James Sallis at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 13/07/2007

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James Sallis - Page 1

09 Jul 07

About the Author (Photo (c) Speilman 95)

Bibliography

First British Edition No Exit Press (2007)

Cripple Creek
James Sallis is one of our great stylists and storytellers, whose deep interest in human nature is expressed in the powerful stories of men too often at odds with themselves as well as with the world around them.
In Cypress Grove, James Sallis introduced his compelling new protagonist - Turner. He is back in Cripple Creek, a novel as atmospheric and eventful as anything James Sallis has written.
A year or so has passed since the events of Cypress Grove. Ex-policeman, ex-con, former therapist, Turner has become Deputy Sheriff in the small town within driving distance of Memphis, Tennessee, to which he had migrated in hopes of escaping his past. His life is mending as he and Val Bjorn grow closer.
And then a young man, arrested on a routine traffic stop with more than $200,000 in his trunk, is forcibly sprung from jail after Sheriff Don Lee is brutally assaulted. Throwing caution aside, Turner goes in pursuit to Memphis, unleashing ghosts he thought he had left behind, and endangering all that matters to him now.
'James Sallis is a superb writer' The Times
‘Spare but eloquent… a superior series’ New York Times
‘Sallis writes crime novels that read like literature’ Los Angeles Times
‘Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared-down prose is distinctive and powerful’ The Sunday Telegraph
‘James Sallis has always been one of America’s most intellectual mystery authors’ The Guardian
‘Sallis’s deceptively easy style disguises the skill with which he has produced a satisfyingly complete portrait of a man’s life’ The Daily Telegraph

British Pbk Original - No Exit Press (2002)

Ghost of a Flea
See Review by Cath Staincliffe - Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester
In his old house in uptown New Orleans, Lew Griffin is alone again, or almost. His relationship with Deborah is falling apart. His son David has disappeared again, leaving behind a note that sounds final. His friend Don Walsh, who is leaving the police department, is shot while interrupting a robbery. And Lew is directionless, no longer teaching, with little to fill his days. He hasn’t written anything in years. Even the attempt to discover the source of threatening letters sent to a friend leaves him feeling rootless and lost.
Through five previous novels, James Sallis has enthralled and challenged readers as he has told the story of Lew Griffin, private detective, teacher, writer, poet, and a black man moving through time in a white man’s world. And now Lew Griffin stands alone in a dark room looking out. Behind him on the bed is a body. Wind pecks at the window. Traffic sounds drift aimlessly in. He thinks if he doesn’t speak, doesn’t think about what happened, somehow things will be alright again. He thinks about his own life, about the other’s, about how the two of them came to be here.
In a series as much about identity as it is about crime, Sallis has held a mirror up to society and culture. While at the same time setting Lew Griffin the task of discovering who he is. As the detective stands in that dark room, the answers begin to come clear and the highly acclaimed series builds to a brilliantly constructed climax that will resonate in readers’ minds long after the story is finished.
'Richly atmospheric, haunting, utterly compelling, the Lew Griffin novels are magnificent. James Sallis is an outstanding crime writer -an outstanding writer period.' Frances McDormand
'He's right up there, one of the best of the best. His series of novels about private eye Lew Griffin is thoughtful, challenging and beautifully written' Ian Rankin, The Guardian

British Pbk Original - No Exit Press (1999)

Bluebottle
Perhaps twice in a century there comes along a writer who is able to tap into the full potential of the crime story; to gather up the trappings and conventions and tremendous energy of the genre and make of them a deep and lasting literature. In the 40's it was Raymond Chandler. In the 90's we think it is James Sallis. [No Exit Press]
As Lew Griffin leaves a New Orleans music club with an older white woman he has just met, someone fires a shot and Lew goes down. When he comes to, Griffin discovers that most of a year has gone by since that night.
Who was the woman? Which of them was the target? Who was the sniper? Somewhere in the Crescent City - and in the white supremacist movement crawling through it - there's an answer to the questions left by that shot that echoed through the night. But to get to it, Griffin is going to have to work with the only people offering help, people he knows he should avoid.
Weaving Griffin's search for identity with a sensuous portrait of the people and places that define New Orleans, Sallis continues not only to unravel Griffin's past but to map his future.
Bluebottle speaks to the mast important questions: the nature of identity, the problem of evil, how we are to live and counter the self-destructive nature of ourselves and our history. It is a magnificent novel from one of America's finest crime fiction stylists.
'Richly atmospheric, haunting, utterly compelling, the Lew Griffin novels are really cool. James Sallis is an outstanding crime writer - an outstanding writer period.' Frances McDormand
'Poetic, complex and multidimensional, James Sallis' crime novels about New Orleans detective Lew Griffin… are unlike any you are likely to crack open' Los Angeles Times

