Created by Anders Bellis
One thing that never seems to stop is the tsunami of pushy self-published hustlers who think the entire world (and this site) need to know about their latest masterpieces, and that the best way to accomplish it is to sneak a full-fledged plug into our Comments section.
And here’s another one, trying to slip some freebie self-promotion onto our Alphabetical listing, as though I wouldn’t notice.
I noticed.
“Allow me to introduce LARRY CARMODY, private investigator, who lives in a fictitious, 1930s crime noir world of bottomless cynicism, triple standards, and devastatingly black humor. There is no doing good in the world of Larry Carmody. There is only the cynicism and black humour needed to stay alive in the midst of convoluted plots and the nighttime world of crime. For some, that is. The accomplished and lucky ones. The rest perish. In the world of Larry Carmody, you have to get the low-down. And you have to find a way out. Otherwise, someone will show you the foolproof way out by force-feeding you lead with an equalizer.
Larry Carmody himself says: ‘A case can sometimes be opened and shut in no time. It doesn’t often go down that way, but when it does, you can most often exchange the word ‘shut’ for the word ‘shot’. And I am not speaking of a shot of whisky in an instance such as this. I am using the word ‘shot’ because the main player in the case has been shot to death. Usually my client’.”
Uh-huh.
Larry’s debut, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories (2022) was a collection of tales, none of which seem to have previously published, a bold move for an author nobody has ever heard of.
I dunno. This sort of awkward hard sell rarely works for me, and the excerpt on Amazon, as is often the case, did the author no favours. It certainly didn’t endear me to his clunky prose style or the predictably over-boiled tough guy tone, but your mileage may differ.
SHORT STORIES
- “The el Toro Problem” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Refined Countess” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Open and Shut Case” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Missing Notebook” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Dame on the Stairs” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The High Heel Case” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Christmas Connection” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Watchdog Case” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
- “The Rental Car Service” (2022, The el Toro Problem and Other Stories)
COLLECTIONS
Regretfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
