Fun & Games Across America: Ocean (and Atlantic) City

While the road trip proper begins tomorrow, the first official stop of the Fun & Games Across America tour was a reading and signing at the Ocean City Free Public Library this past Monday night. I had an absolute blast thanks to my supercool hosts, Allison Moonitz and Kevin Bligh. I also couldn't have asked for a better audience. Friendly, full of great questions (I thrive on questions at these sorts of things) and most importantly, they were kind as I fumbled through a sample from my own novel. One cool cat even asked me to sign the back of his Nook, and the entire time I was worried that I'd misspell my own name, thus ruining his fancy reading device. (Hope I didn't screw it up, Frank.) Big thanks to the library for having me, and to everyone who stopped by.

Kieran Shea filed his own report of the event which is full of slander and lies, but what're ya gonna do?

And I recorded a podcast Q&A with the aforementioned Mr. Bligh; I'll post a link when it's available.

We stayed in nearby Atlantic City, because I like a good spectacle just like the rest of you. I was amused to see a giant Boardwalk Empire billboard hanging on the side of the swank mall/pier directly across from Caesars. Also amused to see a row of Hangover-themed slot machines, though I think it would have been more interesting if the machine slipped its losing players a roofie or two.

And of course I bought the first round of postcards (shown above) for the pre-order crowd. Cards this time went out to Sabrina O. in Magna, Utah; Adam B. in Brookline, MA; Michael W. in Lunenburg, MA; Corey S. in Parkersburg, WV; and finally Drew D. in Hatboro, PA. Your thank-you postcards are on the way, if they haven't arrived already.

Tomorrow: Goin' south.

Fun & Games Across America: The Tour

Everyone in publishing these days is talking about the futility of author tours, but Secret Dead Blog isn't listening to any of that jazz. Starting next Friday, I'll be taking off in the family truckster (along with the family) and driving across the southern half of America, first heading down the coast to Charleston, then Savannah, followed by one insanely long stretch on the I-10 all the way to Los Angeles. Along the way, I'll be doing drop-in signings and honest-to-goodness bookstore appearances, as well as writing postcards to 164 of you until my hand falls off.

If you don't live anywhere near the I-10, don't worry. You'll be able to follow all of the action from this blog. I've been inspired by reading David Dodge's classic travel memoirs from the late 1940s/1950s (as well as repeated viewings of National Lampoon's Vacation over the years), so I might try my hand as a sort-of travelogue thingy on this blog along the way.

Here's the formal schedule through mid-July; check back for updates beyond that.

Monday, June 27
Ocean City Free Public Library
Ocean City, NJ
7:00 p.m.

Friday, July 8
Noir Night 2011, with Megan Abbott and Sara Gran
Murder By the Book
Houston, TX
6:30 p.m.

Saturday, July 9
MysteryPeople Presents Happy Hour With Duane Swierczynski
Book People
Austin, TX
5 p.m.

Sunday, July 10
The Twig Book Shop
San Antonio, TX
Time TBD

Wednesday, July 13
Signing with Harry Dolan, Michael Wiley and Thomas Kaufman
Poisoned Pen
Scottsdale, AZ
7 p.m.

Along the way, there will be stops in Charleston, Savannah, Tallahassee, New Orleans and El Paso, so if you know of any great indie bookshops (or giant balls of twine, stick insect museums, etc.) in these cities, let me know in the comments below.

By July 15th we'll be in L.A. No appearances scheduled there yet (I'm still in a weird denial about the Mystery Bookstore closing), but I'll definitely be stopping by some of my favorite shops, such as Skylight Books in Los Feliz and The Iliad in North Hollywood as a civilian.

I'll also be at San Diego Comic-Con for one day only (Thursday, July 21), signing at the Mulholland Books/Hachette Booth at 2 p.m., and then heckling Charlie Huston at his panel at 3 p.m. More details to follow.

Hope to see some of you on the road...

(Clark Griswold image from DoBlu.com.)

Fun & Games Giveaway: We Have Winners!

 

Let me start by offering huge thanks to the 164 kind souls who pre-ordered a copy of Fun & Games and entered this slightly-goofy giveaway. That means 164 of you will be receiving personalized postcards this summer from stops along my book tour/road trip which kicks off next week. I'm ticking down the list in order, so the earliest adopters can expect a very tacky postcard from either Atlantic City or Ocean City, NJ, where I'm speaking next week. (Details on the full tour stops coming... tomorrow!)

Five of you, however, scored one of the big prizes. I used a site called Random.org to generate a truly random sequence of numbers, and then simply matched the first five numbers to the pre-order list. And the winners are (full names hidden to protect their secret identities)...

