Early in my new thriller, “What About the Bodies,” Liz, a failing songwriter, looks back on her life, sneers, then launches into a spiteful tirade over the music world, her audiences, her fellow musicians and more.

I imagine that her fury felt good to her. It sure felt good to me. Gosh, those pages were fun to write. And why shouldn’t they? Can’t anger be satisfying? Oh sure, some positive-thinking Pollyannas will cheerfully beseech you to “Focus only on the good things!” Those sweet-talkers should keep their optimism to themselves.

Your scornful friend Ken is here to tell you that it’s OK to feel bad occasionally, and that you have the right to curse the universe and its unfairness. Go on, stir up some self-righteous rage. It can remind you that you’re alive. Besides, it’s unhealthy to bottle up your emotions. I think. I’m not a doctor. I never made it to medical school. Yet another disappointment.

Here’s a list of five things that really got my goat recently. And I don’t even have a goat. That makes me angry, too.

The Death of Ken Bruen

This hurt. A lot. I’m incensed at the gods for taking away this always-exciting novelist in March at 74 years old. His great creation, the private detective Jack Taylor, was a booze-swilling crime-solver who wasn’t beyond beating up a bad guy or railing at religion. Bruen’s final novel, “Galway’s Edge,” was as brilliant as anything this Irish storyteller wrote. Read him and weep with me.

Online Book Sales

Any book sale is a good one. But it can be frustrating to find that some readers consider only the giant online retailers when making a purchase. Perhaps they’re unaware that brick-and-mortar bookstores often have their own sales sites, and that bookshop.org allows you to buy a book and choose an independent bookshop that will receive the profits. I don’t want to tell anyone where they should or shouldn’t shop. But we can remind readers that there are good options to support the little guys and gals.

‘Pound for Pound’

F.X. Toole died and left behind a 900-page unedited manuscript for this novel. The writer, best know for the short story that became the film “Million Dollar Baby,” published his first book of fiction when he was 70 and didn’t live to see this novel, trimmed to under 400 pages by his agent and editor, released. It’s a story of revenge, redemption, grief and boxing, with a forward by James Ellroy. Why am I angry about it? Because the book sat on my shelf for years until I picked it up, blew off the dust, and felt it come alive. What beauty I almost missed.

Short Stories

I will never forget being a grade-school boy and reading Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder.” When I finished that short story, my mouth dropped open. Wow. That’s the effect a compact tale can have. While I’m distressed that few wide-circulation magazines still publish short fiction, I remain inspired by short-story virtuosos like Claire Keegan, George Saunders and Jim Shepard. And if I really want to get riled, I’ll remember that William Trevor, the grandmaster of the short story, never won the Nobel Prize in Literature. That’s an injustice.

Money

Money was a constant concern when I grew up, so when I began reading novels and found that so few characters worried about a buck, I was perplexed. Even today I’m baffled by characters who suddenly skip work to jet off to expensive islands. How can they afford it? Some writers seem blind to a bedrock rule of modern life: To a large extent, the money you have determines the things you can do, and there are many people who don’t have much. Luckily, novelists like Jennifer Haigh and Willy Vlautin explore the working classes with grace and understanding.   

Thanks for listening to my angry rants. You, kind reader, have made me happy.

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Ken Jaworowski stays livid while living in New Jersey with his family, who do a great job of cheering him up. He’s an editor at The New York Times. His first novel, “Small Town Sins,” was nominated for an Edgar Award and optioned by Sony TV. His second, “What About the Bodies,” will be released by Atlantic Crime on September 2.