What a day! I’m so sad to hear that Elmore Leonard has passed away. He was one of the best crime writers of the 20th century, a legend in his own time. I’ll need to write a longer post about him, but suffice it to say that one of the greats is gone. A moment of silence…
But also today brings the very happy news that Kwik Krimes, a best-of-the-web anthology edited by Otto Penzler is now available. This collection includes my own story “They’ll Call Me Whistlin’ Pete,” originally published by Flash Fiction Offensive a year or so ago. Penzler contacted me out of the blue and asked if he could included. I was thrilled, to say the least. What an honor to be included in this collection.
The Amazon description of this book has to be one of the most stunning things I’ve ever seen:
“Entire novels are often written about a single crime, detailing every gruesome, dark detail until the last drop of blood spatters across the page. Yet in this mystery anthology, renowned editor and author Otto Penzler weaves together to heart-stopping effect more than ninety tales of brutality, terror, and unexpected demise, with each story told in a swift one thousand words or less.
“These crimes may be fast in both form and fallout, but none lack the dark impulses that too often guide human hands to ill ends. Prepare to be transported into the diabolical schemes of criminal masterminds…into robberies and pranks gone horribly awry…into closets crammed with skeletons…into families bound not by love but wickedness.
“Authors include Peter Blauner, Ken Bruen, Rob W. Hart, K. A. Laity, Tasha Alexander, Patricia Abbott, Bruce DeSilva, Chuck Caruso, Gregory Gibson, Joe R. Lansdale, and many more.”
I can’t believe my own name is so casually included in that string of writers who I’ve read and admired for years. Ken Bruen? Joe Lansdale? Wow!
We’ll see how people like the anthology, but the early reviews seem favorable. My own copy hasn’t arrived yet, but I can’t wait to dig in. This is a collection I would have been excited to read anyway. And I’m in it. Did I already mention that?
Anyway, just had to share the good news. Can’t wait to hear what you think of it.
Chuck Caruso 