1. Jeff M. in Exton, PA
2. Jeff M. in Fairfield, CT
3. Matthew J. in New York, NY
4. Drew D. in Hatboro, PA
5. Michael K. in Boone, NC

It's kind of strange that the winners are all on the East Coast, because folks from all over the country (and world, actually) entered. And two Jeffs in the top slots? But the drawing process was truly random. This is why math confuses me...

Anyway, a hearty (or should I say Hardie) congrats to the grand prize winners! I'll be emailing you guys individually to talk prizes.

But remember: everybody wins! As I blog from the road, I'll list whose postcards are going out, and from which stop, so you'll know (vaguely) when to expect them. Apologies in advance if the postcards reek of barbecue and/or booze.

Thanks again, everyone. All of you are on my Official Cool People List.

(Image: New Orleans Beaux Arts Ball, November 1952, courtesy Google's Life Magazine archive.)

Here Comes the Fun

Well, tomorrow's the official pub date of Fun & Games, though copies have been leaking out into the wild for a good couple of weeks. I have that familiar cocktail of pre-release excitement and worry roiling around in my guts. Will you guys dig it? Did I screw up any of the California details? Was my name misspelled on the spine of the book?

But such worries have been alleviated by a lot of kind e-mails and Tweets from early F&G readers, as well as this very cool review by Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times Book Review, who called the novel "so much fun to read--on the couch or on the run."

And just this morning I woke up to see that a Q&A I did with CNN's Christian DuChateau was linked on the site's home page. (Quite a nice Father's Day present, I must say.)

All of this follows on the heels of Elizabeth A. White's "Swierczynski Week," in which she sullied the good name of her otherwise excellent book blog with reviews of my stuff.

Meanwhile, it's not too late to enter the Fun & Games Giveaway! You can find the complete details (and entry form) right here, but in short: if you pre-order/order a copy between now and midnight tomorrow (Monday, June 20th), I'll be sending you a personalized post card from somewhere on my book tour this summer. And five random winners will score other pulpy prizes, including the right to name a character in the third Charlie Hardie novel.

Secret Dead Guest Post: Jason Starr!

Secret Dead Blog was a rabid fan of Jason Starr's novels long before we met him, starting with the brilliant, creepy and unputdownable Hard Feelings (2002). Somehow, we remained rabid fans even after meeting him. (Ah, we kid Mr. Starr. He knows that.) Anyway, Jason's out with a new novel today, The Pack (Ace) which literally just arrived here at Secret Dead Blog HQ minutes ago. Jason will be appearing at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City tomorrow night; in the meantime, listen to him spin some lies about us and hear more about The Pack, his first horror noir.


Me, Duane, Prom Dates, and The Pack
By Jason Starr

Many thanks to Duane for letting me sabotage his blog today. He gave me strict instructions before he left for the day:

No drinking

No drugs

No loud music

No sex in his bed

            Then with an ultra-serious expression he added:

                        And No Ken Bruen

Yeah, sure, Duane, yep, no problem (as Ken and I put on our Tom Cruise-in-Risky Business sunglasses).

It’s hard to believe it’s been about seven about years since I met Duane. Secret Dead Men was about to be published and he’d come up from Philly to meet me, Ken, and Reed Coleman at the bar at Ken’s hotel (the Mansfield, of course). Duane was a huge Ken fanboy and brought all sorts of exotic gifts for Ken from his native land:

Cheese steak

A Phillies cap

Pop Tarts

I think Duane was a little flustered meeting Ken for the first time and right after we toasted his first pint slipped out of his hand and spilled all over my lap. Then, a few minutes later, Duane’s prom date strolls into the bar! Seriously, what were the odds? Of all the gin joints…Duane hadn’t seen her in about fifteen years and they had a lot of catching up to do, so that was the end us for the rest of the night.

(Duane will claim that some of this didn’t happen exactly the way I’ve described but, trust me, about 90 percent of this is true.)

Since that night, Duane went on to become one of the best crime writers in the business. I’m reading his new one right now, Fun and Games, and it’s blowing me away, like John Ridley meets Elmore Leonard on acid. Seriously, it’s the best thing Duane’s done (and that’s saying a lot) and I’ve been raving to everyone I know about it.

But enough about what I think of Duane, let’s get on to what I think of myself.

Yeah, I’m talking about a little BSP. As Bret Easton Ellis would say, “Deal with it. Rock ’n’ roll.”

My new book, The Pack, is out today and it’s different than anything I’ve done before. The first clue it’s different—you’ll probably find it in the general fiction or sci-fi section of your local bookstore. That said, there’s a lot of crime in it too, and it also has a horror element. It’s also a dark bromance story and a satire about New York and New Yorkers.

The idea for The Pack came about in when I was pitching ideas for movies and TV shows. I’ve done some screenwriting and I’m always looking to do more (as the old Yiddish saying goes, “Every singer wants to be a dancer”). When I pitched the basic story for The Pack, about a stay-at-home dad who bonds with a group of dads at a New York playground and discovers they have a very dark secret, the producer suggested that I write it as a novel. After The Chill (my 2010 graphic novel for Vertigo Crime), I had been thinking about writing a novel that pushed me into a new direction and my agent liked the idea so I was off and running.

