Lenny Bartulin

New Jack Susko Mystery DE LUXE out in August!

2011-04-22T15:15:00.000-07:00

The hard work is almost done...and here's a sneak preview of the new novel DE LUXE due out in Australia on the 1st of August, 2011...

For once, Jack Susko is feeling pretty good: his second-hand bookshop is on the up, he has cash in his wallet that he doesn’t owe anybody, and the cops haven’t been around in ages. Even his cat, Lois, is being nice to him.

Then one morning a beautiful woman knocks on his door and hands him an eviction notice. His former boss, the corrupt property developer Ziggy Brandt, asks for Jack’s help in a particular situation and won’t take no for an answer. Throw in an ex-lover, her jealous boyfriend, half-a-dozen Playboy bunnies, a Nazi Luger and, of course, the cops, and it’s safe to say that Jack’s favourable winds are quickly turning a little rough.

Maybe it was something from a past life? Or was God just bored and thought she’d pick on Jack Susko? One of these days, he’s going to have to ask somebody …

Publisher: Scribe
Format: Pb
Extent: 272pp
Size: 198mm x 128mm
ISBN (13): 9781921844157
RRP: $24.95
Pub date: August 2011

THE BLACK RUSSIAN shortlisted for Best Novel in the Ned Kelly Awards 2010

2010-08-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

Well, nothing like great news to put you in a great mood. Along with Michael Robotham's Bleed For Me and Garry Disher's Wyatt, my second novel, The Black Russian, has also been called to wonderful account. Many thanks to the Crime Writers' Association of Australia...

Books I Wish I'd Written, part 2

2010-05-06T17:56:00.000-07:00

From memory it was back about two or three years, some new literary sensation from Europe, complete with a bag of prizes and a truckload of critical acclaim and enough media coverage to papier mâché the Brandenburg Gate. Lucky boy. I had to review the book and make some crap money so that I could squeeze some cash onto my credit card and buy back the time I’d spent wasting my time on the book review. On credit. And the book made me ill and for the first time in my life I didn’t want to read fiction, ever again, if reading fiction was going to be the unadulterated agony that the book in question was. I took a couple of aspirin and drank some gin and fell into a fitful sleep on the couch.

Then Donald E. Westlake came to me in a dream. I knew it was him, even though he didn’t say a word, just sat there at the end of the couch, grinning. I was a little embarrassed because I hadn’t yet read any of his books, though I’d been meaning to. But he put me at ease. There was something all-knowing about the calm look he was giving me, and the way he slowly nodded his head. Then he spoke and said: “You’re an idiot.” He left and I woke up.

The first book I got hold of was his 1969 novel SOMEBODY OWES ME MONEY. I read the first line and felt an enormous pressure lift from my head and I rejoiced.

“I bet none of it would have happened if I wasn’t so eloquent.”

Of course, I went looking for more. I found out about one of his many pen names — Richard Stark — and discovered the Parker novels. Boy. Wow. You know good when you see it. The goodness just pours into you. Then it’s like molten sunshine glowing in your chest. There’s nothing to say, just smile and feel the warmth. Hope for more. There are over twenty books in the Parker series, and I’m so happy and grateful to be healthy once again.

THE OUTFIT was the third novel in the series, published in 1963. The one I wish I’d written. Here Parker, the heist guy protagonist, gets into a tangle with the Mob. The story-telling finesse, the poise and precision of the writing, the style and the craftsmanship of the whole is enough to make you kneel down in I-am-not-worthy-Sir humbleness. I always keep a copy near to hand, in case another new literary sensation leaves me with bird flu symptoms or a nasty rash. For the love of fiction, I encourage you to do the same…

Kiss Me Deadly

2010-04-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Well, as I enter deep into the zone and am slowly consumed by the writing of the third Jack Susko mystery, my daily intake of sustenance turns completely noir. And before bed, it usually involves a movie: last night, it was KISS ME DEADLY (1955). I’m a big fan of re-reading great books and the same idea goes for films. So this was the third time I’d watched it…and the third time I’d come to the conclusion that this is quite possibly the greatest American film ever made.

