The Dirty Lowdown for May

Good news is I survived turning 56 in April…well, it was good for ME anyhow. The rest of you can stuff it!

I’d like to remind everybody that May is “Get Caught Reading” month and there is no better way to express your love of books than the “Eat, Sleep, Read” tee-shirt pictured in the photo here.  Get yours by following the links and emailing Jason Frost, the manager of Russo’s Books Bakersfield, Calif. These are high quality tees and are way cooler than the “I’m With Stupid” shirt you wore last year.

I had a great time last month doing my first author interview with Mike Faricy, the author of some great, cross genre books. If you didn’t get a chance to read the interview, it’s not to late. We had a lot of fun and gave away some great books. Also had a great time reviewing Harry Shannon’s Mick Callahan novels.

On deck this month is a book by a great new author I met through doing the Mike Faricy interview, Sean O’Neill. As you know if you read the interview and have already bought out Mike’s supply of books, Mike lives in St. Paul, Minnesota part of the year and Dublin Ireland the other part. Turns out Sean is from Scotland originally, but lived in Ireland until recently when he moved to….drum roll please….St. Paul, Minnesota! It’s a small world, but I still wouldn’t want to have to paint it.

Sean sent me one of his books, Muscle For Hire, which is not only a great read, but is dark, violent and cynically funny! We’ll be doing a review here of this hidden treasure of an author you will love!

Naturally, Mike and Sean have already gotten together to compare rap sheets …I mean notes. They tell me it was for “coffee” but I’m giving 3 for 2 there was a “wee goldie” (that’s Scottish for a dram of whiskey) near the coffee pot. So, if there are reports of Irish shenanigans from the twin cities, we’ll know who to blame.

Also this month, I’ll be reviewing Mark Terry’s latest Derek Stillwater thriller, Valley of Shadows . The book will be available to the general public on June  7th but you can preorder now at Amazon. Mark tells me the publisher is sending the ARC to me next week, but I am already reading the PDF Mark kindly provided. valley has gotten great advanced reviews, and if you are a fan of top drawer thrillers, then you know Mark  Terry writes them better than anybody in America. If you like Tom Clancy or Vince Flynn, well you are going to LOVE Mark Terry.

Stay tuned because Mark will be doing a Blog tour and will be making a stop here, on The Dirty Lowdown. he’ll be giving away all expense paid trips to the Bahamas…. or was it Dearborn, or maybe it was just high-fives, I forget….anyway, it promises to be fun.

Also this month, I am hoping to squeeze in Declan Burkes, Eightball Boogie. Just waiting on my copy to arrive.

Declan has been described as the heir apparent to Ken Bruen in Irish Crime Fiction (I had so many Irish connections last month, you’d think it was Saint Patty’s). It is a special treat to finally get Eightball in the states.

Well, I am going to cut this short, probably add my favorite music for the month later on, but I have been fighting off a cold for about a week, finally broke down and went to the doc yesterday and he tells me my cold is pneumonia and he gave me all these pretty little pills to take….. think I’ll count them pout, pour a “wee goldie” and crawl back under the covers.

The Dirty Lowdown