#385: Hanging up Steve’s shorts. I hope you’ve enjoyed the free short stories found in the series “What Happened to Those Characters?”  I’d been planning this for a while, but believe me when I say it’s not easy to come up with a new story every week.  I’d venture to say it’s more difficult than NaNoWriMo, but I’ve never done that—of course, people who have probably haven’t written that many short stories in that amount of time either.  I’m crazy and they’re crazy, but sometimes you have to challenge yourself.

If you missed any of the stories, they’re archived in “Steve’s Shorts” (where else?).  I won’t say I won’t return to the series in the fall, but right now I need to catch my breath from the marathon I just ran, creatively speaking.  I hope the stories will stimulate you to check out some of the associated novels.  Guess what?  That’s another reason I wrote them!

#386: Lurking is fun.  I’m talking about hangin’ ‘round discussion groups, not peeking through your neighbor’s window with that telescope you bought your kid last Christmas (remember Hitchcock’s Rear Window?—there was a hilarious take-off on that in the ABC show Castle).  Readers and writers alike can find many groups on the internet that deal with reading and writing and the book business (LinkedIn has some of the best, while GoodReads and FaceBook are OK).  Join up and lurk.  I’m probably a 95% lurker, 5% participant.  That lurking percentage is explained by two internet laws of discourse: (1) the more you participate, the more time it takes; and (2) the more you participate, the more chance there is that someone attacks what you have to say.  But it’s cool just to follow the passionate debates (see below, for example)—that’s lurking.

Read the rest of this entry »

[This is the ninth and last installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  (It’s the last until next fall, at least.)  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  Today it’s Jing-Wei Liu from Teeter-Totter between Lust and Murder.  In software, you always have another bug; in writing, there’s always another edit to make.  Somehow Rafael Ortiz, NYPD Detective Chen’s old partner, of the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” received a name change to Ruiz from The Midas Bomb to Angels Need Not Apply, probably because I already had an Ortiz in the latter book.  (sigh)  Moot point here, though, because Jing-Wei Liu was Chen’s lawyer in Teeter-Totter, and Ortiz needs a good lawyer too.  Enjoy.]

Forced Retirement

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

Ortiz performed the countdown with his fingers—one, two, three.  On three, the leader and another member of the SWAT team used their battering ram to crash through the door.  A firefight ensued with the three dealers.  High-grade heroin dust filled the air as their suspects overturned their work table and started firing.  Two were taken out by return fire, but the woman, running in a crouch and using a large frying pan to shield her head, made it into the bedroom, Ruiz in pursuit.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

Ortiz had no intention of shooting her in the back as she struggled to open the window that led to the fire escape.  There were cops in the alley below who’d collar her easily enough.  But she turned and pointed her gun at him.

He reacted by instinct upon seeing the weapon, moving to the side and firing before she could.  His bullet smashed into her jaw, and the frying pan broke through the window, followed by her body.

He rushed to the window and looked down at the dead body.  Shit!  We needed one of them alive for questioning.

NYPD needed to know where the influx of high-grade stuff on the streets originated.  The original source didn’t matter, but they wanted the middlemen suppliers.  They figured it was a Mexican cartel, but which one?

Read the rest of this entry »

#11: Tricked.  Although it’s Friday the 13th, there’s nothing supernatural here.  Far from it.  As Michael Moore points out (he’s a bit biased, of course), documentaries just aren’t shown in theaters anymore (our loss).  So, every year, I look forward to seeing some of the best in our Montclair Film Festival.  Tricked caught my attention this year, maybe because it provided valuable background material for my new novel The Collector (scheduled for release later this year—an excerpt is in Aristocrats and Assassins).  Directors John Keith Wasson and Jane Wells provide yet another glimpse at the sordid underbelly of our society found in the sex trade and sex trafficking.  I seem to remember this was scheduled for some cable channel (HBO?), so look for it, but it’s not for people who bury their head in the sands.  Highly recommended.

#12: The Railway Man.  I’m surprised that this gritty movie hasn’t done better in the box office.  Directed by Jonathan Teplitzky and starring Colin Firth and Nicole Kidman, who make excellent performances, this is the autobiographical story of Eric Lomax (Firth), who discovers his tormenter in World War II is still alive and returns to pursue him.  Lomax was a member of captured Brits who were beaten and starved as POWs struggled to build a railroad for the Japanese in Southeast Asia.  Some gruesome scenes make this film not one for the squeamish, but this is history, folks, real life crap that has happened.  And I love movies based on books!  Screenplays are OK, but when there’s a good book behind them, good things often happen.  Firth is better here than in The King’s Speech.  Highly recommended.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been a bit distracted by the Amazon-Hachette foofaraw, just like everyone else.  More as an amused spectator, I suppose, but I thought I’d finish my more personal take on the subject today—well, at least a related subject, the discussion about whether a creative person should also be an astute business person.  PR and marketing people, ready to take that creative person’s money, come down on one side of this question obviously.  Ignoring them and their agendas, let’s still take a look at the issue.

