Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Kiss the Devil Good Night
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.southernnoir.com/
CITY: Key West
STATE: FL
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
Lives in Key West, FL, and Dallas, TX. * http://www.southernnoir.com/about.htm * https://www.amazon.com/Jonathan-Woods/e/B007MQMSVE
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: no2010084379
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/no2010084379
HEADING: Woods, Jonathan
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670 __ |a Bad Juju and other tales of madness and mayhem, c2010: |b t.p. (Jonathan Woods) p. 4 of cover (writer, lives in Dallas, holds degrees from McGill University and New England School of Law)
PERSONAL
Married Dahlia Woods.
EDUCATION:Attended Southern Methodist University; received degrees from New York University School of Law and McGill University, New England School of Law.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author. Worked previously as a lawyer.
AWARDS:Spinetingler Award, 2011, for Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Murder in Key West, Speedloader, Noir @ the Bar Vol. 1, and Crime Factory: The First Shift. Also contributor to periodicals, including Blackheart Magazine, Dogmatika, Pulp Pusher, 3:AM Magazine, Thuglit, and Plots with Guns.
SIDELIGHTS
Prior to becoming a writer, Jonathan Woods attended New York University and McGill University, from which he earned two degrees. His law career precedes his time as a writer; however, his authorial contributions are numerous. He has published short stories to several anthologies and periodicals, the latter of which include such publications as Blackheart Magazine and Dogmatika. In addition to his contributions to anthologies and similar collections, Woods has also published an extensive body of work. His fiction is primarily of the crime pulp drama. Woods’s work has also earned awards, including the Spinetingler Award in 2011. He resides in both Dallas, Texas and Key West, Florida.
Kiss the Devil Good Night and Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem
Kiss the Devil Good Night is a full length novel, centering on married couple Bill and Edie. The two start off the novel with adventure in mind; together they embark on a road trip to Florida in order to witness a trial. Their plans are derailed, however, by one of Edie’s aunts. They wind up assisting said aunt with theft, after which Bill ends up abandoned by Edie and utterly alone. Bill takes the blame for the robbery and is sentenced to prison for half a decade. The novel picks back up once he is released, when Bill’s eye turns to vengeance toward his estranged wife. Along the way he meets Jane Ryder, who is dealing with demons of her own, and falls into searching for treasure in Mexico—the same country where Edie now resides. Further mayhem unfolds as Bill continues on his quest. “Fans of offbeat noir will find a lot to like,” remarked a Publishers Weekly contributor.
Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem is made up of an assortment of short stories, all of which are penned by Woods himself and fall into the pulp noir genre. Mexico is the primary setting for the majority of these stories. Some stories border on the paranormal, such as one focusing on a strange creature crawling into people’s noses; others concentrate more on straightforward crime and mystery, including murders and abandoned body parts with no immediate identity. In an issue of Publishers Weekly, one reviewer wrote that “[a] penchant for vivid imagery slaps the reader around like a boxing bag.”
Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned and A Death in Mexico
Another story anthology, Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned, has a slightly more historical slant. Each story in the book focuses on a crime needing to be solved or strange events unfolding around a central protagonist. One story involves writers Graham Greene and Ernest Hemingway on a journey to Havana, Cuba. The other centers on a protagonist somehow getting in touch with renowned murderer Charles Manson, who tries to offer the protagonist relationship advice. “You want it brazen and loud, Woods really knows how to bang that gong,” commented a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.
A Death in Mexico follows Hector Diaz, a private investigator on the trail of a recent murder. An art model was brutally killed and dumped in the middle of San Miguel de Allende, leaving Diaz to figure out what happened. However, this isn’t all that is unwell in the town. Something dark and twisted lies deep in San Miguel de Allende’s bowels, and strain within the town’s borders. The police are continually failing to keep the darker goings on of the town under control. As a result, Diaz is jaded in terms of how much he can do to help with this murder, but tries to crack the case nonetheless. In the process of finding the murderer and bringing them to justice, Diaz must also face his own personal demons. A Publishers Weekly reviewer commented that “the author’s message in this powerful but uneven parable could not be clearer.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2010, Elliott Swanson, review of Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, p. 41; May 1, 2014, Bill Ott, “A hard-boiled gazetteer to border noir,” review of A Death in Mexico, p. 6.
Publishers Weekly, March 1, 2010, review of Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, p. 39; March 26, 2012, review of A Death in Mexico, p. 59; February 24, 2014, review of Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned, p. 162; September 26, 2016, review of Kiss the Devil Good Night, p. 70.
