Penns River

My second novel, Worst Enemies, is set in the fictional town of Penns River, Pennsylvania. About twenty miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Penns River has about 30,000 inhabitants, mostly blue collar, if they’re working at all. The bottom fell out of the economy when the steel and aluminum mills closed in the 70s, and the economic renaissance that turned Pittsburgh from a mill town to a medical and education center manages to miss The River every time, no matter how many presidential candidates use the abandoned strip mall as a backdrop for a campaign appearance, promising this is just the kind of town that will rise from the ashes under his administration.

Here’s a brief description from the book, about why Stan “Stush” Napierkowski’s job as chief of police has become so much harder in recent years, Stush listening to a harangue from Willie Grabek, a retired Pittsburgh detective he has brought in to provide some experience:

Stush already getting sick of listening to Grabek tell him how to be a cop. Not that he had any illusions about being Dick Tracy. Stush got his job the old-fashioned way: some seniority, a willingness to do dirty jobs, and his sister’s husband was mayor. Smaller town then, different demographic. Not much to do but break up the occasional millhunk fight born of too many boilermakers and not enough work. No serious poverty then, no one dramatically more affluent than anyone else, except for the handful of doctors and lawyers on Pill Hill, by the country club.

That all changed when the steel and aluminum mills started closing. After a while even the diehards gave up on an industrial renaissance. Small subsistence businesses popped up, locals selling things to their neighbors and buying in return. Money moved back and forth, no one getting rich so much as they were helping each other go under slower.

Pittsburgh rode medicine, finance, and education into the Twenty-First Century and parts of Penns River became a bedroom community for young professionals with more income than patience. The old Meadow Gold dairy farm was broken up into multi-acre lots for McMansions. The yuppies treated Stush’s cops like their personal security detail and spent their disposable income at Pittsburgh Mills, the Strip District, and Walnut Street, not in Penns River.

Only a matter of time before someone figured out it was easier to drop drug shipments off in a little town with forty cops and a lot of abandoned real estate by the river than run the risk of dealing with serious police downtown. Stush Napierkowski found himself the chief of a town with its demographics stretched both ways, and law enforcement problems he never signed on for. Knowing he was in over his head didn’t make it any easier to listen to endless rations of Willie Grabek telling him how to be a cop. Right now he needed Grabek more than Willie needed this job.

Worst Enemies is scheduled to be available for Kindle and Nook on March 1.

 

Worst Enemies Available March 1

Now that Wild Bill’s sales are comfortably into double digits, I am pleased to announce my next book, Worst Enemies, will be available for Kindle and Nook on March 1. (I hope. I’m awaiting permission to use a photograph for the cover. This is not Trestle Press.) Don’t think Worst Enemies is something I dashed off over the past few months because of the whelming success of Wild Bill. It took a full year and then some to write, slumbering on my hard drive while I got my act together deciding what I wanted to do with it.

Worst Enemies is the first of what I hope will be several books set in Penns River, a fictional town in Western Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh’s economic recovery never seems to make it as far up the Allegheny as Penns River, though some of the yuppies looking for good home prices have established a bedroom enclave. Worst Enemies is the story of a small town and its cops, pulled between conflicting economic forces. The population is aging, the tax base is shrinking, and the crime situation is becoming more than its police force can comfortable handle.

Oh, and there’s murder. More than one.

More on Worst Enemies will follow, including excerpts and a look at the cover when it’s ready. You have been warned.

A Foolish Inconsistency is the Hobgoblin of Small Minds

Yes, I know I got the quote wrong. In the context of today’s post, what I have here is correct.

Thomas Pluck recently posted an excellent blog to Crime Factory about foul language in books. The topic occasionally pops up, is debated for a couple of weeks, then subsides as writers find other things they can’t control to vent about. Pluck’s comments were timed with something that came to notice here.

The Beloved Spouse and I will occasionally watch a bit of stand-up on Comedy Central before turning in. Hop over to Channel 690, see what’s on, and stick around a while if it looks promising. We’re also regular viewers of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. With the Supreme Court currently looking into what can, and cannot, be said on television, one thing struck us: there is a strange inconsistency in what network Standards and Practices will allow, and what they won’t.

Let’s take Comedy Central, notably stand-up comics, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. They can’t say “fuck” or “shit” and get away with it; either word will be bleeped every time. This is in keeping with the late, great, George Carlin’s definition of the seven words you can never say on television. “Shit” is, however, permissible on FX, which is owned by Fox, which is the Official Network of Family Value Conservatives, as is “piss.” On Comedy Central—near as we can tell—you can be pissed off, but you can’t take a piss. A little weird, but it gets better.

CC allows the word “dick” as a reference to someone, but it can’t be used as a body part. You can be a dick, but you can’t have one, never mind why calling someone a dick is an insult. People act “dickish” all the time. “Balls” is okay, unless in the context of body part, so someone can have balls (“It takes a lot of balls to do that,” “You got some balls on you.”) but he cannot actually have balls. The origin of the phrase is, again, neglected. The secret here may be in the connection to what Archie Bunker so eloquently called “the groinal area.”