Artists, musicians, and writers—if not complete misanthropes, we’re often introverted and avoid other human beings.  We’re standing outside a window looking into that big house that contains the rest of humanity.  Is it any wonder most of us aren’t good business people?  Do we need to break the window pane, avoid the shards of glass, and become something of a self-taught MBA to succeed?  These are tough questions.

I’ve mentioned James Patterson in recent posts.  If anything, you have to admire this author’s business acumen.  He’s an exception among writers.  He’s like the painter Thomas Kincaid, who never could be called a starving artist.  Or Neil Diamond, a performer in his own right, but also the composer of an incredible number of hits made popular by many other famous singers.  All exceptions.  Many creative people might want to be better business people but are just bad at it.  I’m in the latter group.  I’m addicted to writing and entertaining my readers.  I don’t want to spend time in PR and marketing, let alone the money.

Read the rest of this entry »

[This is the eighth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Alicia Castro from Angels Need Not Apply, the second book in “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  Enjoy.]

A Nation of Immigrants

Steven M. Moore

Copyright 2014

                Alicia Castro-Grant unlocked the passenger’s door at the repair shop.  Her tall and lanky adopted son, Jimmy, struggled into the small SUV.

“Thanks for picking me up, Alicia.”

She smiled, although it always bothered her that Jimmy never called her Mom.  She felt like she was his mother, ever since Peter and she had adopted the kid.  Of course, he didn’t call Peter Dad either.

“Do you have the estimate for the insurance company?” she asked.  He dug it out of a shirt pocket—a legal-sized page folded enough to fit in the star athlete’s pocket.  “Unfold it for me.  We’ll run it by to the insurance company on the way home.”

Jimmy, one of the most careful drivers she knew, had been T-boned at a Las Vegas intersection by a drunken tourist in a rental car.  His car had come just under the price for a complete totaling.  Alicia hoped it would be OK after the costly repairs, all paid for by the drunk’s insurance company.  In the interim, she would have to be a soccer mom again.  Rather, basketball mom, considering Jimmy’s major sport.  He was so good that he had won a full scholarship to UCLA.  That helps on the household finances, she thought.  They still owed the kid a nice dinner in celebration.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was tempted to make this a humorous post too, a parody of “How Book Publishers Can Beat Amazon,” an op-ed column (two or three columns, in fact) written by lawyer Bob Kohn in last Saturday’s (May 31) NY Times.  Last Wednesday (June 4), the lead editorial in the Times also attacked Amazon.  Pretty clear where their sympathies lie.  Moreover, they’re clearly not on the side of readers or writers!  Of course, they claim they’re protecting them…bla-bla-bla.  Back to that temptation: it occurred because I already said pretty much all I wanted to say about this storm-in-a-tea-cup in my “News and Notices” a week ago Friday.  But I’ve been watching the debates on LinkedIn and elsewhere in my general internet lurking mode.

It’s amusing to watch people come down on either side.  We’re talking about two behemoths here—Amazon, a rip-snorting, fire-breathing Yankee company in pitched battle against a greedy French member of the Big Five, conglomerate Hachette—you’re supposed to pronounce this name the same way you sneeze, by the way, but I like the pronunciation “hatchet” better because it’s a more appropriate description of their questionable business practices.  In fact, it’s also fun to remind people that Hachette is the only company in this new dispute ever accused of unfair business practices—they settled with the government because they knew they’d not win the lawsuit involving them, other publishers, and that other behemoth and corporate bully, Apple (I hate to speak badly of the dead, but Jobs introduced that bullying philosophy into Apple management).

Read the rest of this entry »

(Joan Hall Hovey, The Deepest Dark, BWL Publishing, 2014, ISBN 978-1771452151)

One great pleasure I have as a reviewer/author is discovering writers who show me new and exciting ways to hold a reader’s interest.  Sometimes the writer is a newbie; other times she’s an old hand like Joan Hall Hovey, whose book is the first of hers I’ve read.  And then I’m happy to recommend my discovery to other readers.

Taut plotting, great characters, and chilling suspense make this thriller a book you can’t put down.  My first read was in two nights.  There is no mystery here—well, maybe a small one (see below)—as the tale moves along to its inexorable end: Three prisoners have escaped and they’re going to make Abby Miller’s life more hellish than it already is after losing her husband and daughter in a collision.  Their leader, Ken Roach (great name, by the way), has traveled a long distance in leading the deadly trio to Abby’s refuge at Loon Lake.  Why so far?  What’s his agenda?