ONLINE
Jonathan Woods Website, http://www.southernnoir.com/ (July 7, 2017), author profile.
Keys Weekly, http://keysweekly.com/ (December 24, 2012), Michael Haskins, “In Their Own Words with Jonathan Woods,” author interview.*
Hi, I'm Jonathan Woods. I divide my time between Key West, FL and Dallas, TX. Whenever I have a little spare cash, I travel the world looking for story ideas. My stories involve sex, violence and craziness - stuff you read about every day in the metro section of your local newspaper or hear about on the late night TV news.
I hold degrees from McGill University, New England School of Law and New York University School of Law and for many years practiced law for a multi-national high-tech company. My first stories appeared in Dogmatika, 3:AM Magazine, Plots with Guns, Thuglit, Pulp Pusher, the noir issue of Blackheart Magazine and in the recent anthologies Speedloader, Crime Factory: The First Shift, Noir @ the Bar Vol. 1 and Murder in Key West
I am the author of the collection of noir crime stories Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem which won a 2011 Spinetingler Award for Best Crime Short Story Collection and was a featured book at the 2010 Texas Book Festival. Except for Maracaibo, I have been to every location where the nineteen stories in Bad Juju are set.
My crime novel A Death in Mexico was named one of the five top debut crime novels of 2012 by the indie BookPeople Bookstore in Austin, Texas. My website is: http://www.southernnoir.com/
My new collection of crime stories, coming from New Pulp Press in March 2014, is called Phone Call from Hell & Other Tales of the Damned. If you got a phone call from Charles Manson, what would you do?
My newest story "Swingers Anonymous" will appear in the anthology Dallas Noir forthcoming from Akashic Books in November 2013. Dallas Noir is part of Akashic's renown "cities noir" series of anthologies which now numbers more than 50 volumes. What an honor it is to be a part of this history making literary event!
Jonathan divides his time between Key West, FL and Dallas, TX.
Jonathan Woods holds degrees from McGill University, New England School of Law and New York University School of Law. For many years he practiced law for a multi-national high-tech company.
Jonathan’s stories have appeared in 3:AM Magazine, Dogmatika, Plots with Guns, Pulp Pusher, Thuglit and other web-based literary magazines. He studied writing at Southern Methodist University and attended Bread Loaf, Sewanee, Zoetrope: All-Story and Sirenland writers’ conferences.
Jonathan is married to the painter Dahlia Woods. When not writing or painting, they travel, most often to Italy and Mexico.
In Their Own Words with Jonathan Woods
December 24, 2012 by Michael Haskins No Comments
In Their Own Words with Jonathan Woods
Writer Jonathan Woods moved from Dallas to Key West several years ago to continue his writing career. Both his collection of short stories and his first novel have received favorable reviews. Florida author and writer of the long-running, award-winning Harry Bosch crime series, Michael Connelly wrote in his blurb for Woods’ short story collection Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, “Quirky and disquieting… leaves you marveling at the imagination of Jonathan Woods.” For Woods’ recently released crime novel A Death in Mexico, Connelly blurbed, “…a great and telling ride south of the border into madness and mayhem. I loved it.” Let’s find out a little more about this writer Jonathan Woods, in his own words.
Q: You recently had a fantastic review in the Los Angeles Review of Book for A Death in Mexico, your new crime novel. The reviewer mentioned a few genres the book fit into, mystery being one. What genre do you feel you write in?
A: I write pulpy crime stories with a literary twist. Crime stories covers a pretty broad waterfront from Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, about an axe murderer, to Agatha Christie’s “cozy” style detective stories starring Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple to American hardboiled crime stories from classic masters like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain to today’s top crime story writers such as Michael Connelly, James Lee Burke and Elmore Leonard. My novel A Death in Mexico is a police procedural about a murder investigation in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The reviewer for the Los Angeles Review of Books thought A Death in Mexico derived more from the works of Henry Miller and Graham Greene than Raymond Chandler. I’m a fan of all three of these great writers, so I’m not complaining about the comparisons.
Q: The Los Angeles Review of Books reviewer hoped to see another book featuring your Mexican police investigator Inspector Hector Diaz. Is that a possibility?
A: Inspector Hector Diaz, the police detective hero of A Death in Mexico, was a fascinating character to write about and definitely deserves a sequel. The politics and history of Mexico continue to fascinate me. It’s a deep cenote (sinkhole)pool from which to draw material for crime stories. At the moment, however, I’m 35,000 words into a road trip crime novel (working title The Big Score) that follows some crazed gringos from Atlanta to Orlando to Miami to Mexico and back to Key West. When that’s done, I’ll revisit Inspector Diaz.
