Writer of The Boy from County Hell, Bad Boy Boogie, Blade of Dishonor, and Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse.🦊🦄 I'm over here now: thomaspluck.substack.com
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Articles by Thomas Pluck
Analog
If you’re new here, welcome to On the Commons! Here, we explore questions as varied (but related) as: What is the difference between attention that fractures us and attention that restores? What role have three 15th-century papal bulls served in the “claiming” of land worldwide by Christian peoples of European descent, and how have those claims evolved? Reminder: If you pay for a full annual subscription, I will send you a copy of my first book, A Walking Life, as long as I have some left.
Puppies with Stiff Necks
Nobody told me that when I got older, my two major obstacles would be trying to make friends, and figuring out what the hell I did to my neck. (Strange days, indeed.) This begins for a lot of people in their mid-thirties. I’m way beyond my thirties, but I have been seeing a lot of Reddit posts by thirty-five-year-olds crying out for friendship. And I get it. I recently met someone new, who made the mistake of talking about mixed martial arts in front of me.
The Grotesque State
As I was listening to comedian Chris Gethard interview journalist Brian Donohue on the New Jersey is the World podcast, a thought that I’ve had many times as a resident of New Jersey went through my head: “why do I love living here so much?” I don’t think I’m alone.
The Secret Boardwalk of Carnivorous Plants
I don’t have the best sense of direction. And in the Pines, even with a handheld GPS, a car GPS, and two phones on different networks, it’s still possible to get lost, or not find something that’s in plain sight. It’s nothing supernatural. The Pinelands are often homogenous, and fires, controlled or otherwise, wipe out familiar areas and they grow anew in a cycle of rebirth that erases the landscape, and any hope of comparing photographs over the years.
Tired
I’m tired. Memorial Day is for those who died in battle; it was first called Decoration Day, and it originated in the South, when former enslaved honored the Union dead who were buried in mass graves. We honored the war dead before this, but this was the ceremony that grew into the national holiday. We mourn so many dead now, and we’re not in a declared war, civil or not.
The Tuckerton Stage Road
I visited several taverns on the stagecoach road that runs from Camden to Little Egg Harbor, but you can’t get a drink at any of them, unless you want tea-stained cedar water or stagnant mud puddles.
Cowardice
It’s been a week or two. Reeling from one mass shooting by a white supremacist radicalized on “*chan” forums in Buffalo, where he murdered ten Black people at a supermarket, we are rocked by another mass shooting in a Texas school by a young man who had murdered his grandmother that morning. The stories from Uvalde are infuriating.
Watch me read on Sunday, then go for tea at William Franklin’s mansion
This Sunday I am one of twelve authors reading from our stories in Low Down Dirty Vote Volume 3, an anthology edited by Mysti Berry to benefit voting rights. I will be reading from “Joey Cucuzza Loses His Election,” where my mob fixer finds himself in a conundrum about the Newark mayoral election, and a masseur who might talk… Here’s the Crowdcast Link for the reading at 3:00PM Pacific-6:00PM Eastern.
An Epic Adventure
I am on the grounds of Epic, a major health care software provider. If you’ve used MyChart, you’ve used their product.
Call for Submissions - Vautrin Summer 2022
Don’t aim. Just shoot. (Jim Carroll even riffed on it in Forced Entries.) Vautrin is open to submissions from April 3, 2022, to May 3, 2022. Gritty urban fiction. Jim Gavin’s Middle Men, Mary Miller’s Always Happy Hour, or Becky Mandelbaum’s Bad Kansas are good examples of what we mean by this. If you’ve written a compelling short story, though, no need to worry too much about “gritty” or “urban.” You may submit the story. Crime/Mystery Fiction. Genre fiction is a fit at Vautrin.
A Preview of Saira Viola’s New Hollywood Novel, "Smoke Show"
By Todd Robins / Think of what’s compelling about literary noir. It depends on the writer’s approach. Patricia Highsmith differs from James Crumley, who differs from Chester Himes, Elmore Leonard, or James Ellroy. The latter three mirror one another in that the language of the street is to the fore. These writers thrive on sound. Ellroy’s American Tabloid, though a chore to get through, ups the ante on sound while offering a singular if narrowly cynical view of America.
