I’ve been writing Sherlock Holmes stories for five years now, ever since I was first invited to contribute to the original MX collection that was being put together for a charity restoration of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s house, Undershaw. Work on the building has been complete for several years now, but the series continue to benefit the Stepping Stones School that now occupies the property.

Last year I was approached about reprint rights for an offshoot of the ongoing project. I suggested a couple of previously printed stories that might be a good fit for The Art of Sherlock Holmes, figuring one of them would likely provide some good imagery for a painter to work with.

The Adventure of the Melting Man subsequently appeared in The Art of Sherlock Holmes: Global Edition earlier this year, with an original illustration by Dan Arcus. I thought that would be it, but now there’s a Global Edition II with the other story I suggested, The Song of the Mudlark. It features a painting by Abdelaziz Haounati.

This brings things full circle, because The Song of the Mudlark was the very first in my growing body of Sherlock Holmes mysteries.  But I’m not stopping there. I’m now up to seven stories in print, with two more pending. That’s close to having enough material for a collection of similar size and scope to one of Conan Doyle’s volumes of short stories.

Halfway through 2020, I’m getting anxious. Aside from the two Sherlock books, I haven’t published anything new—at least not under the Eyestrain Productions imprint. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been churning material. In June I broke a personal productivity record, and there are plenty of new novels and anthologies in the works. It’s just a matter of which one will be finished first.

I’d tell you more, but it would kill the surprise. Not to mention, sap creativity. Pro tip: never discuss the details of what you’re working on. Put it on the page instead.

All the paintings appearing in The Art of Sherlock Holmes are available as prints from the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Family Estate.

[Just so I don’t bury the lead: skip the prattle and go right to the end for your free book!]

A million years ago (it feels like a million years ago, but it may have only been November) I launched my newest anthology of noir stories. Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals was a spiritual follow-up to my previous collection, Raw and Other Stories. Many of the tales featured direct and indirect connections to the ever expanding universe in my oeuvre of fiction, with appearances of characters like Tracy Poole from Necropolis, and underworld fixer, Derek Dunlan.

Raw had been a surprising success, boasted by the titular story getting shortlisted for a Bram Stoker Award nomination shortly before release. Assurances that anthologies tend not to sell well were undermined by steady movement on the Raw front that continues to this day. As well as it did on Amazon, I found it was getting even more rave reviews and reads on a pirate site.

I should probably be cross about that, but I suspect a lot of the paperback sales on Amazon were from those same pirates who liked my book well enough to want a physical copy. So…uh…good advertising, I guess.

I planned a much more aggressive launch for Petty Crimes, with snippets of stories getting featured on various social media outlets, along with art and cover reveals, and nearly half the book’s content dripped out to my Patreon page for one-dollar backers. This was not a fire-and-forget ad campaign. This was a daily push.

The response? Tumbleweeds. I think I maybe heard a few crickets chirping, but it might have only been my tinnitus acting up.

Even as I pushed forward on the next novels in my schedule, I considered how I could pick up the pieces with Petty Crimes and get it to readers via standard promotions and keyword advertising. And then the whole world shut down. You may have heard about it. I think it made the news.

Atrophy set in. Nobody was getting much done, myself included. But even hermit writers get bored in quarantine, and it’s time to start ramping back up.

Readers who follow my newletter, blog, or Patreon should be the first to know that the ebook edition of Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals is free this week—for the first time since launch. The free promotion will be announced on Freebooksy shortly, but you can beat the ecrowds and grab your copy right now.

The book is currently sitting at zero reviews, which I never like to see. If you give it a look, please don’t hesitate to express an opinion on Amazon (or elsewhere). Or you can just give it a simple star rating. Every bit helps. Who knows? If we can raise the profile a little, it might get stolen by a pirate site and then it will really take off!

Fingers crossed.

I finally got to approve the paperback for Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals after my extended runaround thanks to Canada Post. This was a while ago, but I hadn’t gotten around to announcing it until I shot this short video yesterday.

So join me, Finnegan the cat, and Mike Ehrmantraut, as I sit on my toilet, pants up, and discuss the proof copy and contents of my new collection of short stories. Patreon backers at the $25-plus range will be receiving their signed copies in the near future. Join their ranks before the end of the month and you’ll get one in the mail as well.

I crawled across the 2019 finish line last week.

After another rough year, exhaustion set in at the end of December and I went into post-Christmas crash mode. Reluctantly I had to back out of a couple projects, but I still managed to publish two new books in 2019 (Epitaph and Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals, both now available in paperback and ebook through Amazon), cut a deal for another German edition of Longshot Comics, and contribute to two more volumes of The MX Books of New Sherlock Holmes Stories.

