Tag: book-review

‘Bad Intentions’ cover reveal

Crime fiction anthology inspired by the music of Warren Zevon due out July 7.

Earlier this week, the fine folks at Literary Garage revealed the cover artwork for Bad Intentions, an anthology of crime fiction inspired by “the gritty wit, sharp edges, and outlaw spirit” of the late Warren Zevon. As I mentioned here in April, I have a short story appearing in this anthology. There are fifteen stories in all, and having received and read an advance copy of the book, I can say with confidence that each story, in its own distinctive way, is exquisitely Zevon-esque (Zevonian?) in voice, subject matter, and delivery. It comes out July 7, just in time for your summer reading.

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Friday Five: Cowboy Jamboree’s Adam Van Winkle, author of ‘Count the Dust’

‘The idea became intriguing for me: write a play to be read.’

Radio plays have been around for a century or more, practically since the advent of radio. They thrived during the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s–an era sometimes called the Golden Age of Radio. In his latest novel, Count the Dust (LEFTOVER Books, December 2025), writer and literary magazine editor Adam Van Winkle taps into that approach to create a distinctive story designed for radio but equally enjoyable as a good read.

Count the Dust is set in a nameless small town in southern Oklahoma or north Texas. It’s modeled after the place where Adam grew up, Texoma, but, as he writes, it could be any of the “many small Oklahoma and Texas towns I’ve been in and through that center around a filling station on a state highway.” It’s a murder mystery, told over two time periods–1967, the year of the murder, and 1997–as well as a story of “the persistence of offspring in unideal circumstances.”

“These places, like places I grew up in and around, with little money, little resources, drugs, guns, violence, strained marriages and poisonous relationships, they still find a way to produce progeny. People still meet through the circumstance of life, new people still get born.”

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