‘Mr Inbetween’: The Best Noir Show You’re (Probably) Not Watching
By Nick Kolakowski / “The criminal struggling with his conscience” is one of the most enduring clichés in noir films and television series. We watch as thieves, hitmen or mob bosses wrestle against their darker natures. That wrestling often has the side effect of humanizing them—if they feel a little guilty about killing someone, they can’t be wholly evil, right? What makes the Australian series Mr Inbetween so fascinating is its refusal to follow many of the cliché’s key elements.
Walker on Rue Saint-Denis, an Excerpt from "Love and Bullets," By Nick Kolakowski
Walker spent a few days in a trailer-park motel on the rim of Hudson Bay, seventy loonies a week for a double-wide at the very edge of the property where the mud and gravel gave way to pine woods filled with trash. The sun never set. It was a white-hot lance that pierced through the frayed curtains at all hours, keeping him awake despite the beer and pills, and after two miserable days he took refuge in the windowless bathroom, finally dozing in the shower stall atop a sheet.
“Sally Jiggs,” an excerpt from The Boy from County Hell, by Thomas Pluck
Mosca’s was a white house with a pitched roof and a sign so small Jay blew past and had to double back, parking the Mustang facing the road. It was early for supper but the lot was nearly full, a raucous song pounding out the open windows. The plan required him stepping foot in New Orleans, where the Italians still ruled. He had taken the head of a New Jersey mob boss and left it floating in his Roman bath-style swimming pool, after a failed hit.
The Vautrin Winter 2021 Dossier: Available Now, Order it Here, Trip on Contemporary Noir
Guy walks up to you in the potato chip aisle. Looks like he’s had a rough week. He starts in that he was throwing bread to the ducks when someone snatched his vaping pen. He gave chase but tripped on a small lizard. Hit his head on splintery plywood. Which is when… it’s like he saw the moons of Jupiter. He heard shots, sirens off in the distance. Came to in the throes of a noir jones. Not to mention he was in a different town. It’s the one he’s in now, talking to you.
The Boy from County Hell by Thomas Pluck: Cover Reveal and Excerpt
By Thomas Pluck September 30, 2021 Get a first look at the cover of Thomas Pluck's latest Jay Desmarteaux thriller, The Boy from County Hell & start reading the high-octane excerpt now! Jay Desmarteaux raised a whole lot of hell in New Jersey after he was released from prison after 25 years for the murder of a rapist bully at his school.
Collectibles by Lawrence Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Thomas Pluck, Joyce Carol Oates
English From Publishers Weekly: "Standouts include Dennis Lehane's gilt-edged chiller, 'A Bostonian (in Cambridge),' in which a wealthy collector of letters of abandonment falls prey to wily blackmailers, and Joe R. Lansdale's 'The Skull Collector,' a gangster yarn featuring gun-toting female grave robbers.
Wit and Grit: Lauren Hough's Essay Collection, "Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing," Reads Like Crime Fiction
By Thomas Pluck / The night my car burst into flames, I’d agreed to babysit for my supervisor, Sergeant Peters, because it meant spending a couple nights with HBO and without roommates arguing about who emptied the dishwasher last or what movie to watch. I liked Sergeant Peters. He was a big corn-fed-looking guy who had only hit on me once and only sulked about my rejection when he was drinking.
Confronting the Devil on Your Shoulder
To find the way past the scars and emotional abuse, Thomas Pluck goes back to the beginning. Photo credit: iStockphoto By Thomas Pluck We are only beginning to admit the damage done by emotional abuse. We have taken a brief look at bullying, and made some appropriately vague zero-tolerance laws that absolve school administrators from responsibility; we have seen the school-bus gang circle where one scapegoat is torn apart by a cadre of little Marine drill instructors who’d make R. Lee Ermey blush.
Krug’s Tavern - still the best
Open since 1938, once owned by Raging Bull boxer Jake “The Bronx Bull” LaMotta and still owned by his family, Krug’s Tavern in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood is housed in an unassuming and dilapidated building that could be mistaken for a run of the gin mill bar full of cranky old men drinking piss-yellow beer out of tiny glasses. Inside, it has that kind of feel. A few high top tables, a long mahogany bar with patched red vinyl stools.
Noir at the Bar 10/1/2020
Home This Thursday, October 1st, I’ll be reading with a great lineup of writers for a virtual Noir at the Bar hosted by Dennis Tafoya. Megan Abbott, Jordan Harper, Jen. Conley, Wallace Stroby, Nikki Dolson, and Alison Gaylin will be reading, and I’m thrilled be with them. Join us, it’s free and here is the sign up link. Noir at the Bar 10/1/2020 Like this: Like Loading...
