Welcome to Volume Two, Number Four of Dime Pulp,
A Serial Pulp Fiction Magazine.
In this instalment of On The Road To Las Cruces, the name of the legendary lawman is revealed. Pat Nolan said of this novel account of the last days of the man’s life, “I had the manuscript sitting around for nearly thirty years and one day I went in with a machete and cleared out all the undergrowth until it was as spare and taciturn as the man himself. It shortened the word count considerably but it made for a better story.” What is related on the road to Las Cruces is as much a retelling of some history as it is how such a retelling might come about.
On the conclusion to All Tore Up, Helene Baron-Murdock says of her latest Hard Boiled Myth episode, “When I first created Jim Donovan of the Weston County Sheriff’s Violent Crime Unit, I just thought to use him as a mouthpiece to revisit the mayhem and murder found in Greek Myths. Yet the character in addressing how these myths can be retold cannot be conscious of the current investigation’s architypes—they are only transparent to the informed reader—and allows him to take on a life of his own. The odd development is that most of the other police officials Donovan interacts with have, like his, the names of pop music celebrities. It’s just a coincidence.” Or is it?
Better Than Dead’s author, Colin Deerwood remarked that the world of the private detective of his story, Lackland Ask, is made up entirely of language. “The language of the quotidian exchange, the patter and chatter of someone who gets ahead on guile and a few luck breaks, and which is why some episodes resemble a large shaggy dog following the scent of the imagination to wherever it may lead. The peregrinations of our everyhero are what gives pleasures to the telling of situations and predicaments only one step away from the next misstep.” But then he always says things like that.
Dime Pulp Yearbook 21 contains the novels (The Last Resort and Better Than Dead) and the short fiction (Hard Boiled Myth and Gone Missing) of Volume One’s 12 issues and are available for perusal in their entirety. If you missed a few issues or lost the thread of a serial, clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph or on the menu bar above is a good way to catch up.
Dime Pulp continues its crime spree with the serialization of 2 full length novels, Better Than Dead, A Detective Story and On The Road To Las Cruces as well as the conclusion of latest installment 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 Two, Number Four
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe
and word accountant
“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 fiction magazine. This is my story. It starts with a blonde. This kind of story always starts with a blonde.” Thus begins the seemingly non-stop, endless narrative of Better Than Dead in which women are not the only trouble although most of it, told with the wit and street savvy of Runyon and Parker.
Better Than Dead—16
In late February of 1908, a one-time drover, buffalo hunter, saloon owner, hog farmer, peach grower, horse rancher, US Customs inspector, private investigator, county sheriff, and Deputy US Marshal set out from his adobe home on the mesa above Organ, New Mexico accompanied by a young man in a black buggy on the journey to Las Cruces. He would never arrive. This is the story of that journey, a novel account of the last day in the life of a legendary lawman.
On The Road To Last Cruces ~Six~
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 Fall of Icarus, the sparagamos of Orpheus, and the cursed lineage of Pelops. Helene Baron-Murdock’s Hard Boiled Myth taps into the rich vein of classical literature to frame these ancient tales in a modern context.
Dime Pulp 