This Femme is Quite Fatale

Femme
Bill Pronzini
Cemetery Dance
175 p.
trade hardcover $19.99
signed limited edition hardcover $50
deluxe traycased and lettered edition $175

One of my favorite subgenres, and probably the one I read the least since I started this blog, is that of the private eye.  And one of the top practitioners of the form is Bill Pronzini.  His Nameless Detective series has been going since the 70s, with new entries still being added.

The most recent is the novella Femme, published this past fall by Cemetery Dance along with a reprint of another Nameless novella, Kinsmen.  They were separate volumes, but Cemetery Dance had a preorder special.  I snatched them both up.  (The trade editions, but even without the signatures, they were a good buy and look great on the shelf.)

Both feature top notch covers by Glen Orbik; more on that shortly.

A Halloween Treat

"Pumpkin"
Bill Pronizini
Cemetery Dance
various ebpub editions , $0.99

Cemetery Dance has been publishing Halloween themed short stories on weekdays for the last couple of weeks and will continue to do so until Halloween.  It's part of a promotion called 13 Days of Halloween. I'll be taking a look at some of them, randomly selected.

These are all short stories, so I won't go into too much detail.  In this one, Amanda Sutter and her husband run a pumpkin farm in California.  One day one of the field hands discovers that there's something wrong with one of the pumpkins...

Pronzini is one of my favorites.  While he's never to my knowledge written any heroic fantasy, he does occasionally venture from the mystery/crime fields to dip his toes in the waters of dark fantasy and horror.  I wish he would more often.  Although I have to admit that Pronzini is one of those writers whose work I would read regardless of genre.  In my opinion he's that good. 

This story isn't his most gripping, but it's still worth a read, especially the last page or two.  Pronzini isn't one to go for the gross-out.  Instead, he prefers the quiet buildup.  And he's good with the twist at the end.  This story fits that bill quite well.

It's short, only about 10 pages long, but worth the price.  If you're in the mood for a Halloween treat with a little trick at the end, check it out.

Dancing on Graves is Good PI Fun

Dancing on Graves
Jack Clark
Createspace, 217 p.
Trade paper $13.95, Kindle 4.99

Of the major awards for genre fiction, at least among the ones I pay attention to, the Shamus Awards (given by the Private Eye Writers of America) are pretty close to the top of the list.  So if a book's cover says that the author is a Shamus Award Finalist, I pay attention.  And when a Shamus Award Finalist emails me to ask if I he can send me a couple of his books to review, do you think I'm going to be open to that idea?  Is the Pope Catholic?  Does a bear...never mind.

Now I realize that the focus of this blog is primarily heroic fantasy and historical adventure and the focus of my other blog, Futures Past and Present, is science fiction in all its forms.  Granted there's been little historical fiction in recent months, and I don't update the science fiction blog very often.  That's because this one keeps me busy enough.  So busy that I find I have very little time left for the other two closely related genres that I really love, noir  and private investigator fiction.  There are times when this drives me nuts because that's what I'm in the mood for.  I've decided to occasionally include some noir or PI novels in my reviews, just to preserve my own sanity.  Not a lot of them, but every once in a while, maybe once very four to six weeks.  I know some of the people who read these posts on a regular basis are also noir/PI fans, so I don't think I'm completely deserting my audience by this move.

Jack Clark's Nobody's Angel was one of the first books I reviewed here, before I really hit my stride.  It was top notch.  Dancing on Graves is, too, and it's the first of two books Mr. Clark kindly sent me that I'll be reviewing, and for which I would like to thank him.

There was a question on someone's blog the other day, I think James Reasoner's but I'm too lazy to look it up, asking how many ongoing PI series were left.  Other than Loren D. Estleman's Amos Walker and Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective, there weren't too many names suggested.  A few others, but not many.  The Nick Acropolis series by Jack Clark can be added to that list.