Book Review: Dead Girl Blues by Lawrence Block
Lawrence Block's new novel is not for everyone. Nor is Block's protagonist, who commits an unspeakable crime. But it's what he does with the rest of his life that's really interesting... Lawrence Block has been writing for over sixty years, and he’s written everything from parlor mysteries solved by an affable burglar to the hardest of hard-boiled detective fiction starring Matt Scudder.
Book Review: Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich
Brian Panowich’s Hard Cash Valley is a violent crime narrative with an undeniable sense of place and a series of unlikely protagonists that somehow coalesces into a tense, fast-paced slice of Southern grit. Dane Kirby has a decent job and a loving girlfriend, but he’s a broken man haunted by the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter and the equivalent of a death sentence in some medical results in his pocket.
John Waters: Kissin’ Cousin of Crime
Before John Waters was a household name, he was a code word. Knowing it meant you were one of the trash cognoscenti, in tune with the underworld where pre-Stonewall gay culture was relegated, as being homosexual was literally a crime according to the state. Whether you think his movies are a crime against cinema or cherished treasures, every one of them was an act of guerrilla filmmaking and therefore a crime caught on film. And censors tried to make showing some of them a crime as well.
Virtual Noir at the Bar Wednesday May 6th
Dennis Tafoya, author of Dope Thief and The Wolves of Fairmont Park, organized a virtual Noir at the Bar with this great crowd of writers: Scott Adlerberg (Jungle Horses), Jen Conley (Seven Ways to Get Rid of Harry), Nik Korpon (The Rebellion’s Last Traitor), Jon McGoran (Spliced), Derek Nikitas (The Long Division), Steve Weddle (Country Hardball), Wallace Stroby (The Crissa Stone series), Dave White (the Jackson Donne series) and myself. Join us Wednesday May 6th at 7:00PM EST on Crowdcast.
Review: The Force by Don Winslow
The Force by Don Winslow is a haunting and heartbreaking story of greed and violence, inequality and race, crime and injustice, retribution and redemption that reveals the seemingly insurmountable tensions between the police and the diverse citizens they serve. His old priests might have told him that there are sins of commission and sins of omission, that it’s not always the things you do, but the things you don’t that cost you your soul.
Don Winslow Talks Broken, Social Distancing — Criminal Element
"So maybe we can use this isolation to find some writers and read them, or go back to some of the classics and enjoy them again." Join Thomas Pluck for a chat with Don Winslow as they discuss his latest book, Broken, and then continue reading for a full review! Don Winslow is the bestselling author of the blockbuster epic Cartel trilogy, the NYPD cop saga The Force, the thriller Savages which was made into a movie directed by Oliver Stone, the Neal Carey mysteries, several standalone crime...
Thomas Pluck: Trade Paperback: 9781943402595: Powell's Books
Synopses & Reviews Synopsis When Jay Desmarteaux steps out of from prison after serving twenty-five years for murdering a vicious school bully, he tries to follow his convict mentor's advice: the best revenge is living well. But questions gnaw at his gut: Where have his folks disappeared to? Why do old friends want him gone? And who wants him dead?
Bad Boy Boogie
FORMAT Description When Jay Desmarteaux steps out of from prison after serving twenty-five years for murdering a vicious school bully, he tries to follow his convict mentor's advice: the best revenge is living well. But questions gnaw at his gut: Where have his folks disappeared to? Why do old friends want him gone? And who wants him dead?
Hoosiers (1986) - IMDb
When I heard that a movie was being made about Milan (Indiana) High School's improbable 1954 boys' basketball state championship54, I was excited. Not only because I, like most Hoosiers, love basketball but also because of my family connection to "The Milan Miracle," as it's widely known. One of my uncles, Bob Wichmann, was a member of that team. MHS was by far the smallest school to win the championship in Indiana's 87 years of single class basketball.
Book Review: You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen
By John Valeri March 3, 2020 You Are Not Alone by dynamic writing duo Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen—the electrifying #1 New York Times bestselling authors of The Wife Between Us and An Anonymous Girl—is a brand new novel of psychological suspense.
