Butcher. The Death Merchant. The Liquidator.

(That last one feels desperate, like the publishers were running out of ideas for names. “The Liquidator” isn’t the guy who saves you from terrorists; he’s the guy who gets you a discount on new flooring.)

If you’re a kid living up a one-lane holler in Kentucky, how could you not be drawn to these books? I was, and I read a lot of them—too many, if we’re honest. By far my favorite series was The Destroyer. Remo Williams, an ex-cop turned government assassin, trained in Sinanju by an ancient master named Chiun. Since he worked for the U.S. government, he only killed people who deserved it: Dictators and cult leaders and shapeshifting androids and Rasputin and, oh yeah, Kali, the goddess of destruction…

All super-realistic stuff.

When I was twelve, I thought this was the greatest shit ever. The books were campy and over the top, slathered with unsubtle satire I didn’t always get because, again, I was twelve. They were comic books without pictures, and yet I felt like an adult reading them. Like I was getting away with something.

This coincided perfectly with my discovery of PI writers like Robert B. Parker, Loren Estleman, Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller and Sara Paretsky. It all collaged into my still-forming brain to the decision I would write paperback PI novels. Ones where they slap a number denoting its place in the series. The first one I tried to write was something called imaginatively-titled PRIVATE EYE #1: FLORIDA WINTER, MIAMI SNOW.

I scribbled these adventures down and then hid the pages away where no one could find them or judge them—in particular my mother, who’d murder me for wasting reams of notebook paper, and wonder why her clueless son was writing about Florida drug deals.

(MIAMI VICE was very popular at the time.)

But I never finished any of those stories, because writing’s tough and 12-year-olds get bored. The men’s adventure market dried up a few years later, and it’s not like they were looking for 12-year-old scribes anyway.

So there went that dream to die.

Or I thought.

# # #

I knew Frank Zafiro by (good) reputation, but we’d never met until Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque last year. Besides being an excellent writer in his own right, Frank is the creator and editor of A Grifter’s Song—a series of novellas about Sam and Rachel, a pair of con artists in love and on the run from the Philly Mob. The series is broken into seasons, and those who’ve written for it are a who’s who of great modern crime fiction, including S.A. Cosby (“Run Like Hell”), Holly West (“The Money Block”), Gary Phillips (“The Movie Makers”), Hilary Davidson (“Dangerous to Know”), and Nick Kolakowski (“Madame Tomahawk”).

I was a fan of the series, told Frank as much, and tried to slyly mention I’d love to take a swing at one if he had an open spot.

“Sure, but if you were interested, why didn't you reach out before now?”

<insert me looking sheepish>

“Because I didn't know you could do that?”

Then he called me on my bluff.

“Well, if you want one,” he said, “it’s yours.”

This led to six months of me terrified I was going to fuck up someone else’s characters, followed by me pulling my shit together enough to write an installment in a series where so many talented writers had already made marks, and somehow still finding a way to make the story my own—I hope.

I got to make a Remo Williams reference, is all I’m saying so far.

We’ll talk about that next time around.

But until then—

A COVER REVEAL!

“Somewhere Outside Salvation”—#32 in the AGS series, so that dream didn’t die after all—comes out May 15, and I’m as proud of it as anything I’ve written. Much like the tales of Remo Williams, the Destroyer himself, you don’t need to read the first 31 books to know what’s happening. Each entry is self-contained and a perfect quick read on a plane flight or if you have a few hours to kill. I will say you should completely go back and check out earlier stories, though, because the run of writers Frank assembled is insane, and they’ve each contributed to the series mythology in fascinating ways.

Anyway, if you want to make sure “Somewhere Outside Salvation” shows up on your Kindle when it drops on May 15, well then, that pre-order link is right here.

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That’s all we’ve got for now. Thanks for coming. See you next time, and hey, let’s be careful out there.