Category Archives: Wallace Stroby

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

After much thought I have decided that to experiment with moving the focus of my blogging from this site to a new Pulp Curry Substack newsletter.

Why am I doing this?

The first post on this website appeared on July 2010 (about the incredibly underrated 1979 Australian heist film, Money Movers – you can read the post here). I’ve been writing on the site with varying frequency ever since (579 posts in all), and for the most part have enjoyed it immensely.

But for the last 12 or so months I just haven’t been feeling it – or getting the hits to make it seem worthwhile – and have started to wonder whether it’s worth continuing with the effort. Posting on a website has been starting to feel like the equivalent of trying to read a broadsheet newspaper in a crowded tram carriage, unwieldy and inconvenient.

And, thinking about it, I suspect the blog format is starting to get a bit stale for me and is actually now a brake on my posting more regularly.

I know that I’m no Robinson Crusoe in this regard. The majority of the blogs I used to follow have gradually fallen by the wayside, as people have moved on, grown weary of the effort, found other interests, adopted other means to get their message out, or, in some cases (gulp), died.… Read more

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Advance orders (& advance praise) for Gunshine State

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Andrew Nette| 10 Comments

A quick heads up to Pulp Curry readers that pre-orders are open on Amazon for my second novel, Gunshine State, out through the crime fiction publisher 280 Steps on September 12.

For those of you who are up with things, Gunshine State is a heist thriller set in Queensland, Melbourne and Thailand. Think Richard Stark’s Parker, Garry Disher’s Wyatt, and Wallace Stroby’s Crissa Stone.

Here’s the pitch from the 280 Steps website:

‘Gary Chance is a former Australian army driver, ex-bouncer and thief. His latest job sees him in Queensland working for Dennis Curry, an aging Surfers Paradise standover man. Curry runs off-site, non-casino poker games, and wants to rob one of his best customers, a high roller called Frederick ‘Freddie’ Gao.

While the job may seem straightforward, Curry’s crew is anything but. Frank Dormer is a secretive former Australian soldier turned private security contractor. Sophia Lekakis is a highly-strung receptionist at the hotel where Gao stays when he visits Surfers. Amber is Curry’s attractive female housemate and part of the lure for Gao. Chance knows he can’t trust anyone, but nothing prepares him for what unfolds when Curry’s plan goes wrong.’

For those of you who do such things, review copies of Gunshine State are available from the Edelweiss site here.… Read more

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Posted in Australian noir, David Whish-Wilson, Garry Disher, Gunshine State, Leigh Redhead, Wallace Stroby

Tagged Alex Hammond, Andrew Grant, David Whish-Wilson, Emma Viskic, Garry Disher, Gunshine State, heist fiction, Leigh Redhead, Timothy Hallinan, Wallace Stroby

Interview: New Jersey crime writer, Wallace Stroby

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Wallace Stroby was an award-winning journalist who quit his job as an editor at New Jersey’s Star-Ledger of Newark newspaper, to write crime fiction full time. A life long New Jersey native, he is the author of six books, of which his debut, The Barb Wire Kiss, was a finalist for the 2004 Barry Award for best first novel. His last three books, Cold Shot to the Heart, Kings of Midnight, Shoot the Woman First, feature the female professional criminal character, Crissa Stone. This is an edited version of an interview, which I conducted at Noir Con 2014 in Philadelphia, that originally appeared in issue 17 of Crime Factory. His latest Crissa Stone book The Devil’s Share, is out now.

Let’s start of with your recent books featuring the character of Crissa Stone. What was the inspiration behind writing these?