Energy returning at last, I’m at work on a number of 2020 projects. It looks like the very first thing out, however, will be something I barely had to lift a finger for. I only had to agree to it. One of my past Sherlock Holmes stories will be appearing in the next volume of The Art of Sherlock Holmes. This one is a global edition, featuring work from around the world. Each story will have an original piece of artwork to go with it. I haven’t seen the one that will be attached to mine, but I’m looking forward to it with a certain nervous anticipation.

I haven’t had to wait to see the artwork that would illustrate one of my stories since early in my comic-book career. I guess all those cartoons I wrote count too, but for the most part I knew what the art style was going to look like well in advance of production. This will be a complete surprise. Hopefully a pleasant one.

There’s currently a Kickstarter campaign that can be backed by those who want to get their copies of the book early. A few examples of the art pieces are posted there (none of them mine), and should give you an idea of what to expect from the book. I look forward to getting my hands on a copy and adding it to my ever-expanding bookcase of published work that serves as a backdrop to my desk.

If you want to back the book and reserve your copy, I’ll encourage you to do so quickly. As of this writing, there are only four days left in the campaign. Yes, I could have and should have told you a lot earlier. But as mentioned, I was pooped.

Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals is out. A proof copy of the paperback is on the way, and hopefully will be approved in short order, but the ebook has been officially published on Amazon.

This is my new collection of short stories, all of them crime, brimming with sex and violence. Twenty tales of hardboiled noir is only a click or two away for readers who want to be amused by the dark and frequently funny side of lawbreaking shenanigans.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to further illuminate the contents of this new book (in case you’re not quite sold on it, and need to be pitched specifics).

Ashes to Ashes – The history of this story is long and complex. Beginning as a spec screenplay written over a furious long weekend of inspiration, it nearly got made as an episode of the Ridley and Tony Scott produced erotic horror show, The Hunger. When that ultimately didn’t happen, it was shot in San Francisco as a half-hour film financed by the Canada Council for the Arts. Years later, I adapted it as a short story that went on to be published in the anthology The Binge-Watching Cure in 2018. Now that all rights have reverted back to me, this story—roughly twenty years old at this point—opens my latest collection with a black-comedy sexually perverse bang.

Saltwater Shark – A love-letter obituary to everybody’s favourite loan shark. This is an original piece appearing for the first time anywhere.

Dealers – Previously available to mail-listers only (Join my mail list! The link is in the sidebar on the right) this is a little side story that connects to the events of my novel, Necropolis, and illuminates the origin of the hitman who plays into the narrative of that book.

Special – I have a great deal of affection for this story, inspired, in part, by some of my own comic-book convention appearances. Written in 2012, it proved difficult to place, and very nearly landed in one or two superhero anthologies because it’s sort of a superhero story. Except it isn’t. Read the book and find out what I mean.

Wetwork Warrior – A very recent inclusion that I wrote as a response to a current film I really disliked. This is a better version of how government assassins retire.

Three Point Seven – Another story meant as a response. Not necessarily to an individual film, but to a whole sub-genre. This is my take on getaway drivers and how they might handle the prospect of a high-speed chase with police.

Lines on a Map – Anyone who read Raw and Other Stories or Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded (Both Barrels Book 3) will remember my story, “Young Turks and Old Wives” featuring legendary supercriminal, Derek Dunlan. This marks his second official appearance in my crime-and-horror canon, and is one of my personal favourites in the collection. He will definitely be appearing again in future stories.

Chick Magnet – I’ve frankly been shocked by the positive reaction to this story. I thought many people might find this horrifically offensive. Now that it’s offered up to a global audience, I’m sure someone’s bound to get upset. Mind you, if they’re that easily upset, they shouldn’t be reading this book at all.

Crocodile Tears – This is a must-read for fans of Necropolis and Epitaph. Originally published in Betty Fedora Issue Four, Tracy Poole returns in her own mini mystery. This story is shaping up to be the basis of a whole other original Tracy Poole project down the road. Have I mentioned that The Necromancer Thanatography series is going to have branching novels? No, I haven’t. But you heard it here first. I’m building a universe!

The View from Inside the Pocket – This is a piece that appeared on the Shotgun Honey website years ago. It’s the shortest story in the book, but also my most well-received bit of flash fiction. So much so, I was asked to adapt it as a short-film screenplay. We’ll see what becomes of it.

Shell Game Eight – I go grocery shopping when I’m bored and need to get out, dropping in randomly to look for sales. When I observed that the express lane is actually the slowest lane in most supermarkets, the germ of an idea for this funny and extremely violent story was born.

The Laundry List – One of my proof readers read this story with a baby in her arms. Both mother and child were traumatized for life. Oops.

A Foot in the Door – I don’t want to get into spoiler material, but suffice to say I became fascinated by what happens to people who jump out of tall buildings and went looking at a bunch of pictures I can’t unsee. You know all those Hollywood movies that show people hitting the pavement after a long drop? They go splat. Kinda. The real thing is so much worse.

