Archive for the 'covers'

I noticed in Facebook that Sarah Weinman has an anthology of vintage female noir coming out. I snatched the photo from Megan Abbott's feed, and here's a teaser on the book. I couldn't find any more info on the book at the moment, though.

This isn't actually a forgotten book by any means, but some of the stories and their writers are forgotten, if anyone knew them in the first place.

I reviewed some of the stories earlier here, but now that I've finally gotten hold of an actual, physical copy, I can't but say: "Vow! This does look cool!" The book is hefty, and ripe with old illustrations and covers and ads from the sleazy men's adventures mags from the fifties, sixties and seventies. And there's lots of information about the authors, which is at times more important and more interesting than the actual stories.

I've had my hands full of other projects (for example, I just e-mailed my werewolf anthology to the publisher just five minutes ago), so I haven't had time to dip into the book again. But I mean to.

More Forgotten Books here.

Here's the cover for my newest book. It's a collection of short stories with private eye Joe Novak, earlier published in my self-published magazines (Isku and Ässä) or in some one-off booklets. There are also two previously unpublished stories, my foreword and Tapani Bagge's short preface. The great pulpy cover is by Timo Ronkainen.

Here's the entry for Joe Novak that I haven't updated for Kevin Burton Smith in years, it seems!

The title of the book translates as "The Case of the Frozen Detective". All the stories are titled in this manner, there's "The Case of the Former Partner", there's "The Case of the Old Case", there's "The Case of the Stuttering Neighbour" (whom Joe Novak almost shoots). My favourite is "The Case of the Windowless Monad", but we just couldn't use it in a title. The caption on top translates as "Murders, gals and transvestite cops!" (There's only one, though.)

As some of you are aware, I've self-published two sleaze crime paperbacks in 2010 and 2011. This year will see yet another sleaze novel, but it will be a double, just like the old Ace Doubles - or actually the Midwood Doubles might be a more appropriate reference point here!

The other book was written by a friend of mine who wanted to use the pseudonym Carlos Caramba. I'm still using my old moniker Mikael X. Messi. Both books have the same title: Runkkuloma Rivieralla. It means something along the lines of "Jacking Off at Riviera" and it refers to the idiotic Finnish title of Jacques Tati's Mr. Hulot's Holiday (I know, I know, they aren't at Riviera in the film!). It also refers to a once popular vacation spot at Masku, near the town of Turku, that's known as Riviera.

The cover photos are found material, the other one is from an old LP, the other one from an old C-cassette. I guess no one will come asking about copyrights.