The Long Road to River Road

I probably shouldn't admit this, but I've never been good at setting goals, in either my life or my work. I've always just tried to do my best at whatever task, and never worried much about long-range planning. So far, that seems to have worked.

I look at my so-called literary career the same way. I discovered at an advanced age--mid-forties--that writing short fiction was something I truly loved to do, and ever since then, I've written a lot of stories and tried to write each one as well as I can. As for goals, I never set out to make much money or win awards or have stories selected for best-of anthologies or achieve any degree of fame or fortune. Thankfully, some of those good things happened anyway--except for the money/fame/fortune part--but when they did, they usually came unexpectedly, out of nowhere.

I do recall a few things I secretly hoped I might one day accomplish. Early on, I dreamed of someday getting published in either Alfred Hitchcock's or Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. I clearly remember that, because I grew up reading and enjoying those two publications. Later, I hoped to eventually be lucky enough to get something into one of the Akashic Books "noir" anthologies; I had great respect for those also, and thought it'd be supercool to be a part of one of them. Yet another pie-in-the-sky item, especially in more recent years, was to have a collection of my short stories published by Crippen & Landru. I've admired every book of theirs that I've seen and read, and I've long admired those who've been published there, a few of whom I've known for a long time. As luck would have it, about two years ago one of those friends, Josh Pachter, was kind enough to recommend me to publisher Jeffrey Marks at C&L.

I of course found Jeff to be as friendly and professional as I'd suspected he would be, and--to my great pleasure and relief--he seemed as eager as I was to put something together. So, after a trial submission and the resulting discussions about the lengths and styles and kinds of stories he was looking for, I eventually sent him a 90,000-word group of stories that I called River Road and Other Mysteries, later changed to River Road and Other Mystery Stories. As things turned out, both Jeff and the publication gods were in a good mood, and the book was accepted for publication. We kept the plans quiet for many months, but at last the contracts were signed, the stories were edited, the cover was designed, and the collection--my ninth book and eighth collection of short stories--was announced and released by Crippen & Landru this past week.

It probably won't surprise you that the book was great fun to piece together. For those who are interested, it's divided into three parts and contains mystery stories that first appeared in AHMM, Strand Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others, including a number of crime anthologies, plus three stories that are new and previously unpublished. And it contains--I hope--something for almost everyone: gang wars, car chases, snowstorms, barren deserts, jewelry heists, bomb threats, dollhouses, mulewagons, casinos, rattlesnakes, bus trips, movie trivia, ballet performances, science fairs, ski resorts, roadside diners, private eyes, crime bosses, land swindlers, shoplifters, drug smugglers, missing wives, bank robbers, cat burglars, crooked cops, cardsharks, waitresses, fishermen, immigrants, dwarves, giants, acrobats, realtors, novelists, lawyers, housesitters, muggers, poets, bodyguards, sharpshooters, bank tellers, ex-cons, murderous spouses, gator hunters, Old West outlaws, peach farmers, bug thieves, treasury agents, snipers, dognappers, bootleggers, and moonshiners. And that's just the first story. (Not really.)

I must mention here that the title story--the last one in the book--was first published in one of my fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken's anthologies, called Prohibition Peepers: Private Eyes During the Noble Experiment. I chose that story to "represent" the collection for several reasons: (1) Its setting is my home state of Mississippi, which is where many of the stories in the collection take place; (2) it's a historical mystery, like several others in the book (this one's set in the 1930s, an era that's always interesting to write about); (3) it's a private-eye tale, like eight of the other stories; and (4) I thought its title, "River Road," had an appropriate ring to it. 

The actual book is available in two formats: (1) a softcover edition with seventeen stories and (2) a signed, numbered, and clothbound edition that includes a "bonus" story. Here's the Crippen & Landru site where you can order either one, and I'm told the book'll be available via Amazon and elsewhere within the next week. As I mentioned in the Author Notes, I hope folks will have as much fun reading these stories as I had writing them.

I also hope you and yours had a great Thanksgiving. Happy reading and writing to you all!