Can you tell us a little bit about your latest book? When did it come out? Where can we get it?
WOLFMAN
CONFIDENTIAL is the third in the City of Devils
series, which are quirky noir tales about the last human detective in a version
of 1955 Los Angeles where monsters are in charge. The lawyers are literal
vampires, the cops are werewolves, the crawling eyes run the studios, all the
way down to the zombies who are menial laborers. In the series, I play with
tropes of both noir and monster movies, while telling a story about my
hometown. It will be released on Halloween, and will be available on Amazon and
a few other online retailers.
In the meantime, the first two books
in the series, CITY OF DEVILS and FIFTY FEET OF TROUBLE are available, and
I have a wealth of free short stories set in the universe on my website.
Great!
Is there anything else which prompted the series? Something that inspired you?
Is there anything else which prompted the series? Something that inspired you?
Every book in the series has
generally revolved around a single case. The first book was about a missing
mummy, the second about a lost toad (and witch's familiar). The third book,
though it begins with the LAPD forcing our reluctant hero into working for
them, it rapidly becomes about the time between his cases. He's still in over
his head, just this time he isn't being paid. Nothing specific inspired me, I'm
just in love with this world and would happily write in it for as long as I
can.
Awesome!
Let me ask a different question...
When did you know you wanted to write? Or has it always been a pastime of yours?
I've been doing it forever, so yeah,
I always knew.
I know what you mean!
Do you have any favorite authors yourself, Justin?
The usual suspects: Chandler and Hammett. Some of Ellroy's stuff is amazing, and I'm a huge fan of Mosley's Easy Rawlins series (to which City of Devils owes a debt). I love Larry Doyle, Douglas Adams, and of course Terry Pratchett.
Do you write in a specific place? Time of day?
I write when my daughter naps. She's
napping right now!
All right.
Are there any words you'd like to impart to fellow writers? Any advice?
Write what you love. Enthusiasm is infectious, and readers
can tell.
Such good advice!
Thank you so much for stopping by to visit us here today at Writing in the Modern Age. It was wonderful having you! :)
Readers, here are the blurbs for the City of Devils Series.
CITY OF DEVILS
World War II was only the beginning. When the Night War ravages America,
turning it into a country of monsters, humans become a downtrodden minority.
Nick Moss is the only human private eye in town, and he’s on the trail of a
missing city councilor. With monsters trying to turn him – or, better yet,
simply kill him – he’s got to watch his back while trying to find his man. Or
mummy, as the case may be.
Once, it was the City of Angels. But now, Los Angeles is the City of Devils…and Nick has a devil of a job to do.
Once, it was the City of Angels. But now, Los Angeles is the City of Devils…and Nick has a devil of a job to do.
Purchase Link:
Universal Reader Link: https://books2read.com/u/4AYyAA
FIFTY FEET OF TROUBLE
Being a private investigator ain't all it's cracked up to be—especially when you spend most of your time looking for missing kids and trying not to get turned into something that goes bump in the night instead of making time with femme fatales. But hey, it's a living. And there's never a shortage of work for the last human detective in a city of monsters. Right now, Nick Moss has three cases: tracking a missing girl, a young woman, and a toad, not necessarily in that order. The deeper he gets, the more troubling connections he finds—to his past, to some of the most dangerous monsters in the city, and to places he hoped he'd never have to go.
All Nick knows for certain is that he's in trouble. Fifty feet of it.
Purchase Link:
Universal Reader Link: https://books2read.com/u/m2vjq6
WOLFMAN CONFIDENTIAL
When the Night War ravages the world, turning it into a universe of pulp monsters, humans become a downtrodden minority. Nick Moss, the last human private eye in LA, is searching for a shadowy monster slayer, for an invisible man with dangerous info who, well, vanished…and for a killer of talented human beauties—while trying to avoid being turned or killed outright by powerful monsters, some of whom are his employers or their lieutenants.
But Nick’s uneasy past further complicates matters, as he discovers that almost nothing remains confidential in the City of Devils.
Universal Reader Link: https://books2read.com/u/mVB5DM
Here is an excerpt from one of the books.
