The Wheelman Goes to Taiwan

Here's the cover of the Taiwanese edition of my novel The Wheelman, which arrived just now. (Click on the cover for a larger view.) I love this so hard, it's not even funny. Hands down, favorite foreign cover. You've got an screaming dude with sunglasses and a gun. A city skyline that looks like a shotgun blast pattern. Nightmare bursts of neon. A black VW bug ready to rumble. And dig that flaming wheel, right in the middle of the title! (At least, I think that's the title.) I'm standing up and applauding, people of Taiwan. Take a bow.

What do you guys think? I mean, this wins the day, right?

Tough Guys Finnish First

Here's a sweet little promo poster for a new crime paperback line debuting in Finland next month. And the first out of the gate, I'm proud to report, is my own Keikkakuski (a.k.a. The Wheelman). Series editor Juri Nummelin has been working on this line for a few years now, and it's great that it's finally seeing the light of day. The publisher is Arktinen Banaani, which primarily deals in funnybooks and graphic novels.

Also coming soon: Allan Guthrie's Edgar-nominated Viimeinen Suudelma (Kiss Her Goodbye) and Kevin Wignall's Edgar-nominated Kuka on Conrad Hirst? (Who Killed Conrad Hirst?). My own novel, of course, was not nominated for an Edgar, but shhhhhh. Don't tell anybody in Finland.

Car Wars

There's a quick post over at Mystery*File (one of my favorite crimegeek sites) comparing James Sallis's kick-ass Drive and my own bank heist novel, The Wheelman. Both were published October 2005, thereby damning my novel to be known as "the other bank heist novel published in October 2005." But I'm very happy with Ted Fitzgerald's review, which you can check out right here.

Duane Swierczynski's Keikkakuski

It's not just a tongue-twister; it's the Finnish edition of my novel, The Wheelman, which will kick off a new hardboiled crime line edited by Juri Nummelin. (Next up is Al "Sunshine" Guthrie's Edgar nominee Kiss Her Goodbye.) I absolutely love this cover art by Ossi Hiekkala; check out the reflection in the bumper. And I don't know if Hiekkala's ever been to Philly, but man, this really could pass for a stretch of the Roosevelt Boulevard.

Three Looks at Three Books

I try to avoid linking to reviews, because I don't want every post to scream ME ME ME. However, when three short reviews pop up that form a nice thematic unit... hell, how can I resist?

Over at Bookgasm, Rod Lott says some really, really kind things about The Wheelman. Mr. Lott will be receiving advance copies of my books for the rest of his natural life.

Meanwhile, at Blogcritics Magazine, Mel Odom reports on his night with The Blonde. I will keep sending women to Mr. Odom.

And finally: I send John Kenyon at Things I'd Rather Be Doing a pink slip, and he likes it! I wil continue to fire Mr. Kenyon on a regular basis.

But a Mere Shadow

If I ever start to bellyache about writing one or two novels a year, you have my permission to clock me upside the head with a sturdy two-by-four. I've been reading Don Hutchison's The Great Pulp Heroes, and in the chapter about the Shadow, Hutchison reveals the work schedule of Walter Gibson (a.k.a. Maxwell Grant):

Within months The Shadow went from quarterly to monthly, and within a year or two it was selling more than 300,000 copies per issue. Gibson signed yet another contract. The magazine would appear twice a month; he was to produce twenty-four adventures per year, one 60,000-word novel every two weeks for as long as the popularity of the Shadow continues. That figure totaled more than 1,440,000 words per year.

Um... yeah. The Wheelman? It was barely 53,000 words, not even qualifying for pulp magazine length. And that took me about a year, on and off, to finish. I'm such a pulp wuss.