Life During Wartime and Other Stories
Life During Wartime and Other Stories (Paperback) By Thomas Pluck Down & Out Books, 9781946502391, 312pp. Publication Date: January 29, 2018 List Price: 17.95* * Individual store prices may vary. Description A blackjack 21 of stories of people caught up in crime, facing bleak horrors, or spun in the whirlpool of human absurdity, this collects the best stories of Thomas Pluck. Take a ride on the neuter scooter in "The Big Snip," selected as one of the best crime stories of 2016.
Book Review: From Sea to Stormy Sea: 17 Stories Inspired by Great American Paintings, edited by Lawrence Block
By Thomas Pluck December 11, 2019 From Sea to Stormy Sea is the third installment of master of crime fiction Lawrence Block's acclaimed illustrated anthology series, with this anthology comprised of short stories based on masterpieces of American art. From Sea to Stormy Sea: 17 Stories Inspired by Great American Paintings Edited by Lawrence Block December 3, 2019 Themed anthologies are hit or miss; sometimes the concept creates a cohesive whole (and other times an incoherent hole).
The Little Gold Colt: There Are No Accidental Shootings
Thomas Pluck on fear, firearms and the struggle for Manhood. Photo credit: SensorSpot on iStockPhoto By Thomas Pluck There are no accidental shootings. The more accurate term is “negligent discharge,” which imparts carelessness to the actor holding the gun. Guns kill people, but a gun does not aim itself, load itself, or fire itself. Very rarely does a modern, well-kept firearm malfunction. I was trained from a tender age not to point a firearm at anything I did not want to destroy.
Five Things Every Self-Respecting Man Over 30 Needs. And 40 He Doesn’t.
Thomas Pluck believes the things a man really needs are all-encompassing and don’t even require money. Photo credit: The Futuristics By Thomas Pluck A friend of a friend shared a ridiculous list called 40 Things Every Self-Respecting Man Over 30 Should Own. My skepticism flared before I even read it, having seen enough articles in Men’s Journal and other catalogs masquerading as magazines to know what the list would be comprised of: things your Dad liked, or stuff Don Draper had on Mad Men.
Joyce Carol Oates Talks Crime Fiction, Character, and Cats
Joyce Carol Oates brings me joy. I first met the author at a book signing. We had traded tweets about our pets beforehand, and she’d given me a story for my Anthony-finalist anthology Protectors 2: Heroes. But when she saw me, she leaned over to her friend the artist and author Jonathan Santlofer and exclaimed, “have you met Thomas? He’s a lovely kitty man.” I am a large and hirsute man, a “temperate yeti,” in the parlance of a witty friend, and the “kitty man” nickname brought a few laughs.
Book Review: The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld
By Thomas Pluck September 30, 2019 The Butterfly Girl Rene Denfeld Naomi Cottle Series October 1, 2019 The Butterfly Girl by Rene Denfeld is the second book in the Naomi Cottle series—the investigator with an uncanny ability for finding missing children—and a riveting novel that ripples with truth, exploring the depths of love and sacrifice in the face of a past that cannot be left dead and buried.
Ain't Nobody Nobody by Heather Harper Ellett
By Chris Wolak September 23, 2019 Ain't Nobody Nobody Heather Harper Ellett September 24, 2019 Ain’t Nobody Nobody by Heather Harper Ellett is a riveting debut novel about family and loyalty, old grudges, and new lives—a cross between Faulkner and Breaking Bad from a talented new writer with an authentic Texas voice. Heather Harper Ellett is a vibrant new voice in the mystery scene. Ain’t Nobody Nobody was a delight to read. However, when I first started reading it, I had my doubts.
Book Review: The Dark Above by Jeremy Finley
The Dark Above Jeremy Finley July 23, 2019 In this sequel to the critically-acclaimed novel that grabbed fans of X-Files and Stranger Things, Jeremy Finley returns with The Dark Above, another thriller full of aliens and government cover-ups. Aliens are attacking Earth in The Dark Above by Jeremy Finley, and their most dangerous weapons are human beings.
Book Review: The Chain by Adrian McKinty
A stranger has kidnapped your child. To free them, you must abduct someone else’s child. This is The Chain by Adrian McKinty. She’s sitting at the bus stop checking the likes on her Instagram feed and doesn’t even notice the man with the gun until he’s almost next to her. She could have dropped her school bag and run across the marshes. She’s a nimble thirteen-year-old and she knows all the swamps and quicksands of Plum Island. There’s a little morning sea fog and the man is big and clumsy.
