Sharing stories with people hungry for a mythology of contemporary life.
Indy Perro
Books aren't our vegetables. As much as I love to read and believe in the power of a good book, I don't think literature makes us better people. Reading and thinking might, but literature can only do as much as we, the readers and writers, do with language. The best books provide a point of contact for consciousnesses, a place to question social and cultural assumptions, and a testing ground for ideas.
Speaking of Non-Sequiturs
Since we were already off topic, I thought I’d share a few random thoughts, inspirations, ideas, conjectures, possibilities, propositions, and preferences. In Speaking of Non-Sequiturs, I engage the ideas that drive my work without the frame of fiction. These non-sequiturs, as you’d imagine, don’t follow a specific pattern, form, or context. Some are ideas taken from an engaging philosophical work. Others reference novels or stories worth reading. A few string an idea through multiple works or explore an idea born of abstraction, a non-linguistic experience such as music, nature, or culture. I’m working without a net, and I invite you to join me.
Recommendations
What am I reading? What books influence me? Why do certain books light my fire?
Each month I recommend one of the books that changed the way I write and stirred my passion for ideas. Each recommendation includes a summary, a short author bio, and a brief analysis of what inspired me. Enjoy my thoughts on and appreciation for the work of James Sallis, Jim Thompson, Frederic Brown, Lawrence Block, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Don DeLillo, Chester Himes, Bill Flanagan, and many more.
Each month I recommend one of the books that changed the way I write and stirred my passion for ideas. Each recommendation includes a summary, a short author bio, and a brief analysis of what inspired me. Enjoy my thoughts on and appreciation for the work of James Sallis, Jim Thompson, Frederic Brown, Lawrence Block, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Don DeLillo, Chester Himes, Bill Flanagan, and many more.
Visit Central City
Centralcitybooks.com is dedicated to Central City, the fictional cityscape that serves as a setting for my novels. In the Kane and Bayonne novels, we see a traditional noir landscape with a seedy underworld, corruption, poverty, and violence, but Central City hadn’t always hit the skids. Like the midwestern metropolitan areas on which it was based, Central City has enjoyed its ups and downs. Industry boomed, busted, and rusted. Crime rates rose, fell, and rose again. Life goes on, and the people of Central City search for meaning like the rest of us, in the world outside their front doors.
Visit Central City and explore how times changed. Discover the taverns, brothels, junk houses, and cop shops. Learn more about the characters, and discover the history and new adventures of your favorite anti-heroes and villains.
Visit Central City and explore how times changed. Discover the taverns, brothels, junk houses, and cop shops. Learn more about the characters, and discover the history and new adventures of your favorite anti-heroes and villains.
Central City
Kane Kulpa learned which laws could be bent and which broken after a short stint in prison courtesy of Detective Vincent Bayonne. Bound by time, integrity, and the reality of life in Central City, Bayonne and Kane made peace with the past. Now, gang tension spirals from corrupt to deadly, and a series of murders stresses Kane and Bayonne’s uneasy alliance. Kane balances on a razor’s edge to protect his bar, power, life, and family, and Bayonne hustles to keep another lonely man from being strangled.
Events
Indy Perro on Crime Cafe
I want to send a big thank you to Debbi Mack for hosting me on her podcast Crime Cafe. We had a wonderful conversation, which
Recommendations
Inspector Imanishi Investigates by Seicho Matsumoto
Summary: The body of a brutally murdered man is found beneath a train, and the police begin their investigation with only two clues: that the
Recommendations
The Far Cry by Frederic Brown
Summary: In a lonely cabin near Taos, a girl named Jenny Ames was murdered. No one knew who she was, how she died, or who