I always wanted to write a book from the point of a view of a career criminal. In my third novel, Gone ‘Til November, half of the book was from the point of view of an ageing black hit man but the main character was actually a woman, the only female sheriff’s deputy in a small town, a woman in a man’s world and I liked that idea. So coming off Gone ‘Til November I wanted to combine those two and do a story about a career criminal who was a woman in a man’s world.… Read more

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Posted in Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Garry Disher, Interviews, Neo Noir, Noir fiction, Parker, Pulp fiction, True crime, Wallace Stroby

Tagged Clean Break, Cold Shot to the Heart, Crissa Stone, Dan J Marlowe, Dan J Marlowe book called The Name of the Game is Death, Dennis Lehane, Gerald Petievich, Gone ‘Til November, Goodfellas (1990), James Ellroy, James Lee Burke, John D MacDonald, Kings of Midnight, Knox Burger, Lauran Lippman, Lawrence Block, Lionel White, Malcolm Braly, Max Allan Collins, Parker, Peter Rabe, Shake Him Till He Rattles, Shoot the Woman First, Sopranos, The Barb Wire Kiss, The Devil’s Share, The Hot Rock (1972), The Killing (1956), To Live and Die in LA (1985), Wallace Stroby, was a finalist for the 2004 Barry Award for best first novel. His last three books

Pulp Friday: The Name of the Game is Death

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 11 Comments

Today’s Pulp Friday offering will be familiar to fans of hardboiled crime fiction, the 1972 edition of The Name of the Game Is Death, by Dan J Marlowe, published by Fawcett Gold Medal.

Although Marlowe is not well known today, aficionados acknowledge he had a major impact on the genre. His books are often compared to Jim Thompson and he influenced writers such as Steven King, and no doubt many others.

I first heard of The Name of the Game is Death during an interview I conducted last year with New Jersey-based Wallace Stroby for issue 17 of Crime Factory (that interview is available in full here). I asked Stroby about some of the lesser-known sixties pulp paperback crime writers who had influenced him, and he nominated Marlowe and, in particular, this book.

Originally published in 1962, The Name of the Game Is Death begins with three criminals pulling a bank heist in Phoenix, Arizona. One of the team is killed in the attempted getaway, another flees to Florida with the money, while the third, the narrator, plans to meet up with him later when police attention has died down. When the accomplice breaks contact, the narrator suspects something is up and travels to the small town from which the accomplice last contacted him, to see for himself what has happened.… Read more

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Posted in Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers, Wallace Stroby

Tagged Al Nussbaum, Dan J Marlowe, Fawcett Gold Medal, Parker, The Name of the Game Is Death, Wallace Stroby

My top fiction and non-fiction reads of 2014

Posted on December 15, 2014 by Andrew Nette| 7 Comments

Time for me to present Pulp Curry readers with the list of my best reads for 2014. As is customary, I will start off by admitting, yet again, I feel I have not read nearly as much as I should have. My reading this year has been dominated by books for work, including material for freelance articles and the various literary festival panels I’ve been involved in. A considerable amount of my attention has also been directed to reading related to the non-fiction book I have been co-editing, Beat Girls, Love Tribes and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950-1980, which is scheduled to be published in October 2015.

With all that said, here’s the top ten books I read in 2014. I’ve split my list in two this year – fiction and non-fiction.

My top fiction reads are as follows:

Escape Dominique Manotti

I have long been interested in the political history in Italy in the seventies and eighties, the so-called ‘years of lead’, when left wing paramilitary groups and right wing extremists in the military and police were locked in a shadowy, violent conflict. Dominique Manotti’s Escape is set in the late eighties and deals with the aftermath of that conflict. Filippo is a common street hood that shares a prison cell with Carlos, a charismatic former Red Brigade member.… Read more

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Posted in Crime fiction, Eurocrime, Fawcett Gold Medal Books, Megan Abbott, Neo Noir, Noir fiction, Rural noir, True crime, Wallace Stroby

Tagged Any Cold Jordon, Dark Passage (1947), David Bottoms, Dominique Manotti, Escape, Eva Dolan, Goodis: A Life in Black and White, Jacks and Jokers, Joe Haldeman, Kings Cross: A Biography, Long Way Home, Louis Nowra, Malcolm Braly, Matthew Condon, Megan Abbott, Philippe Garnier, Shake Him Till He Rattles, Stephen Volk, The Fever, The Forever War, Whistable

Category Archives: Wallace Stroby

Dishing up Pulp Curry in a new way: why I am starting a Substack newsletter

Advance orders (& advance praise) for Gunshine State

Pulp Friday: The Name of the Game is Death

My top fiction and non-fiction reads of 2014

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