Vivid prose imagery allows the reader to create mental scenes comparable to the real life tragedy of that doctor’s family that occurred near Danbury, Connecticut, or to the movies Cape Fear or Deliverance—the author’s prose, in fact, is quite sufficient for me.  Phew!  In situations like these, survival often depends on quick thinking and luck.  The reader will be in suspense right up to the end of the book wondering if Abby has enough of both.  Alfred Hitchcock would be smiling.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let me start by stating a wee bit of political taxonomy for those readers who desperately want to pigeonhole me: I’m socially progressive, fiscally conservative, and a hawk about terrorism.  Note that I qualify my hawkishness.  We don’t need more Irans (overthrow of one democratically elected government), Iraqs (neo-conservative world building), or Vietnams and Afghanistans (supporting corrupt regimes in a long war for little gain).  I don’t think we need to kill more young men and women with surges, boots-on-the-ground, and other early 20^th century Pentagon ways of doing business.  Our first priority in national defense right now is counter terrorism, whether the nuclear kind (India, Iran, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan) or bombing-public-places kind, home grown or otherwise.  Terrorism is a killer disease that must be eliminated.

That said, I have to wonder: what is Obama doing?  The only way I’d send five murdering terrorists back to the Middle East is in body bags.  These people aren’t U.S. citizens; they kill U.S. citizens.  I don’t doubt the family and friends of that Idaho soldier are happy right now, but he wore one set of those boots on the ground.  I’d wager we just traded his life for at least twenty other American or European lives.  That’s the problem with terrorism.  The soldier volunteered to fight.  Innocent men, women, and children, the usual victims of terrorists, don’t volunteer to die.  We pay Obama to make those hard decisions.  He f$%&#ed it up royally!

Read the rest of this entry »

[This is the sixth installment in a series of short stories titled “What Happened to Those Characters?”.  Each one revisits a character or characters from one of my novels and takes a peek at what happened later.  This one is about Colin Murphy from The Midas Bomb, the first book in “The Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series.”  A new addition to that series, The Collector, will be released soon.  For now, enjoy the present stories…and this short story!]

The Hippocratic Oath

Steven M. Moore

Copyright, 2014

  The nurse poured some coffee and watched the ER doctor.  He was scribbling on a paper napkin with one of the cheap pens the hospital provided.

“You still trying to be a poet, honey?”

Colin Murphy glanced at the ER nurse and smiled.  “You think I’m wasting my time?”

Beatrice Jones thought a moment.  “I’m thinking you’re probably a better ER doctor than poet, no offense intended.”

“No offense taken, but you only see me in the one activity.  How do you know I can’t write poetry?  I’ve won some contests.”

“Do tell?  And how drunk were you, old Irishman?”

“I’m going easy on the liquor.  It won’t bring Chen back.”

“Who’s Chen?”

Read the rest of this entry »

#378: Big bad Bezos.  Most authors are sitting on the sidelines (including yours truly) wondering which gladiators, Amazon or Hachette, will win the skirmish.  A few like James Patterson and other Big Five mouthpieces are calling for a government lawsuit against Amazon, but everyone should remember that Hachette is a French conglomerate and the other company Amazon allegedly is stiffing is a German one.  Should the U.S. government try to referee a battle between feuding international corporations?  I think not, it would set a bad precedent, and the calling for it is another Patterson whine that should have made yesterday’s list, especially since his attitude is so anti-American!

#379: Summer reading.  Unless something’s settled in the feud mentioned above, readers can’t be sure they’ll get what they pay for, especially for summer reading.  I’m not sure whether they can ever be sure about that because authors are still giving away freebies on Amazon that are good quality reads on one hand, mixed in with a lot of crap; and Big Five publishers are gouging readers with exorbitant ebook prices on the other, most of it just expensive and/or out-of-date crap (oh yeah, they only do that for classics, right?).

Here’s what I do: I limit my serious book browsing to Amazon.  Bookstores—I’m talking about book barns and other commercial bookstores in bed with the Big Five, not your used bookstores or rare bookstores—just don’t carry all the books that might interest me.  (I’m pretty sure none of Hachette’s will, especially Patterson’s, so it doesn’t matter that I can’t buy them on Amazon right now.  Do you look to see who publishes the book when you buy?  Right, you look at the author, title, cover, and summary or blurb, maybe a few reviews, also easier to do on Amazon, although the latter aren’t worth your time—see below.)  I focus on ebooks under $5 to load up my old Kindle paper white for summer reading almost anywhere (yeah, it works in the sun—hmm, another Amazon product, go figure).

Read the rest of this entry »