The First Five People You Meet In Hell @ Punk Noir Magazine

“A charcoal-grey Lexus crawls past the Hellton Manor meat-market. Under a blood-red sunset, Paignton sweats. You used to be able to see used needles glinting in the freshly cut grass, but no one has cut it for years and it sprouts up in unruly, discoloured clumps. I wipe a thick smear of dogshit off my boot and watch the Lexus.”

I’m excited to have a brand new short story online at Punk Noir Magazine today as part of this month’s Hellton Towers submission call. The challenge was to write a story set in a decrepit tower block called Hellton Towers. The First Five People You Meet In Hell was the end result.

Big thanks to this month’s guest editor James Jenkins (of Urban Pigs Press) for running the story!

Enjoy!

2021 In Review

“I learned a long time ago not to leave blood, phlegm or semen at a crime scene, but that won’t be possible today.”

It’s time for my annual examination of unfinished projects, rejected stories and aimless distractions: 2021 in review!

Despite the aforementioned obstacles, I still managed to notch up a handful of publications in 2021! It’s definitely a case of quality not quantity this year, and I’m reasonably happy with my output – even if 2021 was the first time I’ve failed to finish writing a book since 2017. Ugh. I’ll have to try and finish two books in 2022 to make up for this year’s slack pace!

Hopefully I’ll crack on with the hyper-violent sequel to Sharp Knives & Loud Guns, which I’m very excited about. It’s like a ’70s men’s adventure novel given a degenerate Paignton Noir makeover. (Just thinking about it makes me grin!) The Joe Rey folk-horror book is also taking shape, although it needs a lot of focus, and that is something that has been in short supply lately. It is almost certainly the best thing I have committed to paper to date, so it needs to be just right before I try to work out what to do with it.

There are also a handful of novelettes that are embarrassingly close to completion, so look out for at least two of them next year. It might even be time to dust down (and type up) the Florida-set buddy mystery I wrote by hand in the summer. It’s one of those books that starts off with a mainstream hook, then goes fucking loopy.

Without any further ado, here are this year’s offerings for you to get reacquainted with:

Sharp Knives & Loud Guns (All Due Respect, December 2021)

Skeleton Crew (self-published, July 2021)

Dead End Jobs: A Hitman Anthology – includes my story The Body Count (All Due Respect, June 2021)

Coming Through In Waves: Crime Fiction Inspired By The Songs of Pink Floyd – includes my story Brain Damage (Gutter Books, February 2021)

The Safe House (All Due Respect, September 2021)

Short Lives & Blunt Knives (Shotgun Honey, December 2021)

The Deadlands (Punk Noir Magazine, March 2021)

Mistletoe & Swines (Bristol Noir, December 2021)

Happy New Year – and thanks for reading!

The 12 Crimes of Christmas: Part 4

“It’s Christmas Eve and I’m standing in the middle of a stash house in Hookhills, bleeding from one ear and trying to work out which one of the hired hands I should shoot first: the skinny guy in the soiled Sexy Santa minidress or the fat fuck in the scuffed-looking ballistics vest.”

It’s time for the fourth part of my ’12 Crimes of Christmas’ trip down memory lane, and a visit to the Punk Noir Magazine archives. Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells was written in time for Christmas 2018 and The Naughty List appeared in 2019.

As I’ve noted before, the Joe Rey stories can often be categorised as either rampage stories or mysteries – although the lines generally blur before each story reaches its blood-soaked conclusion! Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells is definitely a rampage story: Rey is hired to retrieve a kit-bag full of Fentanyl from a stash house, and shit inevitably goes sideways.

A reworked version of this tale (retitled as Stash House) went on to appear in my brutally enjoyable short story collection Ten Pints of Blood (or ‘ten bloody readers’, as it should probably be called!). Ten Pints of Blood also includes Spine Farm, a grisly cold case investigation that takes place at Christmas – making it my most Christmassy book yet!

I love the cold case storylines, as they are a welcome change of pace, and the stakes are generally very different. As is the case with a lot of my Christmas stories, The Naughty List is more light-hearted than my other material and examines the aftermath of a vicious Securicor van robbery that took place in 1991.

Enjoy!

The Deadlands @ Punk Noir Magazine

“The burn is horrendous and I struggle to look him in his good eye. His only eye. His face hasn’t healed, and he smells charred – like he has crawled out of the belly of hell itself.”

Time for some new flash fiction: The Deadlands, which is now online at Paul D. Brazill’s Punk Noir Magazine!

I have found myself writing more and more horror-infused Paignton Noir stories over the last year, and this is another one to add to the list. I’ve kept a bunch of them under wraps, but I’ve now written so many that I’m toying with a compiling them into a brand new collection. I’ll see how it all hangs together before I decide, so watch this space!

Bone Train @ Punk Noir Magazine

“I’m leaning against a badly rusted rollercoaster called the ‘Titty Twister’, staring at a guy who looks like a fucking autopsy sketch. His complexion is tombstone grey and he’s wearing a fluorescent 1980s ski jacket with one of the ragged sleeves gaffer-taped back on. He looks like he’d be more at home selling crack to addicts in a graveyard than working at a funfair.”

