In the Dark Yonder

My short story, TOOTH, appears in the new issue of Dark Yonder magazine.

It's the first new work I've published since TROUBLE TOWN, nearly three years ago. Part of that hiatus was an intentional break, part of it was the demands of family and medical stuff and getting older. I think of myself as retired these days, but I got this story in my head and it wouldn't leave me alone.

TOOTH is the tale of a collections agent, a man who works with his fists, when he must choose between his boss' smart-mouth son and his dentist. And we all know how hard it can be to find a good dentist!

It's part of a stellar lineup in Dark Yonder Issue 6. Check it out here!

Happy birthday, Bubba!

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of LONELY STREET, the first novel starring bumbling Albuquerque private eye Bubba Mabry.

LONELY STREET was my first published book, and it remains my best-seller over the years. It was initially published in 1994 as a mass-market paperback by Pocket Books. Thanks to small presses and the advent of easy self-publishing, I've kept it in print one way or the other since.

In 2008, LONELY STREET was made into a Hollywood comedy starring Jay Mohr, Robert Patrick and Joe Mantegna. I spent a couple of days on the set while they were shooting the movie, and the whole experience was a lot of fun.

Bubba Mabry has been featured in 10 of my books over the years and we consider him family now. 

I'm up to 34 published books now, but I (and this blog) have been on hiatus for the past few years. I recently wrote a short story and got it accepted by a magazine, so I'm still writing, but I'm enjoying semi-retirement, too. The family bookstore, Organic Books, keeps us busy, and there's always so much reading to do!

Body of work

Back in February, when I announced there would be a 10th Bubba Mabry book, I posted on this blog a list of the previous Bubba tales, in order. Now that the new one, TROUBLE TOWN, is only 10 days away, I thought it might be useful to post a list of all my published work.

It's quite a list. I've been publishing crime fiction since 1994. A lot of the titles are standalone "books about crooks," but there's also the Bubba series and a couple of other characters who went two books each. The list also includes the short stories I've published.

Where the publisher is listed as "Amazon," that mostly means I published it myself. At our house, book publishing has become a cottage industry -- I write'em, my wife Kelly helps me with editing and cover art, and we sell them at our Albuquerque bookstore, Organic Books, as well as the usual places online.

So here's the list. I'm not going to link to every one of these, but they're all available in paperback and/or Kindle. You completists out there might want to bookmark this post. ;-) 

BY STEVE BREWER 

"Lonely Street," 1994, Pocket Books 

"Baby Face," 1995, Pocket Books 

"Witchy Woman," 1996, St. Martin's Press 

"Shaky Ground," 1997, St. Martin's Press 

"Dirty Pool," 1999, St. Martin's Press 

"End Run," 2000, Intrigue Press 

"Crazy Love," 2001, Intrigue Press 

"Cheap Shot," 2002, Intrigue Press 

"Trophy Husband," 2003, University of New Mexico Press 

"Bullets," 2003, Intrigue Press 

"Fool's Paradise," 2003, UNM Press 

"Boost," 2004, Speck Press 

"Sanity Clause," a novella, in "The Last Noel," 2004, Worldwide

"Bank Job," 2005, Intrigue Press 

"Whipsaw," 2006, Intrigue Press 

"Monkey Man," 2006, Intrigue Press 

"Payoff," a short story in "Damn Near Dead," 2006, Busted Flush Press 

"Cutthroat," 2007, Bleak House 

"Limbo," a short story in the Mystery Writers of America anthology "Crimes by Moonlight," 2010, Berkley 

"Firepower," 2010, Amazon 

"1500 Rules for Successful Living," 2011, Amazon 

"Calabama," 2011, Amazon 

"The Big Wink," 2011, Amazon 

"Lost Vegas," 2011, Amazon 

"Surf City," a short story in "West Coast Crime Wave," 2011, Amazon 

"Party Doll," a novella, 2012, Amazon 

"A Box of Pandoras," 2012, Amazon 

"Showdown," a short story, 2012, Amazon 

"Found Money," a short story, 2012, Amazon 

"Yvonne's Gone," a short story, 2012, Amazon 

"Cemetery Plot," a short story, 2013, Amazon (reprinted in the 2019 anthology “Knucklehead Noir,” Coffin Hop Press) 