Another departure for me with The Pack is it’s the first book in a series. Aside from the books I’ve written with Ken Bruen, all my novels have been standalones (and many of my characters have ended up physically unable to go on to another book). So with The Pack I had to make sure that at least some of my characters survive, which I discovered is not an easy thing to do. It’s just so tempting and fun to kill off my fictional characters. There were so many times I wanted to blow away my most likable characters in The Pack spectacularly gruesome ways and I had to say to myself, Easy now boy, let’s rein it in.

If you want to catch Duane and me in action, we will be on a New York Public Library together next Wednesday, June 15. I guarantee we’ll put on a better show than the last time we paneled together at Bouchercon in Madison a few years ago. It was hardboiled authors vs. cozy authors panel and Duane, Megan Abbott and I were massacred. Man, what a train wreck that was. Imagine 45 minutes of awkward pauses and us exchanging looks of, Why don’t you take this one? The highlight, or lowlight, of the night was when we brought out our secret weapon—an actual cat.

Whoops, gotta go—Ken Bruen’s calling me and we’re gonna share a line on Duane’s pillow.

Thanks for the time suck.

(SDB here again: The Pack is available right this very second. Order online, or visit your favorite indie bookshop or brick-and-mortar for your copy.)

Hard Case Returns... With Some Westlake in its Back Pocket

If you're a Hard Case Crime fanatic like myself, the past year has felt a little like limbo, hasn't it? The last HCC release was back in August 2010, and every month since then I've been glancing at my TBR pile with a forlorn expression, missing those red-and-black-and-white spines with the yellow ribbon that represented my assurance of quality. (Sigh.)

Thankfully, we've all been sprung from purgatory. Hard Case Crime is officially back this September with out four new novels by Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins, Mickey Spillane and Christa Faust. And February 2012 brings something I never thought I'd see again: a new Donald E. Westlake novel. Hard Case honcho Charles Ardai explains:

The book is called THE COMEDY IS FINISHED, and it's going to be our second hardcover ever.  Don wrote it between the late 1970s and early 80s, but never published it because he found himself worrying that its premise -- the kidnapping of a famous television comedian -- was too similar to the movie "The King of Comedy," which Martin Scorsese released around the same time. He shouldn't have worried -- the book and the movie aren't similar at all outside of sharing that basic premise.  It's a hell of a good book and one that very much deserves to be in print, and we're very excited to be bringing it out for the first time, with a fabulous cover by Greg Manchess.

While I hated the hiatus, I've gotta say... this news kind of made it worth the wait. And look at that gorgeous Manchess cover. Hard to say which is more risque; this one, or Manchess's cover for Lawrence Block's Getting Off.

Glad you're back, Hard Case.

Presenting... The Fun & Games Giveaway!

Whenever you pre-order a book, you're giving the author a gift.

Seriously. Publishers and booksellers pay attention to pre-orders, big-time. (Authors, too. Show me a writer who doesn't track his Amazon sales rank like a wolf tracks wounded prey and I'll show you a writer who's unconscious and hooked up to life support.) If pre-orders are strong, everybody does a little happy dance.

So if you're pre-ordering my next novel, Fun & Games, you're giving me a gift. I'd like to give you a gift in return.

This summer I'm going to be traveling cross-country for the official "Fun & Games Across America Tour" (more on that soon). If you pre-order F&G at any time, right up until pub date (June 20th), I'll send you a personalized postcard from a random stop on my trip. Rest assured that I will choose the most tasteless and kitschy postcards possible from the creepiest, rundown roadside pit stops. (You're welcome!)

But that's not all. Five lucky winners will be plucked from the pre-order posse to receive one of these insanely fabulous prizes...

*A set of signed copies of my five previous novels (Secret Dead Men, The Wheelman, The Blonde, Severance Package, Expiration Date), personalized to your liking;

*A pulp fiction grab bag, straight from own library of vintage paperbacks (x2);

* A copy of Rockstar's smash hit video game, L.A. Noire (X-Box version);

* Or, finally, the GRAND PRIZE: the right to name a minor character in the third Charlie Hardie novel, Point & Shoot, which will be published next March. (And damn you if you choose the name "Bucky McFartLips.")

Sound good? Go ahead and pre-order from anywhere (indie stores, online booksellers, brick and mortar chains) and then fill out the handy form below. I'll take it from there. If you don't have a confirmation number, just leave that blank and email me some kind of proof at duane DOT swier AT verizon DOT net.

The five prizes are only valid for U.S. and Canadian readers only, unfortunately... but I'll send a postcard anywhere in the world. So really, everybody wins!