Today I have a brand new Halloween-themed Paignton Noir story online at Punk Noir Magazine. Why not take a ride on the Bone Train?

Thanks to Punk Noir head honcho Paul D. Brazill for running the story!

In the mood for more Halloween flash fiction? Try Flesh & Bone, which was featured at Close To The Bone on Halloween in 2015.

Snake Charmer @ Punk Noir Magazine

“I don’t wear a suit very often, but whenever I do, I end up looking like a football hooligan making a fucking court appearance.”

Check out Punk Noir Magazine today for a brand new slab of Paignton Noir carnage: Snake Charmer.

This story sees Joe Rey tangle with a local biker gang – with typically brutal results!

Thanks, as always, to Punk Noir editor Paul D. Brazill for running the story.

A Ticket To The Boneyard: How Boneyard Dogs Came Back From The Dead

“Dead characters were hauled away in digital body-bags. Surviving characters re-emerged to cause chaos.”

The release of Boneyard Dogs is only a month away, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on the book’s tortured origins.

I’m not usually inclined to yank back the curtain and discuss the inner workings of my books, but – now that the dust has settled – I wanted to try and work out why it took me ten years to finish.

Thanks to Paul D. Brazill at Punk Noir Magazine for running the piece, which I have titled ‘A Ticket To The Boneyard – How Boneyard Dogs Came Back From The Dead‘.

Also online at Punk Noir this week is an interview with me, conducted by John Wisniewski. Thanks to John for the questions!

A Vulgar Display of Power @ Punk Noir Magazine

“I peel the bloody dressing off my nose and drop it into the sink. Jesus. My face looks like something out of a fucking horror-show. I’ve been sticking my nose into other people’s business for longer than I can remember. Usually for money, sometimes out of sheer perversity. My latest injury – caused by deranged Albanian with a box-cutter – feels horribly apt.”

My first story of 2019 went online today: A Vulgar Display of Power. Thanks to Paul D. Brazill at Punk Noir Magazine for running it!

This one follows on from the events depicted in Repetition Kills You, and sees Joe Rey get reacquainted with his on-off lover Cherry – and a new bunch of unsavoury characters!

She also appeared in Venus In Fake Furs last year, and I’m keen to explore their warped relationship further in a future book, as she is a woman who can definitely get Rey in all kinds of trouble!

 

2018 In Review

This time last year I remember feeling distinctly underwhelmed by my written output in 2017, and wanted to step up my game in 2018.

I have no such misgivings about my written output in 2018, and probably wrote more fiction last year than I have at any time in the last 15 years – which I’m very happy with.

New material aside, I also managed to finish a handful of long-abandoned projects – by hacking them up for parts and stitching them together in grisly new combinations, which was similarly satisfying. In some cases, decades-old antagonists were lifted out of botched books and given a new lease of life in alternative narratives.

My first two books (not written in 2018 admittedly), Meat Bubbles & Other Stories (Close To The Bone) and Repetition Kills You (All Due Respect) were released in June and September, respectively.

I also self-published a trio of e-book novelettes, Snuff Racket (also included in Meat Bubbles), Slug Bait and Spine Farm, all of which complement and expand the Paignton Noir universe explored in the books. Spine Farm is a direct sequel to Snuff Racket/Meat Bubbles, and paves the way for the events depicted in the upcoming Boneyard Dogs.

Slug Bait is part of a different (post-Repetition Kills You) timeline, and a number of supporting characters will also appear in future books. Of the three novelettes, this one sold the best, so something about the story must have piqued people’s interest. Either way, this narrative isn’t dead and buried – unlike half of the characters!

The novelettes are great fun to write – and have probably replaced my enduring obsession with flash fiction – although I still managed to notch up a handful of short stories across the course of the year:

XXXmas Boogaloo (Close To The Bone, January 2018)

Oozy Rat In A Sanitary Zoo (Spelk, February 2018)

Murderers I Have Known (Horror Sleaze Trash, June 2018)

Dirty English (Close To The Bone, July 2018)

Venus In Fake Furs (Retreats From Oblivion, August 2018)

Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells (Punk Noir Magazine, December 2018)

Looking ahead, I have at least two books coming out in 2019 (watch this space for more details), and I would like to find a home for a couple of extra novellas too – which is easier said than done!

Thanks for reading!

New Interview @ Messy Business

“This is blunt force storytelling: brief, sawn-off lines weaved into dense ominous chapters; repeated motifs and phrases; stream of consciousness period details; an unflinching eye for queasy observations; and a seamless blend of real-life events and fictional content. Taken together, it’s an intoxicating blend.”

This month I have had a lot of fun discussing David Peace’s tremendous Red Riding Quartet with Jason Beech, as part of his ‘Stuff I Wish I’d Written’ series. If you have read the books you will already know how impressive they are. If you haven’t read them, check out the interview and find out why I like them so much!

Earlier this month, Dave Burnham at The Haunted Pen checked out Slug Bait, and likened it to ‘the illegitimate love child of Sam Spade and The Purge’, which is a great description!

And, last but not least, you can read my story Molotov Cocktail Lounge over at Paul D. Brazill’s new website, Punk Noir Magazine. This flash fiction piece is a taster for my book Meat Bubbles & Other Stories.