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I’m heading to Dallas for Bouchercon! Oct 31-Nov 2 I'll be at  the Shamus Awards event, a panel, and then mostly hanging around the hotel bar.
 
At WORD Vancouver on September 29th, I’ll be moderating a True Crime panel featuring Eve Lazarus (interviewed below), Aaron Chapman, and Curt Petrovich. 

I’ll be at the Surrey International Writers Fest Oct 25-27, teaching workshops on Plot and Dialogue, and sitting on a panel with Anne Perry, Denise Mina, and Chuck Wendig.

I’ll also be moderating the “Mystery Three Ways” event Oct 26 at the Vancouver Writers Festival, featuring Sarah Leavitt, Nathan Ripley (interviewed in my last newsletter), and Iona Whishaw.
 
I wasn’t all that taken with the first season of Mindhunter…until the last couple of episodes where I feel the show really figured itself out. The second season was flat-out terrific. If you’re suffering withdrawal, like I am, John Douglas’s The Killer Across the Table is a solid read.
 
Richard Russo’s The Destiny Thief was a smart collection of essays on writing. And Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz’s The Sopranos Sessions was a great accompaniment to our rewatch.

The late Anne Rivers Siddons wrote an amazing horror novel, The House Next Door.
 
Rebecca Godfrey’s Under the Bridge is a nuanced and thoughtful telling of the Reena Virk murder case, one of the worst crimes in B.C. history. Godfrey really understands the time and place, and does an admirable job portraying the teens involved—not only the criminals, but the courageous teens who spoke up. 
 
Wakeland 3 news coming next issue, I promise, I promise…

I'm starting a monthly-ish newsletter for book and film/TV news, upcoming events and seminars, interviews with other writers, and the odd bit of writing advice. I set a modest signup goal, which has already been exceeded--so thanks to everyone who has signed up! If you'd like to, you can sign up here:

https://mailchi.mp/6e220438b9b0/samwiebe

Tomorrow is the U.S. paperback release for Cut You Down. This book probably shouldn’t exist in that format. That it does is a minor miracle.

When it came out in US hardcover, Cut You Down got rave reviews, though it didn’t break any sales records. It didn’t help that its publisher is going through some changes. But the book came out the way I wanted it to, and as fates go, that’s not the worst. 

This wasn’t written to chase a trend. It’s neither a domestic suspense thriller with Girl in the title, nor an action thriller about a super-tough sociopath.

It’s a private eye novel (strike one), second in a series (strike two), set in a Canadian city in the Pacific Northwest (let's be generous and call that a foul tip). The body count is reasonable and the dead and living are written about as people, as much as my abilities permit.

That two of the biggest publishers took a shot on Cut You Down (3 counting Blackstone Audio) speaks to a faith in…something. Maybe the writing. Maybe that readers aren’t entirely reducible to trends. That companies can sometimes act on faith at all is miraculous.

I hope you give the book a shot. I hope you enjoy it. 2019 is looking dark and bloody and grand.

Vancouver Noir comes out in less than a week! You can pre-order here: 

For those of you in the Vancouver area, the book launch will be November 8th, 7pm, at the Shebeen Whiskey Room, behind the Irish Heather on Carrall Street. Hope to see you there!

Great new review of Cut You Down by Tara Henley in the Toronto Star:

"Sam Wiebe’s excellent new novel, Cut You Down...proves a study in both riveting crime writing and stark social realism."

You can check out the full review here.

Vancouver Noir can be pre-ordered here (Indiebound link--it's easily searchable on Amazon, too).  There will be a launch event in Vancouver in the fall, which I hope to announce shortly.

Registration for the Mystery Writing Masterclass is filling up nicely!
If you've always wanted to write crime and mystery fiction, this is the class for you!
June 9th at SFU Harbour Centre, EJ Safarik Sr Conference Room, 10-2:30.

see samwiebe.com/seminars for details, or buy tickets at:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mystery-writing-masterclass-with-sam-wiebe-tickets-45909036163?aff=es2

Also upcoming: an event at Book Warehouse Main Street on June 12th with Charlie Demers and Michelle Kim.

On June 13th, I'll be giving a talk at the Vancouver Police Museum on "Vancouver Crime Fiction and Fact."

