Stephen Gallagher

Okay, it’s a leap, but talking about Pan Books in the Sam Peffer post reminded me of something that’s all but disappeared with the advent of widescreen TVs; the ‘panning and scanning’ of movie prints for TV broadcast. We’ve reached the point where the 4×3 Academy Ratio TV set is only ever seen as a…

I’m saddened to hear of the early death of artist and illustrator Glen Orbik. This is the piece, one of many retro-pulp covers that he painted for Hard Case Crime, that first blew me away.

I’ve two promo codes left for the Mean Streets StoryBundle (see below). While the book bundle’s offered on a pay-what-you-like basis, the cost with a promo code is zilch. Drop an email with STORYBUNDLE in the header to storybundle@brooligan.co.uk for a shot at one of the vouchers. We’re in the bundle’s last hours, so don’t…

The StoryBundle crime sale has just two days left to run. Somewhere along the way it’s picked up two extra bonus titles, making a total of thirteen books that include Clive Barker’s Cabal, Savile and Lockley’s Jack Stone, and David Morrell’s The Brotherhood of the Rose. There’s a countdown counter clicking away on the site…

A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Sam Peffer at one of the annual UK Vintage Paperback and Pulp Fairs held in a hotel in London’s Victoria. Peffer, who signed his work Peff, was one of the UK’s foremost paperback cover illustrators of the 50s and 60s. Later on he’d turn to…

He wanders through the covers of historical novels, forlornly seeking his missing hearse… Serious point. Nothing makes an author’s heart sink faster than the realisation that the work they sweated to make original is to be marketed as an also-ran to someone else’s. In this case I believe the imitation stems from The Alienist, but…

You know about StoryBundles, right? From their web page faq: We take a handful of books—anywhere from six to nine—and group them together to offer as a bundle. Then you, the reader, can take a look at the titles we’ve chosen and decide how much you’d like to pay. Think of us like a friend…

There’s this: From tomorrow, Thursday April 16th, for three nights at Camden’s Etcetera Theatre. I didn’t have a hand in the show but there’s some DNA in there somewhere. Details here

Hey look, the kid’s all growed up.

A happy find in Keswick today – Meet the Tiger was the first novel to feature Simon Templar, aka The Saint, and it’s been out of print for some time. Charteris was unhappy with his tyro work viewed in the context of his mature prose, and withdrew the book. His widow continues to respect his…