I went for the mushrooms. I don’t
know what that says about me, if anything. I went for a way to scare them off
rather than the dagger that would end them. Didn’t matter one way or the other.
I was fast, but I had been woolgathering and there were three of them.
Flux was on me first, planting a fist right in my crotch. I dropped to my knees and Sawbones cracked me in the eye with a left. His hands were small enough that his knuckle made a nice home in my eye socket. My vision went white and blue and purple, the agony hot.
“Quick, get him up!” Murk huffed. “Uh...make up...what rhymes with...”
“The rhymes elude your flabby mind, the meatstick’s hands you’d better bind,” Flux said.
“Oh. Yeah. Of course, Flux.”
I felt my hands being yanked behind my back and rope burning into my wrists. Sawbones yelped.
The cursed mushrooms in his coat
Cold iron ‘neath his arm
Though temptation calls to gloat
With these he does us harm
Mind his weapons cruel
And his gambits devious
Bound, he fights no duel
While we hold to plans previous
Murk and Flux hauled me to my feet, one goblin under each armpit. Murk drew the short straw as he had his whole life and got the side with the dagger. He yipped periodically as it touched his skin. It would hiss, sending up smoke from his flesh. The mushrooms were in a pocket in a vial in my jacket, and they didn’t have to look at them. I was helpless. Sawbones put another couple hits into my stomach, but I couldn’t feel a whole lot over the pain in my eye and family jewels.
With Sawbones in the front, they carried me back into the Nocturnist. I wanted to call for Mickey and the fellas, but I didn’t have breath or voice to do it with. They might as well have been in Arizona for all the good they did me. None of them even looked in my direction; they were too involved in the fantasy of divvying up the city.
The goblins kicked in the kitchen door and I got a glimpse of that witch who’d helped me earlier. She gasped as we went by, but she didn’t stop us, and the goblins didn’t acknowledge her. They opened the back door with my face and hurled me down the few concrete steps into the alleyway. I hit the far wall and before I could do anything, I felt a fist, tiny and hard like a ball peen hammer, smack right into my liver.
The hit felt like a hand squeezing a sponge full of agony into my body and I dropped to the ground. My knees smacked into the asphalt, but I barely noticed that whisper of pain, not over the shrieking green flames now chasing one another through my entire form. I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, because Murk threw a knee into my face that toppled me to the floor of the alley. The back of my head hit the filthy surface, and the whole world went swimming.
I stopped counting the hits. I knew they kept coming, though. Fists, feet, maybe a pipe. I wasn’t too sure. When I got a little bit of control, I pulled burning arms up to shield my head. It was pointless. This was going to happen until they got bored and Sawbones gave me the Emperor Nero treatment. It was a shame I wouldn’t be around to find out which poor human they decided to pin my murder on. Or maybe they’d rule it suicide. Mr. Moss self-combusted, the coroner’d say, and everyone would stand around nodding and agreeing that was the most reasonable verdict.
The goblins were rhyming up a storm the whole time, but I didn’t hear them too well. Pain can be loud, too. Or maybe that was just panicked blood in my ears, waiting for the flash of orange that meant I was going out for good. So I didn’t notice precisely when the rhyming got confused.
Just that they had stopped kicking me. There was no new pain to be had. A greenish shape had thrown one of them against a wall and bounced another off the ground. I heard cracking sounds like old sticks being snapped in half. And a whole sack of cats hissing angrily.
That looked good to me. A nice dream to go out on. I closed my eyes and fell into the black.
Flux was on me first, planting a fist right in my crotch. I dropped to my knees and Sawbones cracked me in the eye with a left. His hands were small enough that his knuckle made a nice home in my eye socket. My vision went white and blue and purple, the agony hot.
“Quick, get him up!” Murk huffed. “Uh...make up...what rhymes with...”
“The rhymes elude your flabby mind, the meatstick’s hands you’d better bind,” Flux said.
“Oh. Yeah. Of course, Flux.”
I felt my hands being yanked behind my back and rope burning into my wrists. Sawbones yelped.
