When reading a book, there’s nothing quite like a pulsating pursuit to get you turning the pages. I’ve always loved the use of the cat-and-mouse chase as a plot device; the moment the tension boils over that sparks the frantic escape, the intense hunt, the heart-stopping near misses, the showdown… Read more
My first novel, a thriller called Burning Under, is coming out this fall. Set in southwest Pennsylvania – including the coal region, the Rustbelt, and Pittsburgh – it revolves around a deadly coal mine explosion owned by a corrupt mining company. Between college and my MFA, I spent seven years… Read more
I picked up a strange book called The Dog Fighter without any prior knowledge of the author. This was in 2004, and the high praise this debut novel was getting intrigued me enough to give it a shot. One of the hooks was that the writer used no punctuation beyond… Read more
Dan Newman spent most of his life traveling and writing. Now, fortunately for us, some of those travels have made it to the page in Dan's first novel, The Clearing. Read about how Dan began writing, what books and authors inspired him, and how some of his travels made it… Read more
We’re a couple of days late on this, but that doesn’t make it any less “Wha?”. Adult Swim just launched Mike Tyson Mysteries, a Scooby-Doo-style animated series (if Scooby had a potty mouth) featuring Mike Tyson himself, plus an anthropomorphic pigeon voiced by Norm MacDonald, Mike’s fictional adopted daughter Yung… Read more
If the popularity of writers such as Donald Ray Pollock, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Woodrell and Frank Bill is anything to go by, rural noir is a big deal in the United States. While it may not be anywhere near as well-known, for my money, the 1961 novel Wake In Fright… Read more
“So,” said the lovely dame sitting next to me, “what really is Noir?” Smiled as she said it. Like she knew she was setting me up. A level of mirth on par with seeing me nude for the first time. I sat there quietly, looking at my glass. Tried to… Read more