"Asshole” is a good one. You can say “ass” and you can say “hole,” but you can’t say “asshole.” Even better, they won’t bleep the whole word; just the “hole.” So “ass” is okay and “hole” is okay, but they are banned when combined, and it’s the “hole” that makes it obscene.

Then there is “goddamnit.” This one is okay for reasons that escape me. The Cultural Wars in this country are generally between the Christian Right (sometimes referred to as The Right) and people who generally want to be left alone and think we have bigger fish to fry (also known as The Wrong). A couple of ministers keep themselves in the public eye—and, not coincidentally, keep those contributions rolling in—by periodically pointing out the road to Perdition is paved with foul language and semi-second glimpses of Janet Jackson’s nipple. How does “goddamnit” get past these sentinels of propriety? I’m no Bible scholar, but isn’t taking the Lord Thy God’s name in vain one of the Ten Commandments? How does that get a pass, and “balls” doesn’t?

A study was recently released that says conservatives and racists are less intelligent. (Than what, we’re not so sure.) I don’t believe this—I’ll have more to say on From the Home Office in a couple of days—though inconsistencies like the above do give me pause. I sincerely don’t want to come across as insensitive—though, as regular readers know, I will if I feel the need—I’m genuinely curious about how this works, especially the “goddamnit” business. Feel free to enlighten me in the comments.

Elmore Leonard Analyzed

And damn well, too. This is the best appreciation/analysis of Leonard’s work I’ve read.

Thanks to Jack Getze for pointing it out.

The Best Part

What’s the best part about “publishing” a book? (I use the term advisedly, as putting one’s own work out as an e-book may strain some people’s definition.) Sure, the money’s nice. I’ve made over $80 from Wild Bill so far (that’s eight-oh, with a zero) and could crack triple digits. The fame is nice; this blog alone has nine followers. No book tour, so, alas, no groupies, though I do have a little something going on with the lady of the house.

Any of the above would have made Wild Bill a success for me. (Especially that last one.) What made it an unqualified success here at The Home Office was the attention the book received from writers whose work and opinions I had come to respect. Some I knew reasonably well, mostly online. Some I had only a nodding acquaintance with. There were even a couple I hadn’t known before who heard of the book one way or another and took the time to write enthusiastically about it.

I discovered Tim Hallinan when I was asked to review A Nail Through the Heart, his first Poke Rafferty novel. I’ve read everything he’s written since. Adrian McKinty became known to me when I reviewed The Dead Yard; I then kept up, and reached back to read Dead I Well May Be. (I’ve fallen a book behind, solely because no US publisher saw fit to print Falling Glass, which I believe won awards in more enlightened parts of the world. My copy is on its way as we speak.) I’d read a couple of Charlie Stella’s short stories and got my first exposure to his novels with I reviewed Shakedown. I’m about halfway through his complete oeuvre now. Tim Hallinan put Leighton Gage in touch with me; I’m working my way through the Inspector Silva series.

All of the above are writers I was but a fan boy of when I wrote Wild Bill. (Mike Dennis, Pat Browning, and Karen Treanor came to my attention after the fact, though their support is no less appreciated.) They were established writers who had achieved what I barely aspired to. Their compliments and willingness to extend themselves means, to me, that I’m not just jerking off when I lock myself in my office every day or evening and hammer out another page or two. Their comments have made my writing easier on those days when I feel stuck and go through the stage every writers has with every book, when he is convinced it’s a piece of shit and months have been wasted working on something no one will ever want to read, including the author. I can do this. I may not become rich—though $80 is nothing to sneeze at—but I have the satisfaction of knowing I can hold my own and not have people think, “He’s a nice guy, but a shitty writer.” (In truth, that never worries me much. I’m not that nice a guy.)

So, thanks to everyone who reviewed, commented on, or read Wild Bill. (For those who have not, it’s still available for $2.99 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.) And, in the name of being careful what you ask for, my next book, Worst Enemies, will be available March 1. Details and more shameless self-promotion to come.

Adrian McKinty on Wild Bill

Adrian McKinty, author of the Michael Forsythe novels (Dead I Well May Be, The Dead Yard, The Bloomsday Dead), as well as award-winning novels such as Fifty Grand and Falling Glass, has weighed in on our own humble effort, Wild Bill. Quoth Mr. McKinty:


Wild Bill is a thrilling story about one incident and its repercussions in the FBI's decades long pursuit of the Cosa Nostra. Funny, exciting, intense with splendid characterisation; this is an impressive debut.


Adrian’s newest, The Cold Cold Ground, has recently been released.


Many thanks, sir.

A Three-Way at Meanderings and Muses

It’s not as though Pat Browning hadn’t done enough for Wild Bill and me; now she’s got us hooked up with herself and Tim Hallinan over at Kaye Barley’s fine blog, Meanderings and Muses. Stop on over to see what Pat, Tim, and I have to say about promotion, writing, small towns, and organized crime. 

Many thanks to Kaye for the opportunity, to Pat for pulling everything together, and to both Pat and Tim for providing the erudite questions and responses that kept me on my toes. The experience was a pleasure from start to finish.