Left Coast Crime and Noir at the Bar Vancouver
Thomas Pluck has slung hash, trained in martial arts in America and Japan, worked on the docks, and even swept the Guggenheim museum (but not as part of a clever heist). He hails from Nutley, New Jersey, the birthplace of criminal masterminds Martha Stewart and Richard Blake, but has so far evaded capture. He remains a fugitive with his wife Sarah and their two cats.
Bad Boy Boogie
Read an Excerpt Bad Boy Boogie By Thomas Pluck Down & Out Books Copyright © 2017 Thomas Pluck All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-943402-59-5 CHAPTER 1 When Jay Desmarteaux walked out the gates of Rahway Prison, the sun hit his face like air on a fresh wound. The breeze smelled different, felt charged, electric. A rawboned middleweight, he was broad at the shoulders and hips, as if God had attempted to halt his growth and he'd thickened out of spite. "Go on," the guard said.
No Sweat, The M.O. Returns with a New Theme!
Summer's flying by and The M.O. is sweating with panic over the theme “Lesson Learned.” Write us a crime story in your blue book of one-thousand to fifteen-hundred words. The theme can be interpreted widely, in whatever style, tone, subgenre, targeted age range, and/or era the writer chooses.
Review: Leverage in Death by J. D. Robb
Leverage in Death by J. D. Robb is the 47th book in the In Death series, where Lieutenant Eve Dallas puzzles over a bizarre suicide bombing in a Wall St. office building. As I sat down to review Leverage in Death, I checked to see what volume number it was and, to my surprise, found it was book 47! That’s an impressive achievement for any series, but it does bring up the question of whether the later stories can still bring the excitement of the earlier books.
Goodbye, Harlan.
I cannot conceal my annoyance that you have gone. That’s not meant as a joke, though Mr. Ellison bore the brunt of cruel nerds who mocked his stature at every turn. The only time I met him was at ICON, held in Stony Brook College, when fans were begging for Simon & Simon to be kept on the air, and demanding a sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, when they weren’t mocking Harlan on stage for being short.
Why You Should Be Watching <i>Hap & Leonard</i>
That really should be the end of this article. If you don’t know the work of Joe R. Lansdale, Hap & Leonard is a wonderful introduction to his most popular books. If you already enjoy his work, watching the series on Sundance is like reading the books for the first time again. They capture the tone and spirit perfectly and bring the characters to life, right down to Hap’s hippie soul and Leonard’s irascible, rugged individualism (and Nilla wafers).
The Rape Joke Everyone Tolerates
There is one rape joke you can make on television. And that’s a joke about prison rape. The entertainment industry hasn’t gotten the message that rape is rape, whether the victim is a man or a woman. And it’s time they learned it. “Don’t drop the soap!” Yeah, we get it. Hilarious. We joke about things that frighten us. But joking about prison rape has other implications. First, it defines men as rapists by default. Men are not unstoppable rape machines.
Review: <i>Down the River unto the Sea</i> by Walter Mosley
Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley is the first book in a new series featuring Joe King Oliver, a disgraced former cop turned private detective in New York City (available February 20, 2018). Walter Mosley writes with a voice that flows as easy as that river of the title, and he introduces a series character who is both familiar and new with his latest.
Down & Out Books 25% off Holiday sale, and a Black Friday Boogie signed book deal
When Black Friday comes, I stand down by the door… At Down & Out Books they’re offering a 25% holiday discount and including the ebook with purchase of every print book! That includes Bad Boy Boogie, Unloaded, Blood on the Bayou, everything they publish. Including Down & Out:Â The Magazine… Which you should support if you love hardboiled fiction. I have a story in the first issue.
Review: World Enough by Clea Simon
World Enough is an intriguing, hard-hitting, intricately-plotted mystery set in Boston’s clubland and marks an exciting new departure for cozy author Clea Simon. It's only rock 'n roll, but I like it. Clea Simon brings us back to the '80s Boston rock club scene with her newest mystery, World Enough. A journalist by trade, she calls on her own experiences and tells a story unfettered by nostalgia, spinning a twisted tale of rockers, critics, fans, bouncers, club owners, and groupies—warts and all.
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