Including a short by me; two volumes to be released simultaneously! Check out Bristol Noir on the ‘book.
Sneak Peek: Bristol Noir
Tag books
Catching Up on Crime
Looking for things to read in these in-between times?
You’ll find plenty of fiction and non-fiction over at Pulp Noir Magazine.
Talking with Strangers (inadvisable!)
Playing Ripley (Highsmith’s favourite character on stage)
The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry (unusual noir)
Summer Wine (quaff at your own risk)
Of course Fahrenheit Press has you covered with books that will keep your mind off the news and the coolest merch in town: don’t go it alone.
Get Drunk for Free!
Drunk on the Moon, that is! Get the all-star supernatural crime anthology that includes wolf-in-chief Paul D. Brazill and a host of luminous guests including me!
When a full moon fills the night sky, Private Investigator Roman Dalton becomes a werewolf and prowls The City’s neon and blood-soaked streets. Stories by Allan Leverone, K. A. Laity, Jason Michel, B R Stateham, Graham Wynd, Katherine Tomlinson, Julia Madeleine, John Donald Carlucci, Richard Godwin. Based on characters created by Paul D. Brazill.
Can’t get enough of your favourite werewolf detective? You can get the original collection for FREE too, but act fast. ROMAN DALTON – WEREWOLF PI is howling at the ready.
When a full moon fills the night sky, Private Investigator Roman Dalton becomes a werewolf and prowls The City‘s neon and blood soaked streets. There are six Roman Dalton Yarns written by Paul D. Brazill in this short collection.
Don’t just take my word for it, read what the critics have said:
Tell-Tale is a Tiny Tale + #FNATB
My short ‘Tell-Tale’ which first appeared at Punk Noir Magazine is now a Tiny Tale, a new podcast that sees the return of Darren Sant reading stories for you — not soft bed time stories though, but dark crime fun! Check it out: it also includes a tale of Daz’s own as well as two by Frank Sonderborg and Andrew Briggs.
Check it out and spread the word.
Don’t forget: tonight is another round of #FahrenFriday #FNATB which features new video readings by Derek Farrell, A Den Bleyker and Cal Smyth. Subscribe to #FahrenNoirAtTheBar make sure you don’t miss a thing!
#FahrenNoirAtTheBar Live!
After a few technical hiccoughs #FahrenNoirAtTheBar is live with the first three videos. Check out Ian Ayris, Jo Perry, and Anthony Neil Smith reading from their Fahrenheit Press works. Favourite the channel so you won’t miss a thing!
Review: The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019)
Opens Friday 6 March in the US
Don’t be put off by the title; it’s not an exposé of the current occupant of the White House, but an adaptation of the 1971 Charles Willeford novel of the same name. I went to a special screening thanks to the Woodstock Film Festival folks with my pal Peg Aloi AKA The Media Witch. There was a Q&A with producer William Horberg after.
The film stars the very tall pair, Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki, in the primary roles (I never noticed during the BBC Dracula how long Bang’s torso is) with Mick Jagger and Donald Sutherland in small pivotal roles. Scott Smith, who wrote A Simple Plan, scripted the film from the novel. He reduced the overwhelming misogyny of the book somewhat (‘Really?’ Peg asked). Horberg mentioned how his pal Neil LaBute was interested in filming the novel at one point. I shudder to think.
Art, grifting, theft and criticism: the book is a lot more deliberate about the last. Smith’s script takes the central themes and turns them into plot decisions. It’s more efficient and dramatic. I’m immersed in stories of art forgery at present for a project (yeah, there’s some Ripley in it, too) so this story has been swirling around in my head. Smith focuses on how the stories we shape in turn shape who we are, but the devil is in the details.
Bang and Debicki are excellent as Figueras (the Puerto Rican identity that’s a linchpin of the novel is dropped) and Hollis. Immediately drawn to each other but infinitely wary, too; he, because he has no authenticity—she, because she has too much. As an art critic on the make, he’s easily exploited by Jagger’s smarmy art dealer Cassidy to get an exclusive: one for each of them. Per Horberg, Jagger asked for rewrites of his part. Possibly just a power move, but the character is much more clever than in the books. It’s not giving away too much to say that he send Figueras to interview reclusive artist Jerome Debney (Sutherland) and to steal a painting from the man who’s only ever had one work displayed.
Berenice exists in the novel as an excuse for Figueras to ramble about his opinions on art and criticism at length (something I have an interest in though most noir fans may skip over the pages on Becket, Dada and Surrealism quickly) and as a plot point. It’s to Smith’s credit that she’s more than that in the film. It’s to Debicki’s credit that she makes her a believable character. The sweetness of her scenes with Sutherland is delightful (Horberg’s account of how he got him for the role spells out the importance of who-you-know-Hollywood). Smith has the elder artist spouting Yeats and Shakespeare not pretentiously, but as naturally as someone with a huge store of words hoarded over the years.
But I’m not sure why they changed the frankly even cheerfully sexual character into one who’s guiltily ‘whoring around Europe’ [cue eyeroll]. Ah, modern American puritanism. She’s ‘punishing’ herself by hanging around Figueras. He’s much more desperate and on the edge. In the novel he’s grafting as well as grifting. In the film, you get the feeling he’s scraping bottom more, thus easier to manipulate as Cassidy is more than willing to do. The transfer to Italy pays off in beauty (Visconti’s villa and grounds stand in for the collector’s summer home) what it loses in the seedy specificity of Willeford’s Florida. But in what world is this a ‘romance’ spiky or not? Only the Hollywood Reporter. Beautiful cinematography (David Ungaro) and music (Craig Armstrong) help build the neo-noir ambiance.
