We had our first Thrilling Detective Noir at the Bar on Saturday, May 23, 2020, and I’m so happy it turned out okay. Despite a few minor technical snafus (carefully edited out of the video–nobody really wants to see me naked and dripping wet), it went relatively smoothly (especially if you squint)… well enough, in fact, that we’re planning to do another one.
Joining me were Thrilling Detective‘s former fiction editors, Victoria Esposito and Gerald So. We took turns introducing readers Graham Powell, Mark Troy, Ron Miller, Victoria herself (reading for Gerald), A.B. Patterson, Josh Lanyon and David Avallone.
It truly was a lot of fun. If you missed it, don’t sweat–we’ll be having other Zoom events, both Noir at the Bars and other themes, even past the days of pandemic and idiocy. To keep in touch, keep your eyes on The Thrilling Detective Zoom Page.
And if you’re craving a little P.I. action, hang on. I’m working on the video, and I’ll be posting it here shortly.
CO-HOSTS
These days, Victoria Esposito walks the mean streets of Albany, New York, where she is a Legal Aid lawyer tackling systemic problems throughout Northeastern New York. In previous lives she has been a college instructor, a Kelly girl, a factory worker, an assistant district attorney, the fiction editor for Thrilling Detective, and the co-founder and editor of Handheld Crime/Coffee Cup Press. She’s delighted to be back in touch with so many Thrilling Detective alumni, and especially honored to be reading on behalf of Gerald So tonight.
Gerald So was Thrilling Detective‘s fiction editor from mid-2001 to 2009. He now edits The Five-Two, a weekly crime poetry site .
THE READERS & WHAT THEY READ
GRAHAM POWELL has been a fan of private eye stories since he read the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. He’s been writing stories since the late 80s and slowly improved until his first sale, to Thrilling Detective back in 2002. He’s published in many venues since then, including the forthcoming all-private eye issue of Black Cat Mystery Magazine. A professional computer engineer for over 35 years, he now lives in Houston, Texas.
Graham read from his short story “Blackbirds,” featuring private eye Andy Wilkins. The story first appeared in The Eyes of Texas (2019).
MARK TROY is the author of two detective novels, the Shamus nominated, Pilikia Is My Business and The Splintered Paddle. His recent short stories include “Shaft On Wheels” which appears in the 2019 anthology, The Eyes Of Texas and “Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera” coming in December in the Guns + Tacos series. A member of Private Eye Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Partners in Crime, when not spilling blood on the page, he mixes knock-you-on-your-ass tiki cocktails and plinks out surf tunes on the ukulele.
Mark read from his short story “Horns,” featuring private eye Val Lyon. The story first appeared on The Thrilling Detective Web Site (2009).
RON MILLER an illustrator/author with more than sixty books to my credit. He specialize in science, astronomy and science fiction. The fiction I have written includes a fantasy-steampunk series and Velda, a hard-boiled detective story. This has spun off a collection of short stories, a novella, four radio plays and a series of comic books recently gathered into three volumes by Caliber Comics. Velda was inspired by reading a couple of hundred vintage paperbacks Ron brought back from Mexico decades ago…which is when he fell in love with the work of writers ranging from Henry Kane and Richard Prather to Robert Leslie Bellem and G.G. Fickling. I’ve got several of Ron’s Velda stories on the site, including a couple of her comic strip adventures, which recall to me at least the wacky Sally the Sleuth strips that used to appear in Spicy Detective back in the 1940s.
Ron’s wife Judith read from his novel Velda (2003), featuring private eye Velda Bellinghausen.
VICTORIA read from GERALD’s short story, “Fred,” which originally appeared in on the Mystery Tribune web site (December 16, 2019).
A.B. PATTERSON is an Australian writer who knows first-hand about corruption, power, crime and sex. He was a Detective Sergeant in the Western Australia Police, working in paedophilia and vice, and later a Chief Investigator with the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption. He is now a licensed PI and works self-employed as a consultant investigator to pay the bills.The rest of the time he writes crime fiction. His debut novel, Harry’s World, introduced the jaded and flawed PI Harry Kenmare. Harry’s Quest was the sizzling and award-winning sequel. He has had short stories published in Switchblade magazine and Econoclash Review. His Harry Kenmare short stories are about to be published as a collection: Harry Kenmare PI – At Your Service. His hard-boiled, gritty, and noir writing style has been likened to that of Raymond Chandler and Ken Bruen. He makes no apologies for telling it how it is.
Andrew read from his short story “Wankers, featuring private eye Harry Kenmare. The story first appeared in Switchbladein 2019, and will be included in his upcoming collection, At Your Service.
JOSH LANYON is the author of nearly ninety titles of LGBTQ mystery and romance fiction. Her work has been translated into eleven languages. She is an Eppie Award winner, a four-time Lambda Literary Award finalist (twice for Gay Mystery), an Edgar nominee, and the first ever recipient of the Goodreads All Time Favorite M/M Author award. She is the only Western author to place in Japan’s annual Boy Love novel contest. In 2019, Fatal Shadows became the first LGBTQ mobile game created by Moments: Choose Your Story.
Josh read from her novella Snowball from Hell (2007), featuring Los Angeles crime reporter Nathan Doyle.
DAVID AVALLONE is a freelancer from a long line of freelancers, born to a pulp fiction writer (Michael) and women’s rights activist (Frances). Since graduating from Bard College in 1987, David has been involved mostly in independent film production (as a writer, editor, director, producer, actor, etc.), but in 2014 he branched out into comic book writing, mostly with Dynamite Comics. With them, he’s written Legenderry: Vampirella, Twilight Zone: The Shadow, Doc Savage: Ring Of Fire, Bettie Page and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. For American Mythology, He’s written Zorro: Swords Of Blood, and for Kevin Eastman Studios he writes Drawing Blood and the Radically Rearranged Ronin Ragdolls. He lives in Hollywood, California with his delightful wife Augusta (aka filmmaker, costumer and burlesque icon Penny Starr Jr.) and three cats who may or may not be secretly radically rearranged.
David read from Michael Avallone’s The Violent Virgin (1957), featuring private eye Ed Noon.
