Will Viharo

THE VIC VALENTINE CLASSIC CASE FILES collects for the first time in a single definitive edition the four novels between Love Stories Are Too Violent For Me and Hard-boiled Heart, all written in the mid-1990s, published by the author himself in 2011, and now available in this official anthology: Fate Is My Pimp, Romance Takes a Rain Check, I Lost My Heart in Hollywood, and Diary of a Dick, plus a new short story, "Brain Mistrust." From an Elvis-themed sex cult involving a missing Mob brat, to a sordid rendezvous with a homicidal high school sweetheart, to a real live B movie road trip, to a series of lusty liaisons with the wild women of the detective's promiscuous past, there are no experiences or encounters like these anywhere in genre fiction, all related to the reader in our hapless hero's intrepid, introspective, shamelessly self-centered voice. Welcome to the wild, wondrous, wacky and woeful world of Vic Valentine, Private Eye. Praise for the Vic Valentine series: "Valentine, with his bottom-feeding clientele and penchant for exploring the underworld's weirdest fringes, is like a West Coast cousin to the late, great Charles Willeford's serial detective Hoke Mosely (Miami Blues). As always, Viharo's pulp fiction prose rockets the reader through Valentine's adventures and as the pages turn, the author's encyclopedic knowledge and adoration of pop culture's kitschiest corners elicits gut-bursts of laughter." -Pete Crooks, author of The Setup: A True Story of Dirty Cops, Soccer Moms, and Reality TV "Will Viharo writes not just neo-noir but neon noir, his Vic Valentine novels brilliant paeans to Chandler, Hammett, and other aspects of pop culture that Viharo clearly loves, from old B-movies to Frank Sinatra. But his roots are only a backdrop for Viharo's modernization of the detective genre. Vic Valentine is a detective who falls hard for his dreams, knowing full well that he shouldn't. For Valentine it seems that the greatest defeat would be to give in to the idea that he cannot win. In Will Viharo's fast paced, witty and wise Vic Valentine novels, there is always hope, however hardboiled it may be."-Rob Pierce, author of Uncle Dust and The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet

Fate Is My Pimp/Romance Takes a Rain Check/I Lost My Heart in Hollywood/Diary of a Dick

The Vic Valentine Classic Case Files

FATE IS MY PIMP picks up the torrid trail of Vic Valentine, Private Eye as he traverses the mean streets of San Francisco and beyond in search of a mobster's missing teenage daughter, encountering various voluptuous vixens, a female surf band, and a stalker leaving him mysterious musical messages, all while infiltrating an Elvis-theme commune for runaways, led by a deviously decadent Deacon Rivers. Follow the further misadventures of this misguided misfit introduced in LOVE STORIES ARE TOO VIOLENT FOR ME as he continues looking for love in all the wrong places, and unfortunately for him - finding it. Plus! ROMANCE TAKES A RAIN CHECK finds Vic back on the East Coast, tracking down a lead on his cop father's killer, visiting his mother in an asylum, and reuniting with his high school sweetheart, Dolly Duncan, now married to a doper dentist. Nothing is what it seems, times and people have changed, and Vic is going to learn the hard way - again - that some bones, and boners, are best left buried.

Fate Is My Pimp/Romance Takes a Rain Check

Steve Brewer

Jessica McHugh

David James Keaton

Brent Nichols

Sarah L. Johnson

Coffin Hop Press

Scott S. Phillips

Laurie Zottmann

It's A Weird Winter Wonderland

"Down A Dark Alley" is a torrid tale exploding with raw romance, savage sex, voluptuous violence, mirthful mayhem and delirious decadence as a sorry sap takes a breathless cross-country walk on the wild side with a ferocious femme fatale, desperately trying to escape a chaotic past and facing an uncertain future. This is hard-boiled but heartfelt neo-pulp fiction for fearless dreamers.

Down a Dark Alley

A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge is a lushly lurid, exotically exploitative, sensationally sensual pulp-noir potpourri where star-crossed lovers, sea sirens, monster men, gangsters, porno filmmakers, jazz standards, and an Elvis-spawned zombie apocalypse all intermingle across several parallel dimensions in time and space. This story is unlike anything you've ever read.

A Mermaid Drowns in the Midnight Lounge

Gary Phillips

Joe Clifford

Sean Lynch

Sarah M. Chen

Nick Kolakowski

Eric Beetner

Alec Cizak

Paul D. Brazill

Scott Adlerberg

Jen Conley

Patricia Abbott

Eryk Pruitt

Anonymous-9

Chris Rhatigan

Ron Earl Phillips

Preston Lang

Rob Pierce

Sean Craven

S.W. Lauden

Renee Asher Pickup

Todd Morr

Travis Richardson

Greg Barth

C. Mack Lewis

Deadlines is a tribute anthology dedicated to the memory of writer and crime fiction enthusiast, William E. Wallace. A career journalist, Wallace got a first-hand look at the darker side of humanity working at various papers in California before settling at the San Francisco Chronicle. Upon retiring, Wallace engaged fully into the crime fiction community connecting with writers and readers not only to promote his own writing, but to promote other writers he enjoyed. It is through William E. Wallace’s career and his stories that the contributors to this anthology take inspiration. These stories are presented with appreciation to his unselfish contribution to our community and our publications. All proceeds of this publication will be donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in the name of William E. Wallace. Learn more about the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund at cbldf.org. And read William E. Wallace’s blog at PulpHackConfessions.com. Thank you to those who contributed their time and stories: Preston Lang, Jen Conley, Joe Clifford, Will Viharo, Paul D. Brazill, Patricia Abbott, Rob Pierce, Sean Craven, Eric Beetner, Sarah M. Chen, Nick Kolakowski, S.W. Lauden, Scott Adlerberg, Gary Phillips, Renee Asher Pickup, Eryk Pruitt, Todd Morr, Travis Richardson, Anonymous-9, Sean Lynch, Alec Cizak, Greg Barth, C. Mack Lewis. A joint publication of Shotgun Honey and All Due Respect.

Deadlines: A Tribute to William E. Wallace

SEX AND DEATH. The visceral impact of these simple words never fails to elicit a strong response in all peoples across every society and culture. Together these inevitable experiences constitute the core of the human condition, the essence of our shared existence, and yet they create conflict, chaos and confusion amongst us. The inherent fear and ignorance of our own corporeal realities results in religious oppression, tribalistic warfare, political scandal, corporate exploitation, and artistic censorship. Not here.These titillating tales of erotic, existential terror are cinematic fever dreams in literary form, individually and collectively conveying the delirious desire that overwhelms our senses and the deep dread that undermines our spirits when confronted with the seemingly contradictory but essentially complementary twin fates of mating and mortality. There is only one entrance and one exit in this brief, beautiful, horrific cycle of precious, ephemeral Flesh. Welcome to the uniquely stylized, conceptually uncompromising world of VIHORROR.

VIHORROR! Cocktales of Sex and Death

Will Viharo

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