Saddle Up for Summer

Well, they couldn’t have cut that one much closer. It’s August 22, and the summer edition of Hardluck Stories is finally available. Although they may be late in arriving, the contents of this issue are worth the wait. The theme is “Western Noir,” with guest editor Ed Gorman hoping to make clear that “crime fiction is crime fiction, no matter the era it’s set in. Elmore Leonard’s lads could be found in Brooklyn, New York, as early as the late 1700s. They wore different types of clothes and spoke a different street lingo. But they were the same guys then as they are now.”

Among the authors contributing to this issue are Bill Crider (“Piano Man”), Steve Hockensmith (“Burt Lockhart’s in Town”), Jeremiah Healy (“Vanity”), Jon Breen (“The Cartoonist”), James Reasoner (“The Conversion of Carne Muerto”), and Gorman himself (“The Old Ways”). Check it out soon, pard.