Introducing Dime Pulp Number Four

In Issue Four of Dime Pulp, A Serial Fiction Magazine, The Last Resort continues the adventures of Lee Malone, former super model now small town newspaper reporter, and finds her rescued from The Blue Ox, a den of diehard water conservationist if there ever was one, by Blackie, having a cozy coffee with the older man while the rain rages outside and getting nostalgic over the photographic rogues gallery on the motorcycle repair shop’s walls. After a frightening nightmare in which she intuits the identity of the charred corpses, she is awakened by a summons to fly to Chicago to be by her ailing mother’s bedside where her sordid past begins to catch up with her.

For Helena Baron-Murdock’s Hard Boiled Myth series featuring Weston County Sheriff Detective Jim Donovan, a multi-casualty shooting out on the Sage Valley Rancheria has more than a few echoes in mythic lore in this first of a two part story titled “Valentine’s Day.”

A Detective Story picks up Lackland Ask where he left off, piloting a power boat on the East River and ramming a garbage scow but not before a confrontation with arch nemesis, Kovic, and his thugs, and lands himself in the drink to be rescued by. . .well, why spoil the surprise.

Dime Pulp continues its crime spree with the serialization of two full length novels, The Last Resort and A Detective Story, as well as another short story based on Greek myths under the rubric of Hard Boiled Myth.

If you’ve made it this far, go ahead and follow the links below to reading entertainment with the serial contents of Volume One, Number Four

  —Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant

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Deep in the redwood wilds along the Corkscrew River, someone is shooting neighborhood dogs. The year is 1985 and Lee Malone, former fashion model, queen of the runways from Paris to Milan, once dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world, now a part-time reporter for The Corkscrew County Grapevine, is looking for a story to sink her teeth into. When Lee finds the owner of Kelly’s Seaside Resort brutally murdered, it leads her on an adventure that includes a mysterious gray van, another murder, extortion, pornography, sex slavery, and a shadowy organization of militant feminists known as SAPHO.  In the process, Lee Malone’s notorious past catches up with her. 

The Last Resort, Chapters 1-3
The Last Resort, Chapters 4-6
The Last Resort, Chapters 7-10
The Last Resort, Chapters 11-13

Greek myth is rife with murder, mutilation, cannibalism, mayhem, and the ever popular incest.  Weston County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Donovan of the Violent Crimes Unit wouldn’t know a Greek myth from a Greek salad, but if he did he would find some troubling similarities to the cases he’s investigating.  Revisited as crime fiction are the strange death of Hippolytus, the agonizing death of Heracles, the slaughter of Penelope’s suitors,  the sparagamos of Orpheus, and the cursed lineage of Pelops. Hard Boiled Myth taps into the rich vein of classical literature to frame these ancient tales in a modern context.

Long Shot I
Long Shot II
Notification Of Kin
Valentine’s Day I

Lackland Ask is the name. ‘Lack’ to my friends, ‘Don’t’ to those who think they’re funny. You might have seen my portrait on the cover of Black Mask, the crime friction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde. The brownstone was on the Westside and easy enough to find. So was the mug’s yellow roadster. It stuck out like a new shoe in a cobbler’s shop. I was being a sap again. I woke sitting straight up, sweat pouring out and over me, my undershirt drenched. I was going to have to change my shorts. Some dream. They worked me over, demons in dingy cable knit sweaters. They pumped my arms and peered in my face with eyes as black as eightballs.

“This kind of story always starts with a blonde“
“I was being a sap again.”
“Some dream”
“demons in dingy cable knit sweaters”