New from Down & Out Books …
HAPPINESS IS A WARM GUN edited by Josh Pachter
Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles
Publication Date: October 16, 2023
Buy the trade paperback from the Down & Out Bookstore and receive a FREE digital download of the book!
Also available from the following retailers …
Print: Amazon — Amazon UK — Barnes & Noble — IndieBound
eBook: Kindle — Kindle UK — Nook — iTunes — Kobo — Play
Synopsis … Happiness Is a Warm Gun is the sixth of Josh Pachter’s “inspired by” anthologies, following volumes of stories inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Buffett, Billy Joel, and Paul Simon…and by the films of the Marx Brothers.
For this collection, the lyrics of the Beatles’ inspired the contributing authors to imagine a world in which murder, kidnapping, blackmail, and theft are as common as meter maids and yellow submarines. Each story was inspired by a song from one of the Fab Four’s studio albums: seventeen albums, seventeen songs, seventeen stories—by a total of eighteen authors (since one was written collaboratively by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, two of crime fiction’s leading bloggers).
Many of the contributors, like the Beatles themselves, come from England—including award winners Martin Edwards, Paul Charles, Vaseem Khan, Christine Poulson, Marilyn Todd, Kate Ellis, and Tom Mead—while the American authors include such popular crime writers as John Copenhaver, Michael Bracken, John M. Floyd, David Dean, Joseph S. Walker, and Robert Lopresti.
So roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour—step right this way! After all, when it comes to crime, all you need is…motive, means, and opportunity!