Ghoul: A Romance – This is the story I worry about the most. It’s fucked up in the sort of way that demands psychiatric observation and medication. It’s ugly and disturbed and sexual in very wrong ways. And that’s probably why it’s my favourite. You might want to cross the street to avoid me after reading this one. And if it makes you want to get closer…well…maybe I’ll want to cross the street to avoid you.

Drill – Heads up: this story may feature an unnamed character who will appear in a future novel I’m working on. A novel which may well prove to be the most controversial thing I’ve ever written. Or it will be completely ignored and die in obscurity, I can’t really predict how these things will pan out.

Dig Two Graves – Equal measures grim and cute. After some of the hair-raisingly horrific stories that preceded it, this tale that threatens live-burial will seem light and frothy by comparison.

Pinch Hitter – This hitman story feels like it’s on the verge of being blown out into a feature film. I’m almost tempted to write up the screenplay, except I’ve been to that rodeo so many times, maybe it’s best to just leave this one pure, simple, and unmolested. I like it too much to defile it. Not without a development deal, at least.

Platinum – This one has been gestating for a long time. I might have shopped it around, but these days I’d rather just fill out my own anthology and stuff even potential sales into a collection. It beats sitting around for an extra year, waiting for rights to revert.

Mercy – A handful of my stories enter a certain Edgar Allan Poe territory. This is a short palate cleanser before we wrap up with the last and longest offering of the collection.

Keeping the Piece – This is purely autobiographical. Okay, not really. But some of it is. Let’s just say it’s based on real events. I’m not a big fan of stories about writers. You do too many of those and you’re no better than Stephen King. And what has he ever done except become incredibly rich and famous and successful? A bit like “Underwriter” in Raw and Other Stories, my past history as a screenwriter serves as inspiration. And this particularly story may well be my letter of resignation. Not that I’m likely to turn down paying work if it comes knocking again, but it’s been a good long stretch since my last television-writing gig, and I’m not really missing it. The money, sure, but not the bullshit. It’s why I’ve thrown myself so hard into prose and publishing.

Because I’d rather spend the rest of my life doing this instead of butchering my best work at the whim of producers and broadcasters.

I can dream, can’t I? I’m a writer, after all. I do it professionally.

Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals is available on Amazon for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. Paperback to follow shortly.

The Dimestore Crime Stories promotion ends with this final spooky, creepy, dirty, nasty little ditty. Appropriate reading for the Halloween season. Just don’t let anyone looking over your shoulder catch you reading it. They’re likely to think you’re as twisted and disturbed as the author responsible for such an abomination. https://www.patreon.com/shanesimmons

I’m wrapping up the week with the final three tales in the Dimestore Crime Stories promotion on Patreon. Both “A Foot in the Door” and “Dig Two Graves” will appear in the upcoming collection, Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals. Back me for just one dollar and receive early access to all ten stories (basically half the book) today.The final hair-raising story will debut tomorrow! You won’t want to miss this one.

I was eight years old when I wrote my first hardboiled crime story.

It was about a police detective investigating the disappearance of a pregnant woman. At the end of the story he discovers she was murdered by her lover, who pushed her in front of a subway train. The impact had so thoroughly obliterated her body, the detective only deduces what happened by running his fingers across the lip of the platform and discovering the greasy crimson film of old blood.

This is what I thought happened to people when they fell in front of a subway train when I was eight years old. I know better now. In grislier detail than you would probably care to hear about.

I wish I still had the notebook with that story, and whatever horrified comments my teacher made in red marker across the margins. I wonder what sort of grade I got for it.

If any little boy wrote a story like that today, they’d have him jacked up on Ritalin and in for psychiatric evaluation so fast…

But it was the ‘70s, so they let it slide.

Now here I am today, over forty years later, still writing hardboiled crime stories. And I look at some of them and think, “This is not the product of a healthy mind.”

I’m about to publish twenty more shorts in the same vein. Some have me slightly concerned that authorities may be summoned to bring me in as a potential danger to myself or others.

If you would be so kind…

Do me a favour and back my Patreon page for a token dollar and give the ten preview stories I’m posting there throughout October a read. Let me know if you think the men in white are likely to show up at my door with a straightjacket and a syringe full of sedatives.

Petty Crimes and Vindictive Criminals is scheduled for release in November. My previous collection of twisted noir tales, Raw and Other Stories, is available on Amazon for Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback.

Heed my cries for help before they lock me away in a padded room where I’ll have to write my next book on the walls of my cell with my own bodily fluids.

The laundry list of noir crime stories continues, with only one more week and three more tales of sex, violence, and grim comedy to go. One dollar gives you access to all ten. https://www.patreon.com/shanesimmons