Coy Hall

Thanks so much for reading it! It’s a world and character I want to revisit.

A Couple Of Quick Reads… I was in the office today and we all know what that means… Well, apart from the inevitable ‘lunchtime bagel’ from Bagel Factory, that’s prob...

I was in the office today so that meant awesome tales from David Annandale and @coyhall.bsky.social being read on the way home 👍

lordsamperlibrary.blogspot.com/2026/03/a-couple-of-quick-reads.html

Oh yeah. I’m building my Ross Macdonald collection. All Black Lizard.

Cover art for One Lash to Kill, featuring John Lash in a chair with a handgun and a lovely lady slipping the strap of her dress off her shoulder.

"Tomas was screaming when Rita tugged on the towel again and Lash heard the neck snap. It sounded like a peanut shell had been stepped on. Lash went cold all over. Rita didn’t let go. She must have wanted to make sure. There was no way she hadn’t heard the bone break. She pulled with her arms and she pushed with her foot and more vertebrae went pop-pop-pop. Tomas wasn’t struggling anymore but he had breath in his lungs. Everyone in the room listened to it come out in one long blast until there wasn’t anything left to hear. Rita let go of the towel and Tomas’s corpse tumbled off Lash’s legs, falling backwards off the bed. The head of the corpse was disgustingly askew where the body lay on the floor. “Jesus Christ,” Lash muttered. His hard-on was gone and the sweat on his skin felt like grease. He thought he was going to be sick. The wrestler released him from the full-nelson hold and stood up from the bed. He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He plucked the sheet off the bed and offered it to Rita and she used it to cover her body. “Gracias,” Rita said. “De nada,” the wrestler said."

I don't know that Clint Reno realized my affinity for tough, athletic ladies when he sent in the manuscript for One Lash to Kill. But reading scenes like this, I've got to assume he somehow knew.

Have you met Rita? You can until 3/7, for $1.99 at your favorite ebook stores.

books2read.com/onelash/

One of the books I hated to put down. Just absorbing. I didn’t want to leave.

It's a beauty. Love that cover.

Collected Ghost Stories by MR James Clans of the Alphane Moon by PKD Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett Weaveworld by Clive Barker

A few books that had a big impact on my writing for World Book Day

The Barker novel is long, but it’s one that is really engrossing and you get wrapped up in that world.

The premise of Clans epitomizes that era of sci-fi for me. In love with it.

Maybe not his best novel, but it’s one of my favorite worlds he created!

The world he sets up in this one blew me away.

It's incredible. Well worth a read.

Collected Ghost Stories by MR James Clans of the Alphane Moon by PKD Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett Weaveworld by Clive Barker

A few books that had a big impact on my writing for World Book Day

Thanks, my friend

Thanks, my friend

Thank you!

Thanks, my friend!

Thanks, my friend!

Thank you!

Submitted my final portfolio for promotion from associate professor to professor today.

Darkness In The Fields Film Festival 2026 | Derby QUAD View our latest event: Darkness In The Fields Film Festival 2026. See what the available times are for this event.

Here's our full line-up for the DARKNESS IN THE FIELDS FILM FESTIVAL on 21st March!
12:15pm Dog of God (Lauris & Raitis Abele)
2:40pm Her Will Be Done (Julia Kowalski)
5:00pm Roqia (Yanis Koussim)
7:20pm The Virgin of the Quarry Lake (Laura Casabe)

Full wrap of A Fragile Thing. Back is black and white version of front cover. Front shows a caped figure walking away from viewer. Set against a backdrop of gothic buildings lit up against the night. blurb on back: Victorian London. Isaac Bercow is a man with great aspirations, nothing to lose, and an offer he can't refuse. Determined to make society notice - and believe in - his powers of mesmerism, Isaac finds himself caught in a trap of deceit, danger, and diabolical dealings. The mind is a fragile thing, and fragile things are easily broken.

A Fragile Thing.

In Whitechapel monsters walk. Whose eyes do they hide behind?

A gothic horror novel coming March 17th

www.watertowerhill.com/shop

#booksky #gothic #horror #WIHM #horrorwriting

Mad Days: Stories and Curses is a terrifying collection of tales and illustrations, available on Amazon and Bookshop, ebook is only $1.99!

Amazon
bit.ly/4lZImtq

Bookshop
bit.ly/41USpIQ

A Bullet for Joey (1955). It’s good when Robinson & Raft are on screen, but it’s a worn out Cold War cliche when the story focuses on the atomic physicist. Geoffrey Homes (Build My Gallows High) worked on the script.

"...with superior firepower. But his enemy was behind a solid column and Frenzi didn’t have the ammo to keep him pinned down. If he tried to run for the door, he would be cut down with a single trigger pull. All that was visible was Kelso’s right shoulder. And around that shoulder was the bandolier of shotgun shells. Taking aim while on his belly, Frenzi thumbed back the hammer and took his shot. The 125-grain .357 magnum round struck the buckshot shell and the resultant detonation was actually pretty mild. Without the metal barrel to direct the force of the explosion, the buckshot blasted out in a weak cloud. But it blasted upwards, toward Podesky’s face, and it was immediately joined by a couple additional shells, all bursting in a chain reaction. With a cry of agony, Kelso Podesky stumbled away from the pillar, tossing aside the bandolier as though it were a mad dog. The exploding shotgun shells had chewed up his arm and, worse yet, sent a small storm of heavy buckshot into his face. The right side had caught most of the blast, the pellets pockmarking his skin with gory craters—one particularly forceful ball lodging in his eye socket and blinding him. It hurt like hell."

Cover for Frenzi: The Mafia Massacre, featuring a silhouette of John Frenzi holding a Colt Python in front of a bullet riddled car.

This scene was different in draft 1 of The Mafia Massacre. I'd had the exploding shotgun shells blast off the hitman's arm in a scene worthy of a Hong Kong action flick.

...and then learned they just don't do that.

I still like the reworked scene.

$1.99 til 3/7!

books2read.com/mafiamassacre/

A Bullet for Joey (1955). It’s good when Robinson & Raft are on screen, but it’s a worn out Cold War cliche when the story focuses on the atomic physicist. Geoffrey Homes (Build My Gallows High) worked on the script.

Happy Birthday!