March was a very difficult month. I had to cancel and reschedule several events, and it's taken me this long to get back into things. But I have some good news to share 

My event at Third Place Books in Seattle has been rescheduled for Thursday May 17th, 7pm, at the Forest Park location. I'll be in conversation with Brian Thornton, author, editor, former President of Mystery Writers America's Pacific Northwest chapter, and all-around great guy. It should be a terrific night. 

My books are available at Third Place right now, in person or on their website: https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/search/kobo/sam%20wiebe .

If you're looking for a free ebook, follow the link and pick up Hollywood North, a free Wakeland story available on their Kobo page.

A couple of new reviews I'm happy to share:

Col's Criminal Library gives CUT YOU DOWN 4.5/5, saying "Wiebe serves up another compelling, edge of the seat tale."

Unnerving Magazine says "CUT YOU DOWN has thrills and suspense, emotion and grit. Quality read."

For all reviews, go to my Cut You Down page.

If you get a minute, please review the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indigo, or any other booksellers' site. It helps authors. 

OK, enough business. What am I reading these days?

Honestly, I've read very little over the last month. I did watch the first season of Hap and Leonard, which does credit to Joe Lansdale's book series. I read the second novel, Mucho Mojo, and am working on the third, the Two-Bear Mambo. I also read Sheena Kamal's follow-up to her excellent debut The Lost Ones, which is called It All Falls Down. It's even better than the first. There are a lot of great crime books coming out soon, including Jennifer Hillier's Jar of Hearts, Owen Laukkanen's Gale Force, and Charles Demers's Property Values, which I was happy to blurb.There's a wealth of great writing out there.

My article "Expect No Mercy: Crime Fiction and Gentrification" is live over at Crime Reads. I've gotten great feedback on it so far, and I feel like it lays out some of the things I'm going for in Cut You Down.

Speaking of which: several rave reviews have come in for Cut You Down. Due to circumstances I haven't posted them before today, but they've been a small bright spot in a gloomy couple of weeks.

From the New York Journal of Books: “A wonderful setting and likeable characters, lots of action and subtle humor will have readers calling for more stories featuring David Wakeland.”

From Killer Nashville, where it was a Book of the Day: "Sam Wiebe has built a reputation for creating PIs who seem straight out of the pulp fiction classics. Cut You Down will only add to it."

From JessicaMapReviews: "The writing was great and I loved the rough around the edges Wakeland. I can’t wait to see where Wiebe takes him next!"

From Steve Aberle: "A  a first-class story...a compulsory P.I. novel of the best kind."

If you've read Cut You Down, please leave a review on Amazon, Indigo or Barnes and Noble, and help spread the word. And if you haven't read it yet, give it a try.

Thrilled to announce that Vancouver Noir, the anthology I edited for Akashic Books, has a release date of November 2018! 

Vancouver Noir features new stories from Timothy Taylor, Sheena Kamal, Nathan Ripley, Yasuko Thanh, Carleigh Baker, Dietrich Kalteis, Linda Richards, Robin Spano, Nick Mamatas, RM Greenaway, Don English, SG Wong, Kristi Charish...and yours truly. The astonishing cover art comes from the great Mel Yap.

From the introduction: 

"You might wonder what shadows could exist in Vancouver, rain-spattered jewel of the Pacific Northwest. Nestled between the US border and the Coast Mountains, the city's postcard charms are familiar, even to those who've never been here, thanks to the films and TV shows shot in Hollywood North: The X-Files and Deadpool, Rumble in the Bronx and Jason Takes Manhattan. Vancouver is the so-called City of Glass. A nice place, in any case, and much too nice for noir. Looked at from afar, Vancouver may seem idyllic.

But living here is different--cold and baffling and occasionally hostile. While outsiders focus on high-test BC bud, locals see a heroin crises: Vancouver is home to the first legalized safe injection site in North America, now heavily taxed by overdoses resulting from street drugs cut with fentanyl. It's ground zero for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, a nationwide catastrophe involving the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of marginalized women. Money and status trample culture and community.

If Vancouver is a city of glass, that glass is underneath our feet."

VANCOUVER NOIR is out November 6th, 2018. Pre-order yours today!

AMAZON US  AMAZON CA  INDIEBOUND  AKASHIC