When asked to find comps, I say Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt series has a certain hipster noir, snarky edge that relates to our style, especially The Infinite Blacktop and The Bohemian Highway. It’s the eccentric characters living on the edges of society, Oakland and California, the black humor, and the bursts of philosophy (or is it pop psychology?) that relate.
Hipster Noir
Hipster noir might just be our genre. The 2019 film, The Burnt Orange Heresy, based on the 1971 novel by Charles Willeford, shows the esoteric edges of a ruthless art world. Neo-Noir or Hipster Noir — our kind of stuff. Bonus, Mick Jagger plays a collector offering a Faustian bargain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PMAlfrdQNI
True Colors
Very excited about the upcoming publication of short story, True Colors, in the anthology The Fish that Got Away. Tru gets involved when a street art portrait of a missing teen snags his attention.
The Fish that Got Away! Anthology 2021
We are very excited to have received the news that another short story of ours has been accepted in the forthcoming Guppies Anthology, The Fish that Got Away. The Guppies (the Great Unpublished) are a sub-group of the national organization, Sisters in Crime. The Guppies are amazing, one of the most supportive organizations for emerging crime writers out there. We are grateful and honored to be included in the book. True Colors, a story featuring artist-sleuth Tru James, is slated to be published in The Fish that Got Away in spring of 2021.
The Painted Lady
We’re honing our last draft of our novel (working title) THE PAINTED LADY. Almost time to send it out to agents with fingers crosses. logline: When Tru agrees to search for a stolen priceless painting, he never dreamed it would be a crash course in the art of murder.
C.M. West
In the tradition of classic crime fiction writers, we use a pen name, C.M. West.
For example, Ellery Queen is a crime fiction pseudonym by Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington Lee, from 1929. Incidentally, those authors names are also penned and not their real names. Together as author Ellery Queen, they wrote novels and short stories involving a brilliant amateur detective, also named Ellery Queen.
True Culprit in Faultlines is published!
Writing as C.M. West, you can find our short story True Culprit in this fine anthology with other great stories by Northern California Crime Writers.
Now available in print and kindle on Amazon!
California Crime Writers Con
See you at Conference in Culver City June 7-9
Fault Lines will be on sale here.
Sisters in Crime Nor-cal Anthology
Such a great prompt, FAULTLINES. We wrote two stories about Tru. Fingers crossed. If you are a member of the Nor-Cal chapter you can submit a short story for consideration of inclusion in the upcoming anthology. Deadline April 1, no joke!
C.M.West partners in crime fiction 