“The Length of Days—One: A Simple Routine” by Lynn Kostoff

NOVEL EXCERPT: “Samuel drives his Taurus through northwest Magnolia Beach. On Saturdays, he plays the car radio. Wednesdays, he likes the silence….”

“Nobody’s Favorite: from Detroit Massacre” by Barry N. Malzberg (1939-2024, Writing as Mike Barry)

NOVEL EXCERPT: “I don’t want to be anyone’s favorite law enforcement officer. When you’re dealing with shit, the only enforcement is death….”

“A New Sensation: Elizabeth Fenwick’s Disturbance on Berry Hill/A Night Run” by William Blick

BOOK REVIEW: “Fenwick’s work is unlikely to shock audiences like sensation fiction had done to the Victorians, but the domestic realism and colorful characters are likely to engage the avid mystery aficionado.”

Excerpt: “So Curse the Day” by Jada M. Davis

NOVEL EXCERPT: “Long ago and dim distant there’d been a place like this, a quiet sun-warmed place like this… That was before they took my mother away and before my father locked me in the house and went away forever….”

Stark House Press Celebrates its 25th Year with an Anthology

BLOGS: “Its first anthology features unpublished stories by featured authors, including Peter Rabe and a novella by Jada M. Davis, along with reprints by Lionel White, Fredric Brown, Barry N. Malzberg, Day Keene, and others….”

“Dead Men Are My Business: Day Keene’s Mrs. Homicide, Naked Fury, and Murder on the Side” by William Blick

BOOK REVIEW: “While not of the caliber of Chandler or Hammett, Keene’s working-class novels show his talent for telling intriguing mysteries at a breakneck pace.”

Somebody’s Done For by David Goodis (Excerpt)

NOVEL EXCERPT: “What it all amounts to, he told himself, is you’re not in shape for a deal like this. You get involved in this sort of thing, you should be properly prepared. I mean mentally, too. It’s a cinch you’re not prepared mentally, because now I’d say you’re just about ready to give up….”

“Nightfall” [excerpt] by David Goodis

It was one of those hot sticky nights that makes Manhattan show its age. There was something dreary and stagnant in the way all this syrupy heat refused to budge. It was anything but a night for labor, and Vanning stood up and walked away from the tilted drawing board. He brushed past a large […]

“End of the Line” [excerpt] by Bert and Dolores Hitchens

Like a silver eel the streamliner rose from the flats of the dusky desert, skirting the toes of the wrinkled hills, sweeping upward into the clear green twilight in the pass. Thunder followed it under the ground and a wind rushed outward at its passing. Lizards and cactus owls and a few jackrabbits froze at […]

“The Action Man” [excerpt] by Jay Flynn

The dawn seeped, thin and gray, through the restless morning fog, lightening the hardly-moving surface of the bay, alerting the birds in the live oaks and pine forests of the hillsides. It caused a rooster to crow and a dog to bark at the rooster. And in the house that backed up on the yard […]