Q: As mentioned in the intro, both your books received favorable blurbs from Michael Connelly. That has to make you feel good. How’d you get someone as busy as Connelly to read an unknown writer’s work?
A: I met Michael Connelly back in 2009 at a small conference of crime story writers and fans held in Panama City, Florida and put together by the writer Michael Lister. Michael Connelly was the guest of honor. Michael is very supportive of beginning writers but he doesn’t treat lightly requests for blurbs. He’s very specific that he will only blurb a book that he has read and likes. I count myself very privileged to have received blurbs from him for both my books.
Q: Your first book, Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, a collection of crime short stories, also received acclaim. Do you prefer writing the novel or the short story and why?
A: Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem caused quite a stir when it was published in 2010. It went on to win a 2011 Spinetingler Award for Best Crime Short Story Collection. Some critics have referred to my style of writing in Bad Juju as gonzo noir. The writing of Bad Juju was a breakthrough for me. Before Bad Juju I’d written a novel that no one wanted to represent or publish. Some of the stories in Bad Juju were first published on the web in literary magazines like 3:AM Magazine, Plotswithguns.com and Thuglit.com. Next thing I knew, I had a book of stories and a publisher, New Pulp Press. As a result of this history, I have a great fondness for the short story form. There’s something thrilling about working on a story for a few weeks, polishing it into a lustrous final product. A novel takes a much greater commitment but it also allows for the telling of a much more intricate and deeper story. Ultimately I love both forms. I have a new collection of noir crime stories that should be appearing soon. The working title is Phone Call from Hell & Other Tales of the Damned. And, as mentioned earlier, I’m also in the middle of writing a new crime novel.
Q: You’re a recovering attorney, last state of practice being Texas, so how did you end up in Key West?
A: Yes, I was an attorney for many years doing deals for a multi-national high-tech company. I left that line of work a few years back to start writing. From that point it took me about seven years before my first book, Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem, was published. During that time my spouse and I lived in Dallas, Texas, where she opened an art gallery. I helped out in the gallery in between my struggles to learn the craft of writing. Then the big recession hit and people stopped buying art. We were both tired of the big city and decided Key West was the perfect alternative, a small town with a thriving cultural community: music, an art cinema, plays, writers, artists, great restaurants, a cultural history reaching back to Hemingway and Wallace Stevens and Hart Crane. And I love that you can ride your bicycle everywhere. So here we are.
Q: Do you find your creativity more active in Key West or do you feel you can write wherever you are?
A: The task of writing books is not about being in a particular place. It’s about being meticulously focused on the words on the page, on the rhythm of the words and the pictures they convey in the mind. But place is an important part of every story. My stories in Bad Juju are set in many different locations: from Venice to Mexico to Tokyo, from the Caribbean rim to the south Texas scrub. All places I have been. Key West is a great place to live for writers because of its great writer vibe created by its long literary heritage from Hemingway to Tennessee Williams and Elizabeth Bishop to Philip Caputo, Tom McGuane, John Leslie and Robert Stone, to name a few. More importantly exotic Key West is a perfect backdrop for tales of murder and mayhem and I expect Key West will appear more and more as a location for my stories. My most recent crime short story “A Lucky Man” is a tale of bone fishing, lust and murder set in Key West. It, along with stories by seven other Key West crime writers, will appear in the anthology Murder in Key West and Other Island Mysteries coming soon from AbsolutelyAmazingeBooks.com
Q: When did you first know you wanted to be a writer? Where were you at the time?
A: Growing up, I was hauled from one side of the country to the other and back again. We moved every two or three years from Rhode Island to L.A. to western Massachusetts to Ohio. You name it; I’ve lived there. As a kid that always meant I was the outsider. So early on I became fascinated with books. They were the one constant, the one loyal friend in an always-changing environment. Reading was my great escape. Adventure stories, science fiction and later crime fiction and literary novels. As an undergraduate at McGill University I was an English lit major. I think it was inevitable, after reading all those books, that I would try my hand at writing one or two.
Q: What is your daily writing schedule and do you set goals for each day, like the number of words you must get down? Have you tweaked the daily schedule/goals over the years?
A: When I’m deeply involved in writing a novel or story, I try to be disciplined about the process. That means writing for 3 or 4 hours five days a week. Obviously I don’t achieve that all the time. Life has a way of getting in the way of our best intentions. At the other extreme, the writing thing can become a bit obsessive and when a story is really going well, I have a hard time breaking away. So although I may put in 3 or 4 hours in an afternoon, I find myself back at it from ten to midnight, with my spouse asleep in the other room. Or I’ll wake up in the middle of the night with some crazy scene or clip of dialogue in my head that I have to scrawl down on paper before it disappears forever.