The opening scene: a beautiful woman running barefoot down a road in the middle of the night. She’s panting, crying, struggling, desperate. Nobody will pull over to pick her up. Finally she stops and stands with her arms up and forces a car to swerve off the road. The guy is pissed off but gives her a lift. They’re away. And so are we.

It’s disconcerting from the start. Her panting and crying continues over the introductory credits as the car roars down the road, and I hope its not just me who thinks this, but she sounds like she’s building up to an orgasm rather than full of fear. It goes on for a while. As she calms down and the dialogue begins, we find out that she’s just escaped from “…the laughing house.” Her exchange with the driver is fragmented and strange, almost unlikely yet somehow perfect, and the guy can believe she’s a loony. A lunatic named after the poet Christina Rossetti. They are after her. And soon enough, they are after him, too.

It’s all uneasy, strange, the whole experience is surreal, and yet rooted in a post-war Los Angeles that is very real, full of low-life’s and migrants and the constant sound of traffic. 1950’s America on the move. Some destined to make the dream, some to fall off and be swept away in the wake. Mike Hammer, the guy in the car (played brilliantly by Ralph Meeker), is a hard, vain, shallow private eye who does divorce cases and likes sports cars. He ain’t going overboard, man, no way. His whole existence resonates with the cry: I’m me. Not one of the masses that flood the streets. But as the story unfolds, the realisation that he is just one of the powerless jetsam takes hold and gradually messes up his hair and skews his tie and bruises his body. The world is corrupt and full of lies, even more than he ever thought. His struggle for ‘the big score’ becomes a quest for the girl from the laughing house, murdered by them. To avenge her. To remember her. Because that’s the only way we can really be saved from obscurity and nothingness. And just maybe, some day, somebody might remember him, too…

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

(Remember by Christina Rossetti)

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-03-05T15:36:00.000-08:00

Phew... after nearly 3 weeks and more than 14,000 kilometres around the continent, I'm back. I'll start with thanks...to The Big Book Club, who selected THE BLACK RUSSIAN as their February book and then took me far and wide to meet readers and book lovers all over the country: NSW, QLD, SA and WA. Up, down, across and around. I'm extremely grateful and exhausted and exhilarated by the experience.

The Big Book Club's commitment to promoting authors, particularly to regional centres, deserves much praise. You were all terrific...thank you!

And many thanks to my Australian publisher, Scribe Publications, who also made the experience possible. What a lucky boy I have been...

The Perth Writers' Festival followed and...I'm recovering from that, too. From lots of fun, from 40 degree heat, from too much alcohol, from wonderful new friends, and from some great sessions. Ah, the life...

So now, back to the other work - writing - and getting a good bite on the next novel. And, of course, the next instalment in my "Books I Wish I'd Written" series. Back soon...

Books I Wish I'd Written, part 1

2010-01-10T20:58:00.000-08:00

I was on my way to a book launch. It was a humid late afternoon, still stinking hot. The southerly buster had cancelled. I got there early and killed some time cruising the shelves of the bookshop. The air-conditioning was bliss. As usual, I wanted to buy about a dozen books. As usual, I didn’t have any money. I had just enough to buy a copy of the book being launched and have it signed by the author (the minimum of good manners) and then to catch a bus three-quarters of the way home after I had drunk as many free wines as I could without looking like that was the only reason I was there. Anyway, before I got too depressed smelling all the nice clean new releases, I decided to take my time killing someplace else.

Not far away was a second-hand bookshop. I crossed the road. Maybe I could squeeze a two-dollar Elmore Leonard into the budget for the bus trip home? Just in case the launch was a particularly literary affair, where everybody talked about the significance of place. Or you never knew your luck: what about a battered old Cornell Woolrich, or something by W.R. Burnett? (I’ve been after High Sierra for many moons.) I went in and had a look.

