New NoHo Noir for Valentine's Day

Celebrate Valentine's Day with the characters of NoHo Noir. This is a pivotal episode--expect revelations about Ethan (the homophobic cop), James and Amanda Gold (movie mogul and his trophy wife), backstory on Clarence Garrett, Lem Majewski and Shari the bubbly receptionist at Economou, Deeter & Bailey.

Here's the story.

As always, the artwork is by Mark Satchwill. You can see more of his work here.

One True Sentence

Murder and Paris...what could be more perfect? Craig McDonald's fourth mystery featuring a young Ernest Hemingway and his fictitious pal Hector "Lasso" Lassiter is out and it's a lot of fun.

The plot involves "Lost Generation" writers who are being murdered and the survivors's attempts to figure out who the killer is before one of them becomes the next victim. The plot, though, is almost beside the point. If you enjoy period mysteries (this one is set in 1924), then pick up One True Sentence. It will make you glad you were an English major because you'll "get" all the references.

NoHo Noir Swag--Available Now

Create personalized gifts at Zazzle.


Now you can have Mark Satchwill's amazing NoHo Noir art on t-shirts, coffee mugs, badges, and mouse pads. Not only is the creepy series logo available, but you can also get his most requested illustrations--Cosmos, Molecules, and Blockbuster--too.

Go here to browse. Seriously, what kitchen would be complete without a set of NoHo Noir coffee mugs?

It's a 24-hour world

So...I was up last night working, as I often am, when a tweet catches my eye as it goes by on the right side of my monitor. It's from the editor of the Studio City patch site, and he's up at 1:30 in the morning working. And I think, damn, Mike works hard. I know he begins his days early because I see his posts on the site and here he is 19 hours later, still up. And then it hits me that of course, I have been up since 6 after a four-hour night and I'm still working too...And I don't even think it's ... odd.

When did that happen? When I was a kid, I remember reading autobiographies of great men who worked 12-hour days and I thought that sounded hard. Nowadays, a 12-hour day sounds like a vacation. It goes with the territory if you're a freelancer. But have you noticed? Even people with "day jobs" are working really long days too. Used to be you had your job and your family obligations and then, there was time left over just to breathe. Every single person I know works really, really hard. There's the job. There's family. And then there's the second job, whether outside the home or in. Everyone's writing, publishing, trying to get a little traction. Then there's volunteer work. Because things are broken. But mostly it's just work to stay ahead of the bills, or to stay even or to stay not too far behind. My parents would be appalled at the hours my brother and I put in at work. But it's the new normal.

And at least I have a job.

Why I Love the Internet

Reason 14590---
I was doing some research this morning prepping for a project and I ran across a stunning obituary cartoon by prize-winning editorial cartoonist Mike Peters. There was a link to this site, which shows a number of his "farewells" to people from the extremely famous (Walter Cronkite, Princess Diana, Fred Astaire) to ordinary people who died in extraordinary circumstance (like some West Virginia coal miners). Some of them were so beautiful and apt, they made me cry. Some made me smile. If you're in a mood to waste a little bit of time, it'll be time well spent to scroll through the cartoons. (The one for Barry Goldwater was particularly good.)

Free books. Who Knew?

I am not one for devices. It's not that I'm a Luddite--you'll have to peel my computer from my cold dead hand--but I don't see the point of phones that double as NASA flight control, you know? (I'll probably have a Droid this time next year and people will snicker and point at me, but right now, I'm content with just being able to text.)

But then there's the Kindle. I don't know when I would have bought one for myself. Probably not for awhile as it seems kind of a frivolous item for a person who works at home. But my friend Connie, who is an early adopter of everything techno, gave me one and well, I will probably never look back. After I bought a copy of my friend Geoff Taylor's new OFFICIAL VARIANT EFFECT COLLECTOR PACK (and you should too)I started looking around to see what else was on offer at Kindle. And imagine my surprise when I found a whole lot of neat books for FREE.

Free books. Two words that gladden my heart as almost none other can, except perhaps for the words "Gerard Butler." It is true that these are books in the public domain that I could find and download at any time. Still, when you search a name like, say, Wilkie Collins, and get back dozens of titles that you've never heard of, it's like Christmas. (And speaking of Christmas, did you know Wilkie wrote a couple of books with Charles Dickens? Definitely worth a look-see.)

So I started clicking away and the next thing I knew, there were 134 books stored in my Kindle. (I kind of went into a fugue state.) I can't wait to start reading...

Sample a Story

New fiction up at Dark Valentine Magazine's site. The Sin Eater.