Q: Every writer seems to think his/her way of writing is ideal. What about you? Do you outline, story board, think the ideas out in your head? How does your story make it from you to the page and does it change from your original ideas?
A: Mostly I start out with a character that interests me and see where that character takes me. Sometimes I know the ending of a story before I start writing, sometimes not. For a novel I do some outlining, some jotting down of ideas, plot points, characters, scenes. But for me writing a story is a process that is always in a state of flux and evolution, until at last you turn a corner and see the end. Probably deep in my mind the story I’m working on is a lot more developed than in my consciousness. But writing for me has always been a mystical experience as far as where the story and the characters come from. Of course, the hard part is getting the right words on paper.
Q: Some writers seem to enjoy rewriting, while others hate it. Where do you fit in? How much editing is done after you’ve finished and does it require you to rewrite sections of the book?
A: Rewriting is part of the craft. When I’m working on a story, each day as I add knew material, I constantly return to the earlier pages, changing a word or phrase, adding or deleting descriptions or dialogue, making sure that the words flow off the page like music. When a story finally seems done, I set it aside for a few weeks and then go back to it, to smooth out the rough edges that I missed before.
Q: What was the best writers’ conference you attended this year and would you recommend conferences for unpublished writers. What do you, a published writer, get from attending such conferences versus an unpublished writer?
A: There are really two kinds of writers’ conferences. One kind are those attended by both writers and fans of a particular genre of writing. For a writer these events are all about networking and getting your name out there. In the crime fiction genre the most important conference is called Bouchercon. It’s held in a different city every year. In 2012 Bouchercon was held in Cleveland, Ohio and had more than 1,500 attendees, including yours truly, who appeared on a writers’ panel, gave a reading and partook of various alcoholic beverages. Events like Bouchercon and smaller regional writer/fan gatherings are great fun whether you’re a published writer, an aspiring unpublished writer or just a fan of good books in the particular genre. The second kind of writers’ conferences focus on the craft of writing and are attended by aspiring writers and a smaller group of established writers who act as mentors. Two of the most famous writers’ conferences of this type are Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont and Sewanee Writers’ Conference at Sewanee: The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. I had the honor of attending both of these writers’ conferences in 2005, long before my first book was published. Attending a craft focused writers’ conference is an amazing, eye-opening experience for an unpublished writer. The Key West Literary Seminar held each January is a combination event focusing in the first week on fans, famous writers and a particular literary theme, and in the second week on workshops for aspiring writers.
Kiss the Devil Good Night
Publishers Weekly.
263.39 (Sept. 26, 2016): p70.
COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Kiss the Devil Good Night
Jonathan Woods. 280 Steps, $16.95 trade paper (308p) ISBN 978-8-283-55028-3
Jittery Iraq War vet Bill Derringer, the narrator of this picaresque story of antic insanity from Woods (A Death in Mexico), and his wife, Edie,
decide on a whim to drive from their home in Atlanta to Orlando, Fla., to attend the murder trial of a woman accused of killing her baby and
maybe eating it. They stay in Orlando with Edie's Aunt Ida, who persuades the couple to help her rob a gun show. After the heist, Edie and her
aunt leave Bill behind and run off to share a lesbian relationship in Mexico. Five years after his conviction for armed robbery, Bill leaves prison
for a Miami halfway house with nebulous plans for revenge. When he gets a chance to look for William Burroughs's long-lost suitcase
somewhere in Mexico for a collector, with the added possibility of finding Edie and Aunt Ida, he and Jane Ryder, his new companion from the
halfway house, fly to Mexico City. There they have a series of barely related adventures involving gratuitous sex, death, and mayhem. Fans of
offbeat noir will find a lot to like. (Nov.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Kiss the Devil Good Night." Publishers Weekly, 26 Sept. 2016, p. 70. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA465558214&it=r&asid=4ef4823d7b500137937e7c6b0d838356. Accessed 23 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A465558214
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A hard-boiled gazetteer to border noir
Bill Ott
Booklist.
110.17 (May 1, 2014): p6.
