My next novel from Bundoran Press, Transient City, will be released in May, 2016 (available to pre-order now, see links on Novels page).

A science fiction, noir, diesel-punk whodunit, I indulged in a bit of self-referencing fun in character names and chapter titles. For those who want to ‘get it’, here’s a reveal on some of the character names.

For any fan of hard-boiled fiction, the names Gault, Gruber and McGivern all are known and revered. I used the surnames of three of the Bureau’s detectives in homage to authors I respect outside the writers accorded the most adulation (Hammett and Chandler).

William Campbell Gault, whom I acknowledge in the frontispiece of the novel had two distinct but contemporaneous writing careers. I discovered his juvenile fiction in my elementary and junior high school libraries, primarily his car and motorcycle novels. Not as gritty as Henry Gregor Felson, Gault’s coming-of-age in a car or bike stories were filled with the passion I felt for the day I’d have my driver’s license and own vehicle, either 2 or 4-wheeled. He also wrote a number of straight sports novels for football players, which I was most definitely not, nor likely to become. Size didn’t matter when it came to wheeling a race car down the quarter mile or around Indianapolis. Gault’s hard-boiled creations Brock Callahan and Joe Puma would fill another shelf. Above all, Gault was a professional, who appeared to like being a writer and entertainer. And to give young readers a reason to pick up the next book, whether it be his or not.

Frank Gruber scraped through the early depression years writing and being rejected. After ‘breaking in’ in 1934, he proceeded to write more than 300 stories for over 40 pulps and more than sixty novels (source: Wikipedia). A one-man fiction factory all-but forgotten in the mainstream today.

William P. McGivern wrote some science fiction early in his career but settled on mysteries as his primary field. His background as a police reporter served his novels well and they hum with accuracy and the seamy side of law-enforcement. In later years he wrote a lot of movie and television scripts.
The McGuffin character, Raoul Field takes his name from another prolific Black Mask contributor, Raoul Whitfield.

I urge interested readers to check these writers out.

To come: Reveals Part 2.