The cursed mushrooms in his coat
Cold iron ‘neath his arm
Though temptation calls to gloat
With these he does us harm
Mind his weapons cruel
And his gambits devious
Bound, he fights no duel
While we hold to plans previous
Murk and Flux hauled me to my feet, one goblin under each armpit. Murk drew the short straw as he had his whole life and got the side with the dagger. He yipped periodically as it touched his skin. It would hiss, sending up smoke from his flesh. The mushrooms were in a pocket in a vial in my jacket, and they didn’t have to look at them. I was helpless. Sawbones put another couple hits into my stomach, but I couldn’t feel a whole lot over the pain in my eye and family jewels.
With Sawbones in the front, they carried me back into the Nocturnist. I wanted to call for Mickey and the fellas, but I didn’t have breath or voice to do it with. They might as well have been in Arizona for all the good they did me. None of them even looked in my direction; they were too involved in the fantasy of divvying up the city.
The goblins kicked in the kitchen door and I got a glimpse of that witch who’d helped me earlier. She gasped as we went by, but she didn’t stop us, and the goblins didn’t acknowledge her. They opened the back door with my face and hurled me down the few concrete steps into the alleyway. I hit the far wall and before I could do anything, I felt a fist, tiny and hard like a ball peen hammer, smack right into my liver.
The hit felt like a hand squeezing a sponge full of agony into my body and I dropped to the ground. My knees smacked into the asphalt, but I barely noticed that whisper of pain, not over the shrieking green flames now chasing one another through my entire form. I didn’t get much of a chance to think about it, because Murk threw a knee into my face that toppled me to the floor of the alley. The back of my head hit the filthy surface, and the whole world went swimming.
I stopped counting the hits. I knew they kept coming, though. Fists, feet, maybe a pipe. I wasn’t too sure. When I got a little bit of control, I pulled burning arms up to shield my head. It was pointless. This was going to happen until they got bored and Sawbones gave me the Emperor Nero treatment. It was a shame I wouldn’t be around to find out which poor human they decided to pin my murder on. Or maybe they’d rule it suicide. Mr. Moss self-combusted, the coroner’d say, and everyone would stand around nodding and agreeing that was the most reasonable verdict.
The goblins were rhyming up a storm the whole time, but I didn’t hear them too well. Pain can be loud, too. Or maybe that was just panicked blood in my ears, waiting for the flash of orange that meant I was going out for good. So I didn’t notice precisely when the rhyming got confused.
Just that they had stopped kicking me. There was no new pain to be had. A greenish shape had thrown one of them against a wall and bounced another off the ground. I heard cracking sounds like old sticks being snapped in half. And a whole sack of cats hissing angrily.
That looked good to me. A nice dream to go out on. I closed my eyes and fell into the black.
Riveting! What else are people saying about the City of Devils Series?
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
“A great twist on a P.I. book. ” - RW Reader, Amazon
"" - Gayle K. Young, Amazon
“” - Jeremy Blitz, Amazon
Add them to your Goodreads bookshelf, readers!
These books certainly sound like intriguing reads! We'll be sure to check out this noir monster mystery series!
Don't miss books one and two...
before Wolfman Confidential releases soon! Get it on pre-order for Halloween!
Author Bio
© Leora
Saul
Much like film noir, Justin Robinson was born and raised in Los Angeles. He
splits his time between editing comic books, writing prose, and wondering what
that disgusting smell is. Degrees in Anthropology and History prepared him for
unemployment, but an obsession with horror fiction and a laundry list of
phobias provided a more attractive option. He is the author of more than 10
novels in a variety of genres including detective, humor, urban fantasy, and
horror. Most of them are pretty good.
Justin is the co-host of Tread Perilously, a weekly
"worst of television” podcast (featured on Fanbase Press).
He and his wife Lauri Veverka started Captain Supermarket Press in 2013 when
they published Coldheart, the first book in the League of Magi series.
Justin and his family reside in Los Angeles with too many cats and extensive
book, comic, and DVD collections.
Author Links:
Blog/Website: https://www.captainsupermarket.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weirdnoirmasterBlog/Website: https://www.captainsupermarket.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/weirdnoirmaster
Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Justin-Robinson/e/B008HTMYIC/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5831306.Justin_Robinson
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weirdnoirmaster/
Justin's Books:
Coming Soon:
Available Now:
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