Zompacalypse

Les Edgerton's The Perfect Crime was free this week! Hope you got some. Then, for Peter's sake, went to get your mitts on The Bitch so's you won't be blindsided by his elecutionary prowess on Saturday, April 28th when he appears at N@B. Livius Nedin and Robb Olson at the Booked Podcast had David James Keaton on this week and he pimped his appearance at N@B and talked about meeting Les and Cort, but mainly he was there to discuss Stephen Graham Jones Zombie Bake Off and hey is it just me or are there a loooooot of N@B associates writing zombie tales? Keaton's got his Zee Bee & Bee, John Hornor Jacobs' This Dark Earth, Laura Benedict's The Devil's Oven, and Cort? Cort's publishing house Bare Knuckle Press just published this zombie book I've grabbed - Blue Bloodbath by Katrina Von Kessel. Plus, let's not forget Chris La Tray's N@B performance of Buster Lee & the Chucklehead That Wouldn't Stay Down from Kung Fu Factory, N@BLA's Stephen Blackmoore's City of the Lost and I just picked up N@BLA alum Gary Phillips' short story collection Treacherous featuring the story Disco Zombies - not a metaphor.

Man, these Little Brown reissues of Daniel Woodrell's backlist are a handsome lot. Check out this cover for Give Us a Kiss - and lookie that, N@B's own Pinckney Benedict wrote a new introduction. Phantabulous. There's a unique opportunity to interact with Pinckney next Wednesday and I'd signed up to take part before I realized I had really unmissable conflict with more N@B alum that night. Frank Bill, Duane Swierczynski, Reed Farrel Coleman and Sara J. Henry are at the St. Louis County Library HQ.

Over at Ransom Notes I'm talking 'bout Wallace Stroby's latest Kings of Midnight, a sequel to last year's Cold Shot to the Heart. I loaded up the piece with a list of films and books that compare well with the Crissa Stone series. They're all about thieves as working professionals. 

In the post this week - new Jonathan Woods, J.J. Connolly, Jim Nisbet, Tom Piccirilli, Joseph Koenig and a monster debut from Ariel S. Winter - ambidextrous and ambitious. A good week to get mail.