Crimespree 51 has been shipped. This issue has an interview with William Kent Krueger who just hit the times list with his latest book ORDINARY GRACE. Here’s the contents: ON THE ROAD—FABLES CON HANGING WITH AYO—MUSIC IN MYSTERIES DUANE SWIERZYNSKI INTERVIEW FICTION—ALL THAT GLITTERS COVER STORY—WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER 5 BOOKS THAT INSPIRED ME – BARRY S WILDORF DANA CAMERON—BEHIND THE BOOK DANA CAMERON INTERVIEW BILL LOEFELM—BEHIND THE BOOK JL ABRAMO—BEHIND THE BOOK A RENDEZVOUS WITH EVIL—KENT HARRINGTON MANUEL RAMOS INTERVIEW BY STEVEN TORRES ONE QUESTION—WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR? AMY ALESSIO’S TEEN BEAT FICTION—WHEN THE AIR...

MARSHAL LAW: THE DELUXE EDITION Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill 2013 DC Comics They say I don’t pray for my enemy I do. I pray they go to Hell I remember reading the original Marshal Law comics back in the late 80’s. The punk scene and strange party all the time attitude of the decade was waning and here was a comic that seemed to reflect that, and dealt with it with over the top violence and black humor and parody. I’m a fan of super hero comics and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I do also admit that there are an awful lot of comics that have been written over the years that are just goofy and ripe for parody. Marshal Law came along at just the...

This past Saturday Frank Wheeler and I spent the late morning and afternoon hitting some used bookstores in Milwaukee. The places to hit have changed from when I first started spending my time out hunting for cool books though there are still plenty of places to go. We started heading south and so our first stop was an old favorite in a new location. Downtown Books was moved out of their wonderful location downtown so a hotel could be put up. They have a smaller location around the corner to the west. They also opened a new location near the old Allan Bradley building, just to the north and east at 1134 S. 1st St. in Walker’s Point. ...

From Crimespree 21 Where the Ideas Come From By Gabriel Cohen Whenever I attend an author talk, the audience always seems fascinated by the process of writing. Do you write every day? they ask. How many hours? Perhaps the most popular question, though, is Where do you get your ideas? Every act of writing begins with a snowy field, the enormously vague white space of a blank page. Into that field a writer can put anything: drop a dead body there, and you may be starting a mystery; drop an unhappy family there and you may be sledding off into a Russian tragedy. So how do writers get those initial ideas? Sometimes, they just seem to drop out...

Seventeen Downtown / 5:30 P.M. Calhoun was lying on a bed in one of the hotel rooms they kept around the city. This one had a view of the bullring and a technical college from the window in front oft of him. When he’d woken up he could hear the students outside on the street getting ready for evening classes. He wasn’t sure what had happened or how he’d gotten there. He didn’t know that the kid from the Escondido had called Miguel and they’d brought him there. He’d listened to Castro’s voice and now tried to pull himself upright on the bed.”Slaughter expects the cargo in San Diego…by seven...

Guillermo del Toro’s latest is looking pretty fun. When legions of monstrous creatures, known as Kaiju, started rising from the sea, a war began that would take millions of lives and consume humanity’s resources for years on end. To combat the giant Kaiju, a special type of weapon was devised: massive robots, called Jaegers, which are controlled simultaneously by two pilots whose minds are locked in a neural bridge. But even the Jaegers are proving nearly defenseless in the face of the relentless Kaiju. On the verge of defeat, the forces defending mankind have no choice but to turn to two unlikely heroes—a washed up former pilot...

Fantasy—ripped from today’s headlines By Robert Liparulo I like stories that surprise me, show me things I’ve never seen before, and get me playing make-believe like I haven’t done since selling my G.I. Joes and Legos at a garage sale. Few tales are as make-believe (or as fun) as fantasy fiction—from the “light fantasy” of alternate histories and time travel to the hardcore stuff involving space odysseys and dragons. The trouble is I’m a skeptic, a hard sell. For a story to grab me, no matter how far-fetched it’s supposed to be, I have to see and feel things I recognize, things I relate to. Sounds like common sense, but as a voracious...

Friday night, Red and I went to see Pete Hautman at St. Paul’s Red Balloon bookshop. The Grand Ave. staple has been attracting quite a few high-profile authors lately, such as Jon and Carol Barrowman (The Hollow Earth) and Eoin Colfer (Artemis Fowl). Celebrating the release of his newest novel The Cydonian Pyramid, which is book 2 in his Klaatu Diskos trilogy. The event had an intimate feel, with the chairs set up in a half-circle, and Mr. Hautman answering questions while sitting cross-legged on top of a desk. With conversation bouncing between time-travel, faith vs. religion, and Star Trek, as well as praise for Mystery One bookstore in...

Sixteen Downtown / 3:20 P.M. Selena’s “Tú Solo Tú” was on the juke box.We’re all finished off in the war of life – some just take more killing than others, Calhoun thought, looking at his beer. He thought of running to a theater and hiding from himself. He saw Celeste waiting for him back at the motel. He was stone broke. He smirked at himself in the brown tint of the Dos XX’s bottle. He looked up at the yellow barroom wall in front of him.No se puede vivir sin amar, a sign said. There was a collection of Mexican homilies in Victorian script on the wall. “You cannot live without love,” this one...