COPYRIGHT 2014 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
"And so a torturous, round-about refugee trail sprang up. Paris to Marseilles, across the Mediterranean to Oran, then by train or auto or foot
across the rim of Africa to Casablanca in French Morocco. Here the fortunate ones through money or influence or luck might obtain exit visas
and scurry to Lisbon, and from Lisbon to the New World. But the others wait in Casablanca, and wait and wait and wait. "
Those words, of course, are from the opening voiceover to Casablanca, and they capture the desperation of thousands of WWII refugees, adrift in
a war-torn world, willing to do anything to get from the horror of here to the potential salvation of there. Borders and the immigrant journeys they
alternately impede and permit are enduring, even archetypal, themes in literature, but in crime fiction they are also breeding grounds for noir.
Where desperate people gather, corruption flourishes, and with corruption comes an atmosphere of menace. When the unscrupulous meet the
desperate, violence erupts, leaving broken lives in its wake. Even those who temporarily avoid the maelstrom are left, like the refugees in
Casablanca, to wait, trapped in the transitional netherworld that is the border town.
In contemporary crime fiction, border noir typically finds its home along the demilitarized zone separating the U.S. and Mexico, the jumping-off
point for illegal immigrants desperate to move north, as well as the conduit for the flow of drugs and guns across the border (guns moving south,
drugs moving north). Novels set on our southern border--typically in El Paso and Juarez, or San Diego and Tijuana--have flourished in the last
several decades, reflecting both our ongoing battles over immigration policy and our so-often catastrophic war on drugs. The novels listed below
reflect those sociopolitical issues, to be sure, but their emotional core goes deeper than that, to border culture itself, wherever those borders may
be, and to the timeless chaos of lives in transition, or, worse, suspended in the perpetually deferred dream of transition.
Several of these border novels are technically out of print, but all are readily available in print or as e-books from various online sources.
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The U.S.-Mexico Border
Angel Baby. By Richard Lange. 2013. Little, Brown/ Mulholland, $25.99 (9780316219822).
Luz shoots her way out of her drug-lord husband's Tijuana compound, but she still needs help to get across the border, if she is to rejoin her
daughter, hidden in L.A. Enter Malone, a gone-to-seed surfer with a tragic past. On their tail is another odd couple with their own agendas,
reluctant enforcer Jeronimo and bent border agent Thacker. Hope and regret tangle at every turn in this emotionally charged thriller about our
desperate need to reach a safe haven.
The Border Lords. By T. Jefferson Parker. 2011. NAL, $ 15 (9780451235565).
This is the fourth in Parker's acclaimed Charlie Hood series, about an L.A. cop obsessed with controlling the gun and drug traffic across the
border. This time trouble comes as much from within as from the dealers he hunts: one of his team has gone AWOL, and another is focused on
becoming a media star. Throughout this series, the border culture itself, rife with corruption and violence, is Charlie's main adversary.
Borderline. By Lawrence Block. 2014. Hard Case Crime, $23.95 (9781783290574).
This early Block novel from 1958, which gleefully mixes soft-core porn with a thriller plot, makes the most of its seedy border-town setting,
jumping between El Paso and Juarez, as the paths of a gambler, divorcee, hitchhiker, stripper, and psycho killer come together in an inevitable
bloodbath--but not before a series of steamy yet surprisingly stylish couplings. Lurking behind it all is the chimerical dream of carving a new
beginning out of the transitional borderline world in which the characters find themselves.
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Choke Point. By James C. Mitchell. 2004. Minotaur, o.p.
Brinker, a former border-patrol agent turned PI, is reluctant to chase leads to Mexico, where an earlier tragedy altered his life forever. But when a
newspaper reporter he refused to help is killed south of the border, he overcomes his fears and follows the trail to local maquilas, which employ
cheap Mexican labor to package drugs for international distribution. Equal parts classic PI novel, social critique, and psychological thriller.
A Death in Mexico. By Jonathan Woods. 2012. New Pulp, $15 (9780982843680).
In San Miguel de Allende, Inspector Hector Diaz investigates the murder of an American artist's model, whose mutilated body was dumped in a
public square. Though not set on the border, this uncompromising look at racial tensions in a small Mexican town perfectly reflects the mood of
border noir. Gritty to the point you want to wash your hands, the novel takes us deep into a world of darkness, capturing that same blend of
bleakness and all-consuming corruption that drives Orson Welles' classic film A Touch of Evil.
Death of an Evangelista. By Allana Martin. 1999. St. Martins, o.p.
Texana Jones is the operator of a trading post in Presidio County, Texas, on the shores of the Rio Grande. This episode, the third in the series,
begins with a simple journey across the border for a dental appointment, but after finding a dead man in the taxi she enters for the trip home,
Texana becomes immersed in a long-simmering conflict that is both racial and religious. Border tensions are about more than drugs, as this
sensitive human drama makes abundantly clear.
Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders. By Alicia Caspar de Alba. 2005. Arte Publico, $16.95 (9781558855084).
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College professor Ivon Villa and her partner, Brigit, adopt the baby of a Juarez woman. Ivon returns to her hometown of El Paso, on her way to
pick up the baby, when she learns that the bodies of 100 women have been found outside Juarez. This horrific crime wave hits home when Ivon
learns that the mother of her soon-to-be adopted baby is one of the victims and Ivon's sister has gone missing in Juarez. Gaspar de Alba tackles
prejudice in multiple forms: against gays, against Hispanics, and against the poor.
Dia de los Muertos. By Kent Harrington. 1997. Capra, o.p.
Tijuana is the ultimate border town, where sin, corruption, and decadence have their way with all comers. Set appropriately during Mexico's Dia
de los Muertos celebration, this novel takes us on a literal and metaphorical death march, as rogue DEA agent Vincent Calhoun and a motley
crew of lost souls trapped in his orbit watch their lives spiral out of control. Harrington hits every note perfectly, from the blood-spurting
eruptions of violence, to the dim chance of escape that keeps us hoping, and, above all, to the soul-deadening rot that hangs over the Tijuana
landscape like tequila-soaked acid rain.
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Do They Know I'm Running? By David Corbett. 2010. Ballantine, o.p.
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Eighteen-year-old Roque Montalvo travels from California to El Salvador to help his uncle reenter the U.S. illegally. Matters are complicated
further when Roque learns that he must also escort a mysterious Palestinian and a young Salvadoran woman across the border. This is both a
gripping chase thriller and a sensitive exploration of the immigrant's journey from one kind of peril in their home countries to another in the U.S.
Dove Season. By Johnny Shaw. 2011. AmazonEncore, $13.95 (9781935597643).
In this first of Shaw's Jimmy Veeder comic mystery series, Jimmy returns to his hometown of Calexico, near the border in Southern California's
Imperial Valley. He's there to visit his dying father, who has an unusual request, which leads in caterwauling fashion to Jimmy and his running
buddies staging a sort of assault on a castle in the sand, south of the border, which serves as a halfway house for transporting illegal immigrants.
It's a peculiar yet riotous mix of thrills and comedy, but amid the bloody high jinks, there is something quite powerful here, a bit like The
Magnificent Seven but goofier.
The Power of the Dog. By Don Winslow. 2005. Vintage, $15.95 (9781400096930).
On his first posting to Culiacan, Mexico, DEA agent Art Keller makes the fatal mistake of befriending the Barrera brothers and inadvertently
launching a personal vendetta of epic proportions. In a crime novel with breakneck pacing, a sardonic worldview, and a cast of superheated
characters, Winslow feverishly indicts the U.S. war on drugs and shows the border to be a pipeline rather than a barrier to the unimpeded flow of
narcotics.
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Rain Dogs. By Baron R. Birtcher. 2013. Permanent Press, $29 (9781579623180).
It's 1976, and Colt Freeland, a laid-back Vietnam vet interested only in running his small pot business in the forests of Northern California,
suddenly and violently finds himself thrown into the cocaine-fueled drug wars raging on the Mexican-American border. Birtcher combines a
gritty, action-filled thriller with a nuanced, almost contemplative character drama in which Colt and a well-drawn supporting cast attempt to make
sense of their places in a run-amok world.
Redback. By Kirk Russell. 2011. Severn, $28.95 (9780727869654).
After a disaster in which one of his DEA colleagues is killed, agent John Martinez is fired for "renegade behavior." Nearly 20 years later,
Martinez gets the chance to settle scores with the Mexican cartel lord behind the shooting that cost Martinez his career and his friend his life. Like
Gary Phillips, Russell knows how to craft an action-driven thriller and give a larger-than-life hero room to run.
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The Rules of Wolfe. By James Carlos Blake. 2013. Mysterious, $24 (9780802121295).
The Wolfes are a family of criminals--mostly they do cross-border smuggling, but they stay away from drugs and people as cargo. The clan
survives by following rules, but young Eddie is a rule-breaker, and it lands him in Mexico, in service to a drug cartel. His perilous journey to
cross the border is different from that of illegal immigrants but no less potentially deadly. The nearer Eddie gets to escaping, the agonizingly
farther away he seems to be. A hell of a ride, made all the more enjoyable by Blake's straight-ahead, forceful prose.
Taken. By Robert Crais. 2012. Putnam, $26.95 (9790399158278).