The crime section was nothing but flabby airport stuff. Five bucks a kilo. I scanned it anyway, hopeful, squinting hard at the frayed and faded spines. I began with the A’s…then the B’s…the C’s…by the time I got to K my head was starting to hurt. I made it to L. Thank God. Who knows when I might have discovered him if not for the split-second decision to drag my eyes just that little further along? Who knows when my life might have been so enriched, if ever?

Ted Lewis.

All I knew before this moment was that Get Carter was a brilliant, terrific film. That it and The Third Man, plus the TV series The Professionals, were the best things to ever come out of the UK as regards film and television. So when I saw CARTER written on the spine, my memory tagged it and I reached up and tugged the slim book out. A 1971 Pan Books paperback. Michael Caine on the cover, dreary black gravel beach beneath his black leather shoes, double-barrel shotgun high in the air. Originally titled Jack’s Return Home. I opened it up and read the first line: The rain rained. I felt cooler already.

The bastards wanted ten dollars. I paid it. I went to the book launch, drank the wine and snuck out without buying the author’s book. I’d get it later. When I got home, I started to read. I kept reading until it was all finished. The next day, I started again.

Great films based on books have a tendency to be based on not very good ones. But here was a unique, rare situation: a great film based on an even greater book. I’d never heard of Ted Lewis before and now I was wondering why. Exquisite, hard, lean writing, coupled with an intense, fast-moving revenge story. Brothers and daughters and fathers, the past and the present, truth and justice and fate: it was all in there, like a Greek tragedy.

I often get asked to list my top five or top ten novels. My favourites or what I consider the best. But the most instructive list an author could ever compile would be the one listing the books he or she wished they had written. It’s a subtle difference, but I think it gets to the heart of the matter more directly. No academic considerations or articulate defences of your choices or intellectual argument. Like Keith Richards said about rock 'n roll, it should happen from the neck down. It's all about bottom end. Nobody’s watching: it’s just you and what you like. And boy oh boy, Mr Lewis, I like…

Happy New Year...off and running already...

2010-01-02T19:19:00.000-08:00

16 more days and my first novel, A Deadly Business (Scribe 2008), will be published in the USA. Re-titled DEATH BY THE BOOK (Minotaur/Thomas Dunne Books 2010), Publishers’ Weekly said: “Bartulin introduces irrepressible Sydney, Australia, used-book dealer Jack Susko in this tight hard-boiled whodunit, the first of what one hopes will be a long series.” Thank you, PW! The novel received some great reviews when it first came out in Australia and it’s encouraging to open the innings in the US on such a positive note. Hopefully, more to come…

Meanwhile, there are only 4 weeks to go before the sequel is published. THE BLACK RUSSIAN hits bookshops in Australia on the 1st of February and has already received its first review in the summer 09/10 issue of Bookseller + Publisher: “The Black Russian is Bartulin’s second novel featuring second-hand bookseller-turned-detective Jack Susko, and like its 2008 predecessor A Deadly Business, it’s an entertaining, fast-paced crime thriller…Bartulin clearly knows all the tricks of the hard-boiled trade, from the wisecracking amateur detective who’s always in over his head, to the plot twists and double-double crosses that keep you guessing right to the end. This is a fun read with lots of Sydney local colour and is highly recommended to all crime fans. FOUR STARS.” Phew…so far, so good, on the “second-novel flop” syndrome…

THE BLACK RUSSIAN has also been selected Book of the Month for February by The Big Book Club. As part of the promotion, I’ll be touring NSW, QLD, SA and WA from the 15th onwards, finishing up at the Perth Writers’ Festival at the end of the month. Specific dates and locations coming soon…

And so...welcome to my first blog post. Please stay tuned for upcoming posts on all things hard-boiled and noir...