The Embiggened O # 3,208: In Which Shots Rang Out

It’s Saturday, so it must be the self-aggrandizing plug for yours truly. Tony Black is one of the busiest men in crime fiction, even when he’s not penning his own novels, so it was nice of him to take time out and Q&A your humble host for Shots magazine, an excerpt from which runneth thusly:

TB: “So far as I can tell, the early reviews for THE BIG O in the States have been very kind. Did you always expect the Americans to get you?”

DB: “The reviews have been terrific. I’m stunned, to be honest with you. Kirkus even gave me a star, and I haven’t had one of those since primary school … No, it’s great. And I didn’t ‘expect’ anything, that’s being straight. The way THE BIG O came about, being co-published and all, everything since has been a bonus, just enjoying the ride. So to get good reviews Stateside … I guess it does make sense in one way, because the influences on THE BIG O are all American. The models for the kind of story it is were Elmore Leonard and the movies of the Coen Brothers … that kind of off-beat comedy crime caper they do so brilliantly. So I suppose it’s hardly surprising that American readers might ‘get’ the story, or the way it’s presented. Mind you, I should probably say that the reviews, they’ve been very kind in that some of them have mentioned Elmore Leonard and Donald Westlake and Carl Hiassen … but I think that that has more to do with how few reference points reviewers have in the context of comedy crime capers than the quality of the book.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

A Working Class Hero Is Something To Be

It’s all coming up Sam Millar-shaped, people. The always excellent Verbal Magazine has an interview with Sam, a snippet of which runneth thusly:

“I always wanted to be a writer. After my mother left when I was young, I found great strength in reading. However, I came from a working class background and didn’t think something like this would ever happen to me.”

Happily, it is. Crime Scene Norn Iron has the news that Sam’s latest, BLOODSTORM, has pole-vaulted into the best-seller charts, according to the Belfast Telegraph, with CSNI’s Chief Panjandrum Gerard Brennan also dropping the intriguing news that the novel is only the first of a projected series featuring Karl Kane. Finally, Shots Mag has done the decent thing, featuring a major big-up of BLOODSTORM courtesy of author Adrian Magson, which kicks off thusly:

“I can confidently say that BLOODSTORM, Sam Millar’s latest novel, is the first I have read where the central character is suffering from piles, and where the reader has to undergo a detailed description of a rectal examination to prove it. I glossed over that bit.”

Trust us, the review gets much more positive as it progresses …