Krista Morales and her boyfriend have disappeared, inadvertently abducted by bajadores, bandits who capture and then sell illegals as they cross
the border from Mexico. Kristas mother, once an illegal herself, hires L.A. PI Elvis Cole to track her daughter; Elvis quickly determines what
happened but just as quickly becomes a hostage himself. The task of finding and rescuing him is left to Elvis' ruthless running buddy, Joe Pike.
Crais' novel puts a very human face on the desperation of illegal immigrants, at the prey of not only governments but also outlaws.
Tequila Sunset. By Sam Hawken. 2014. Serpent's Tail, $14.95 (9781846688546).
A simple bridge separates El Paso, among the safest cities in the U.S. (thanks to the multiple law-enforcement agencies there), and Juarez,
considered by many to be the most dangerous city in the world. Hawken's novel follows the lives of three people--an ex-con and reluctant gang
member, an El Paso cop, and a Mexican federal agent--caught in the crossfire between gangs operating on both sides of the border. Emotionally
wrenching and unsparingly realistic.
Tijuana Straits. By Kem Nunn. 2004. Scribner, $16 (9780743279826).
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Feminist and environmental activist Magdalena, victim of a vicious attack by thugs, is washed ashore at the borderlands, where California and
Mexico meet the Pacific. She is rescued by Fahey, an ex-con and surfer turned worm farmer who reluctantly becomes involved in Magdalena's
efforts to fight for the rights of Mexican peasants exploited in foreign-owned factories. Cult favorite Nunn's outrage over the mistreatment of the
laborers comes shining through in this somber but gripping thriller.
Triple Crossing. By Sebastian Rotella. 2011. Little, Brown/ Mulholland, $14.99 (9780316105224).
Reporter Rotella plunges readers into the surreal three-ring circus along the border between Tijuana and San Diego, where a young and skeptical
Chicago-born, Italian Mexican border agent finds himself "triple-crossing" foes and corrupt allies alike. A strongly detailed, authentically
detailed, and sharply funny tale of cultural complexity and raging global criminality.
Wahoo Rhapsody. By Shaun Morley. 2011. AmazonEncore, $13.95 (9781935597872).
Take a break from the sometimes unrelieved darkness of border noir with this wild comic caper novel set on a sand-dune island off the coast of
Baja, California. The island is home to Atticus Fish, a retired lawyer who once sued God in a class-action suit--and won! Atticus comes to the aid
of the skipper of the Wahoo Rhapsody, whose first mate is smuggling marijuana planted in the bellies of freshly caught tuna. Various dealers, bent
prosecutors, and addled tourists get in the way of Atticus' elaborate plan to dump the drugs, save the boat, and return to his casually hedonistic
life.
Wrecked. By Tricia Fields. 2014. Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, $25.99 (9781250021373).
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When Artemis, Texas, police chief Josie Gray's lover disappears, Josie discovers he's been kidnapped by the Medrano cartel and sets about
getting him back. Fields' third, emotionally taut Josie Gray novel builds to a breathtaking climax, portraying, in the process, the danger inherent
in every border town. Fine southwestern crime fiction by an author who clearly loves her locale.
The U.S.-Canadian Border
Border Songs. By Jim Lynch. 2009. Vintage, $15 (9780307456267).
The border between Washington State and British Columbia is very different from that between, say, California and Mexico. In some places, it's
virtually invisible, with only a small ditch separating the two countries. Today, however, that porous border has become a thoroughfare for pot
smugglers and, potentially, terrorists. Lynch's lyrical tale--not a crime novel, really, but certainly a meditation on borders--focuses not on the
global implications of the border traffic but on the effect it has on the inhabitants of the sleepy communities lining the ditch, in particular, a
dyslexic border-patrol agent and his childhood friend on the Canada side, now a marijuana grower. An endearingly idiosyncratic, almost
Capraesque novel.
Ott, Bill
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Ott, Bill. "A hard-boiled gazetteer to border noir." Booklist, 1 May 2014, p. 6+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA368378776&it=r&asid=308a2a54ed1bbfc4bd502d7daee817f3. Accessed 23 June
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2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A368378776
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Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem
Publishers Weekly.
257.9 (Mar. 1, 2010): p39.