First British Edition No Exit Press (1998)

Paperback - No Exit Press (1998)

Eye Of The Cricket
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. And he is a man subject to all of the frailties to which we are heir. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son ... and himself in the process. Now a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men. Somewhere in the underbelly of the Crescent City, there are answers and more questions; there are threats and the promise of salvation; and there is a dangerous descent into the alcoholic haze that marked Griffin's younger days as well as the possibility of rising from it, redeemed.
Lew Griffin's investigation is the hero's journey, mythic and strengthening and thoroughly satisfying.
'One of the most intriguing, disturbing, literate, intelligent and powerful novels I've read in years, and Lew Griffin is one of the most flat-out human detectives since Marlowe. There's enough story here for three good novels, but Sallis crafts them into one truly fine one - he's a legitimate contender in the Heavyweight Division. Make that Superheavyweight' David Bradley
'Classic American crime of the highest order' Time Out
'James Sallis is a superb writer' The Times

Paperback - Null

Black Hornet
See Review by Jay Russell - one of the greatest talents the horror industry has produced for some time… (Black Tears)
In a time of anger, activism, and bitter racial tensions, a sniper has appeared to heat up an already sweltering New Orleans summer - by tearing up innocent people like paper targets. The shooter's sixth fatality is cut down while she is walking at Lew Griffin's side. The victim was white. Griffin is black - a reluctant young p.i. whose poet's heart has already been hardened by amoral injustice and heavy drink. And though he had only just met his unfortunate companion, Griffin knows it's up to him to find her killer - before a madman puts the final match to a volatile urban tinderbox.
'Haunting... Black Hornet is fast-moving, elliptical, and like a jazz trumpet solo, has a plaintive note of melancholy woven through it.' Washington Post Book World
'Wry . . . Powerful . . . A rich tapestry of social unrest and vividly evoked characters and settings . . . What Chester Himes did for Harlem... and Walter Mosley is now doing for Los Angeles, James Sallis is doing for New Orleans.' The New York Times Book Review
'James Sallis is doing some of the most interesting and provocative work in the field of private eye fiction. His New Orleans is richly atmospheric and darker than noir. Black Hornet is terrific.' Lawrence Block

About The Author
James Sallis is a renowned poet, critic, essayist, editor, translator, musicologist and novelist. He is best known for his Lew Griffin novels including Long Legged Fly, Moth and Black Hornet and the fourth in the series, Eye of the Cricket will be published by No Exit In 1998. In addition he has written a critical work - Difficult Lives - examining the work of Jim Thompson, David Goodis and Chester Himes and a book on Jazz guitar. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife Karyn and his recent projects include the fifth Lew Griffin Bluebottle, the screenplay for Big Green and a biography of Chester Himes.

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Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.

Cripple Creek (No Exit Press, 2007) Jul 07

Ghost of a Flea (No Exit Press Pbk, 2002) No Exit Press Nov 01 (Lew Griffin)

Time's Hammers Short Stories ( 2000) Pbk Oct 00

Long Legged Fly/Moth (No Exit Press Pbk, 2000) (Lew Griffin)

Bluebottle (No Exit Press Pbk, 1999) (Lew Griffin)

Eye Of The Cricket (No Exit Press, 1998) No Exit Press Pbk 1998 (Lew Griffin)

Black Hornet (No Exit Press, 1997) Do Not Press May 97 (Lew Griffin)

Death Will Have Your Eyes ( 1997) No Exit Press Pbk 1997

The Long Legged Fly (No Exit Press, 1996) (Lew Griffin)

Moth ( 1993) (Lew Griffin)