Spoilerish:
The guilty revelation at the final unveiling works well dramatically. In the novel the resigned self-sacrifice comes because Figueras realises he’s peaked. His confession to the crime is specifically to claim a false motivation. It’s a cover-up of the other crime that’s much more important to him and his legacy as a critic. He feels triumph.
DEFFO SPOILERS!
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The breakdown of the murder into two parts makes it that much more horrible. In the book Berenice is barely more than a cypher, so her only purpose on the road trip is being knocked off. In the film the first attempt is a heat-of-the-moment thing; Figueras seems shocked by his own violence and when he talks her back up the stairs to the flat, you almost believe that he regrets it. But the anger is deep; his own fears of failure. When she taunts him with the buzzing fly sound, his move is violent, sudden and final. But he is consumed by guilt and when the fellow critic points him to the ‘Mark of Cain’ the painter left—or rather, the fingerprint Berenice left on the canvas—he’s obviously stricken. There’s no triumph. Not for Figueras anyway; Berenice’s posthumous triumph hangs from the humble refrigerator door of her mother’s house.
Review: Gumshoe Blues
GUMSHOE BLUES
Paul D. Brazill
Punk Noir Magazine
Blurb:
Following the breakdown of his marriage, in a booze addled flash of inspiration, Peter Ord decides to become a private investigator. However, is Seatown ready for him? More to the point is he ready for the Seatown’s cast of ne’er do wells, gangsters and lunatics? Peter must tackle many challenging cases, including one involving a legless crooner. When he comes under the radar of local crime lord, has he bitten off more than he can chew? With sidekicks like hack Bryn Laden failure is not an option it’s compulsory.
Review:
There is always reason to rejoice when a new Brazill book hits the streets. The northern setting of Gumshoe Blues offers a laconic pace which suits the humour and makes the stark failures of the impromptu gumshoe Peter Ord a little (dare I say it?) poignant. As Vic & Bob can tell you, Northern doesn’t always travel well down to the sunny climes. Their loss, because there’s much amusement here along with the noir-flavoured escapades. The adventures of this PI ‘feel like they rolled out of a Tom Waits song’ — crime with the feel of a shaggy dog story, complete with running jokes.
Ord’s adventures seem to ramble, but most of the colourful characters (like Tuc, the guy who tattooed his own neck looking in the mirror) and seemingly disparate threads effortlessly web together in the end. Brazill makes it look easy. After all, the only sin is making it look like work — or playing bad music.
The world of Seatown feels so real that you’ll be sure you’ve walked those streets and heard those songs. Chances are you ran into Ord in some dark pub. He was the one in the corner in the suit beginning to fray, nursing a bad hangover and wondering how he got there. Buy him a drink. He needs it.
Fahrenheit: Beach Ready 3 for 2
Enter promocode BUY2BOOKS
FFB: Edith’s Diary by Patricia Highsmith
Catching up on my neglected Highsmith novels: so focused on the Ripliad lately, it’s good to remember to step aside for her other work. In her introduction Denise Mina talks about this novel being her gateway to the creepy world of Pat, completely by accident. What an introduction! This book is pure dread. It’s crime by content, but as in many of her books, the crime is hardly the main plot element. Edith’s crumbling dissolution as life keeps disappointing her is utterly terrifying as well as perfectly drawn.
It would never get published today because ‘head hopping’ is considered an insurmountable crime. Highsmith hops adroitly from Edith’s increasingly buzzing head to that of her wretched offspring, the supremely creepy Cliffie — incel supreme! — without losing the reader at all or making it too jarring. The jumping off points are well chosen. Highsmith is so good at building unsettling creepiness — Cry of the Owl and This Sweet Sickness also do that superbly. But I think the choice of this invisible middle-aged woman adds a poignant sorrow that breaks you in a way those two novels don’t.
There’s a moment when Edith stands in the little stream in her aunt’s back garden, looking up at the house where she had often been happy. She recalls a line from a Goethe lieder (this is Highsmith, you know), ‘Kennst du das Land?’ and it captures perfectly the distance between the sometime happy child and the woman completely lost in fantasy. Edith remembers the line about the roof and the pillars, but the line that really resonates is, ‘What have they done to you, poor child?’
Highsmith shows you the obvious things, like Cliffie as a child trying to kill the family cat, or her husband’s very dull, very middle-class affair — but in throwaway lines, she also lets you know the cold family life Edith had even as a child. It’s striking that as she veers into insanity the woman not only moves from left-wing political activism to bizarre right-wing diatribes (that often match the author’s opinions) but she also becomes more creative, both in writing her alternative diary-life and her self-taught sculpture. So Pat.
Check out the FFBs at Patti’s blog. Or maybe Todd’s.
Another Fine Review for LOVE IS A GRIFT
A fine new review of LOVE IS A GRIFT over at stalwart reviewer Col’s Criminal Library. He found entertaining the mix of:
Sex, drugs, drink, music, crime, robberies, guns, bikers, kidnap, witches, family feuds, take-downs, consequences, trailers and diners, fake friends, dead boyfriends and a swimming lesson, real friends and a false alarm, nasty neighbours, a werewolf PI in the background, a good deed and an oven clean, and lots more.
Col has been a great supporter of the crime community for some time. Check out his massive collection of reviews at the blog and be sure to leave him an encouraging word. He’s been kind enough to review Satan’s Sorority, Extricate and Smallbany, so I am eternally grateful.
Also check it out: Fahrenheit Press and F13 in the news!
Well that is a GREAT full-page article in @WritingMagazine about Fahrenheit & @F13Noir & @69Crime & @AidanDFThorn & @NickQuantrill …
Love it. pic.twitter.com/dWmbcw3yoq
— Fahrenheit Press : Crime Fiction Publishers (@fahrenheitpress) July 4, 2019
Graham Wynd 