COPYRIGHT 2010 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem
Jonathan Woods. New Pulp (Ingrain, dist.), $14.95 paper (220p) ISBN 978-0-9815579-7-7
Violence, sex, and gonzo plot twists fuel Woods's diverting collection of 19 stories, most set in sun-and-blood-drenched borderlands. "Incident in
the Tropics," "Down Mexico Way," "Maracaibo," and "We Don' Need No Stinkin' Baggezz" amp up the volume to 11, while other offerings
feature flying sharks, the adventures of a bodiless head, and a slime thing quickly snaking up nostrils. Woods, who earned his neo-pulp rep in
Web zines such as Dogmatika and Plots with Guns, keeps the words popping along, though the endings of his stories are often inconsequential--
only more reason to hop instantly into the next yarn. Throughout, a penchant for vivid imagery slaps the reader around like a boxing bag: "A
veneer of sweat covers her body like the glaze on a Christmas ham"; "shadows as murky as an abortion clinic in the Bible Belt"; "Her small
conical breasts confronted him like twin interstellar ray guns." New pulp, indeed. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem." Publishers Weekly, 1 Mar. 2010, p. 39. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA220411028&it=r&asid=819655287acae8f36746564798953e9e. Accessed 23 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A220411028
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Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned
Publishers Weekly.
261.8 (Feb. 24, 2014): p162.
COPYRIGHT 2014 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned
Jonathan Woods. New Pulp (www.newpulppress.com), $14.95 trade paper (236p) ISBN 978-0-9899323-1-8
Woods (Bad Juju and Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem) offers 17 outlandish, often violent and raunchy excursions into neo-pulp. The title
story involves looking for a date on the suggestion of a random phone call from Charles Manson. In "Writer's Block," Ernest Hemingway and
Graham Greene hunt for action in 1959 Havana. "FTS"--well, the title says it all. Some of the yarns are not so much short stories as micronovels--
"The Other," an intense hunt for serial killers; "Crash & Burn," an explosive opus on the Texas-Mexico border. Trademark wild-ass similes and
metaphors emblazon almost every page: "The imperious tropical sun beat down relentlessly like the cat-o-nine-tails of the Marquis de Sade"; "the
moon burst above the eastern hills like a floodlight on a prison break"; "Her eyes glowed like burning German cities after a B-17 night raid." You
want it brazen and loud, Woods really knows how to bang that gong. (Apr.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Phone Call from Hell and Other Tales of the Damned." Publishers Weekly, 24 Feb. 2014, p. 162+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA360119174&it=r&asid=c8ad6fc1cbafed7dd63a47a86be64852. Accessed 23 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A360119174
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A Death in Mexico
Publishers Weekly.
259.13 (Mar. 26, 2012): p59.
COPYRIGHT 2012 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
A Death in Mexico
Jonathan Woods. New Pulp (www.newpulppress.com), $15 trade paper (218p) ISBN 9780-9828436-8-0
Brutal as the kick of raw mescal, tile first novel from Woods (the short fiction collection Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem)
depicts a nightmarish drug-ridden modern Mexico, where corruption and sadism lie in wait for unwary Americans like artist's model Amanda
Smallwood, found with her neck broken and eyes gouged out at 2 a.m. on a San Miguel de Allende street. Certain that the police, through bribes
and moral decay, are losing the war on crime, Insp. Hector Diaz, wracked by cigarettes, heavy drinking, and intestinal upheavals, nonetheless
relentlessly pursues Amanda's killer, hoping that a moment of justice may redeem his own soul. Though occasionally jolted by Woods's evident
addiction to inept similes ("Sodden cotton draped over la corpse's] bare buttocks like the final curtain of a Greek tragedy"), the author's message
in this powerful but uneven parable could not be clearer: never go to Mexico. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"A Death in Mexico." Publishers Weekly, 26 Mar. 2012, p. 59. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA284552440&it=r&asid=545c6cf2f997dbb722cb58f4611e0791. Accessed 23 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A284552440
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Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem
Elliott Swanson
Booklist.
106.17 (May 1, 2010): p41.
COPYRIGHT 2010 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist_publications/booklist/booklist.cfm
Full Text:
Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem.
By Jonathan Woods.
2010. 220p. New Pulp, paper, $14.95 (9780981557977).
This collection of slice-of-life crime stories comes on like a straight razor to the genitals. From the burbs to Maracaibo, from a psychopathic
version of Walter Mitty to a poetic cannibal, Woods delivers a dance of life and death that soars and plummets like Fred Astaire on
methamphetamine. So chamber a round in your Glock, activate your alarm system, and prepare to hunker down and read 'til you bleed.--Elliott
Swanson
Swanson, Elliott
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Swanson, Elliott. "Bad Juju & Other Tales of Madness and Mayhem." Booklist, 1 May 2010, p. 41. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA226160955&it=r&asid=cb5ae871413bc307fb9fdf831fb62cee. Accessed 23 June
2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A226160955