"Shotgun Boogie," 2016, Amazon 

"Homesick Blues," 2016, Amazon 

"Side Eye," 2017, Amazon 

"Up the Chimney," a short story in "It's a Weird Winter Wonderland," 2017, Coffin Hop Press 

"Cold Cuts," 2018, Amazon 

"Babbling Brook," a short story in “Trouble & Strife,” 2019, Down and Out Books

"Black Friday," a short story in “A Beast Without A Name,” 2019, Down and Out Books 

"Upshot," 2020, Amazon 

“Rules for Successful Living,” 2020, Amazon

 

Writing as MAX AUSTIN:

"Duke City Split," 2014, Alibi 

"Duke City Hit," 2014, Alibi 

"Duke City Desperado," 2015, Alibi 

 

Happy reading!

Sneak peek at the new Bubba book

Boy, it's been a long time since I last posted on this blog. Partly, that's because I was busy writing a new crime novel.

Now, I'm pleased to announce that my 34th published book will be out next month. It's called TROUBLE TOWN, and it's the 10th outing for my bumbling Albuquerque private eye Bubba Mabry.

I hadn't written about Bubba since 2012's PARTY DOLL and I thought I was probably done with him. But I got an idea earlier this year, while republishing some of Bubba's early adventures, and that idea eventually became TROUBLE TOWN.

In the new novel, Bubba is hired as a security guard for a private poker game. After the game is robbed, a local racketeer demands that Bubba recover the stolen valuables. Naturally, since this is Bubba, things soon spiral out of control. 

I set the book in 2012 because I didn't want to deal with the craziness of the pandemic or recent politics. The only time you'll find the word "trump" in the book is as a verb.

I really like the cover art, which features downtown Albuquerque's two pointed skyscrapers. The shorter of the two is the Hyatt, which is scheduled to host Left Coast Crime next April.

We're looking forward to Left Coast Crime because it gives us a chance to show off the family bookstore, Organic Books. The bookstore is thriving and it's become a popular destination in historic Nob Hill. I hope all my mystery conference pals will visit the store when they're in town.

Happy reading to you all!

Bubba's back!

Thanks to ebooks and self-publishing, I've kept all my 33 books available in one form or another, but some editions have become increasingly hard to find. So it was with the first two Bubba Mabry books, which had finally slipped out of print.

Those novels, LONELY STREET (1994) and BABY FACE (1995), were my first published books. Pocket Books brought them out as mass-market paperbacks. Years later, the books were reprinted by Intrigue Press. Later still, LONELY STREET was made into a Hollywood movie starring Jay Mohr, Robert Patrick and Joe Mantegna.

Now, the books are freshly available in new trade paperback editions with stellar new covers. You can find them here and here. And, of course, we have them at Organic Books, our two-year-old family bookstore in Albuquerque's historic Nob Hill neighborhood.

Publishing the new editions required me to re-read them, and that got me thinking again about Bubba Mabry, my bumbling private eye. It's been nine years since I last wrote about Bubba, in the novella PARTY DOLL, and frankly I thought I was done with him. But a new idea has been nibbling at me, so there might be another Bubba novel in the future. If so, it would be the 10th in the series.

Here are the Bubba books, in order:

LONELY STREET

BABY FACE

WITCHY WOMAN

SHAKY GROUND

DIRTY POOL

CRAZY LOVE

SANITY CLAUSE (novella)

MONKEY MAN

PARTY DOLL (novella)

In recent years, I've mostly written standalone crime novels rather than a series character like Bubba. The latest was the heist novel UPSHOT, which came out early last year.

I did some publishing work during 2020, but I took off from writing. Too many distractions during the worst of the pandemic, and I needed to pour my energies into our bookstore. Organic Books is doing better than ever now, and I feel my attention slipping back toward fiction. We'll see how it goes.

Hope you and yours are healthy and safe and finding lots of wonderful books to read.