Fish Bites Cop!

…Stories to Bash Authorities

 

Fish Bites Cop! (Comet Press 2013) is now available in space-age digital form like Kindles and Nooks and other newfangled, high-tech reading devices, besides paper and glue (not that books haven’t always been plenty fangled). It is also available in special one-on-one pillow-talk audio version (not recommended). And if you live nearby and don’t trust the internet these days, signed copies been sighted on the shelf at Carmichael’s Bookstores and the local Barnes & Nobles (they put it in the “fiction” section for some reason), but make sure to click here for the Indiebound link. This Comet Press page will also take you to early reviews and blurbs, some preview videos and live readings, or just help you cut out the middleman and order it directly from the publisher.

Here are some more links from around the interzone that relate to my collection. Click the parts of these sentences that are purple or blue, colors that mean either “don’t eat” or “delicious” in the insect world:

  • Other places to buy the damn thing include Barnes & Noble (for locals), Powell’s, and Amazon. I listed those in order of preference. Buy it from the publisher or the real stores first, unless you need it on Kindle. Who knows where that Amazon money goes.
  • Here’s the Official Fish Bites Cop book trailer, featuring the song “Effin’ the Po Po” by Jesse Hall of Bear Cub fame. We went through three toy helicopters making this video.
  • Some fun book reviews and discussions can be found over at Goodreads, where I’ve also had a couple giveaways. So stop by for free copies sometimes (I also draw your picture on the title page if you win).
  • This link is a Fish Bites Cop! Facebook page where we post bad-cop articles. And bad cop articles. Sometimes the police show up to argue and things get juicy.
  • Here’s the first official review on Booked. Podcast, where the hosts dragged me on the air to justify its existence and spill the truth behind several of the stories. Yeeeeeesh.
  • Oh, yeah. This is where a link would have been for WFPL, our local NPR affiliate, when I read an excerpt and had a great conversation. But some guy called the station all mad and they scrubbed it from the archives.
  • Here’s a great review from crime aficionado Elizabeth E. White. Says she, “Packed with dark humor and even darker violence, Fish Bites Cop! Stories To Bash Authorities is not a collection for the timid. It is, however, a powerful showcase of writing.”
  • Then after I fielded some questions from angry first responders about my collection, E.W. let me try to defend the undefendable with a guest post called “It’s Supposed To Be Funny, I Swear.” I swear.
  • Here’s an interview/review with Alec Cizak of Pulp Modern fame (although he ducks that topic on the air for some reason) over at KMSU Weekly Reader.
  • This is an odd rant turned review turned rant over at Books, Beer and Bullshit. He says, “This is dark, crimey noir without an ounce of mercy to show for it. If you like your fiction all too real, maybe a bit dark and sadistic and definitely laced with thick, gooey sarcasm then this is for you.”
  • Here’s one of my favorite reviews ever, over at HorrorNews.net. Sean Leonard says, “No matter if the plot delves into unseen monsters beneath the sand or high-school gym teachers or power-abusing police officers, every single story demands that you take a pause and breathe deeply for a moment before moving forward. The intensity is almost intimidating.”
  • I crashed Chin Wags at the Slaughterhouse and had an unexpectedly heady chat with Richard Godwin, where we talked hybrid people, social engineering, and masturbating into Venus Flytraps. It all made sense at the time.
  • My first Russian book review (!) showed up over at Лаборатория Фантастики! Don’t hit the translate button, that’s cheating.  Okay, here’s a little bit of it translation: “It is the feeling as if someone shouts something right in your face.”
  • Over at Books and Booze, my interview got a little strange, turning into more of a prank phone call than anything.
  • I stopped by for Five Minutes with the Ginger Nuts of Horror.
  • Lately I’ve been infiltrating the St. Louis Noir at the Bar crew (even sneaked into their anthology), and sometimes their captain, Jed Ayers, gives my book shout-outs over at Hardboiled Wonderland. He called it, “Transgressive, trans-genre transmissions from the immoral majority strike like lightening bolts out of the blue. A satirical miracle.” Sometimes he predicts my death. Sometimes he blames me for civil rights abuses. Sometimes he let me read at Meshuggah Café with famous people like Scott Phillips and Matt Kindt and Les Edgerton and the late/great Cort McMeel. And sometimes he even tried to sell my book to your moms? I’m also convinced he’s the mystery copyright violator who tried to make money with the cover art on some flasks.
  • Eddy Rathke interviewed me over at Monkeybicyle, as part of his 52 Interviews in 52 Weeks series, where we talked about movies and eyeballs and conversational tones and Broken River Books and my college experience and Dog the Bounty Hunter and a couple Die Hards and…
  • The first print review of Fish Bites Cop! is now available in Crime Factory 14, along with a ton of great fiction and articles (seriously they’re the best genre mag out there for books and movie lovers). You can buy the oversize issue here, or they let you download the .pdf for free because they’re cool like that. From the review, “Keaton and his subtitle would seem to argue that all authorities, from firefighters to soldiers, are not only inherently guilty of sinfulness, but their glamorization in popular culture only belies the sickness of cultural reproductions. This review also has my favorite critical pull quote: “Akin to an impudent man screaming into a bucket.”
  • It’s on the LitReactor’s and Do Some Damage’s “Best Books of 2013 lists.
  • While I was still in Kentucky, it was fun to see a review in the Leo Weekly, the local city paper, where they said “the man at the keyboard has attitude to spare, like a young James Ellroy on a meth binge.”
  • Famous guys Frank Bill and Stephen Graham Jones both noted the book during interviews. And speaking of Frank Bill, Booked. Podcast had a “Donnybooked” readers-choice tournament loosely based on his debut novel, and I ended up taking 5 of the 6 categories, so they canceled Round 2 completely. All those people hate me now, but it was a good run.
  • It made No Normal Center’s Best of 2013 list, and Death By Killing and Eddy Rathke said some stuff and made some lists.
  • Snubnose Press and Do Some Damage put it on their Best Book Covers of 2013 list. And it made a best-of list at Spinetingler. I think that’s the same dude though.
  • It made author William Boyle’s favorites of the year.
  • This cool site called Blurb Hack does this thing where they review books, then make new minimalist covers. Check out their version of fishing for lil’ piggies.
  • Had a short interview here, and a much weirder interview here at Entropy, where I started giving hints about my upcoming novel.
  • Here I am being called a serial killer named “Armstrong.” I had 18 victims, which made me feel like an underachiever.
  • I lied to Cultured Vultures about my cat.
  • Over at Great Writers Steal, for a feature called “Hey, Why’d You Do That?” I did a fun interview, then for a follow-up, the craziest, in-depth dissection of Fish Bites Cop! yet, even a story-by-story breakdown.
  • Dead End Follies called it “a bit of an endurance run at times,” but “worth your time” with a “razor sharp irony and a violent sense of humor.” And that guy is Canadian, so who are you gonna believe?
  • At Pulp Hack Confessions, the late, great William E. Wallace said the stories “share a grimly savage humor that puts them in a category all their own.”‘
  • The end the year, I went down to Nashville and ate some food while I found out my book was not the winner of the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award. But I was a finalist. And I had three desserts. So fuck it.

Update: Someone just delivered a box of the real thing to my door! Reluctant to stomp on it for a full reveal, so here’s an almost pornographic spread instead. Incredible wrap-around cover by artist Mark Dancey. Read the last story if you want to know why the starfish is doing that:

bookporn

2 Comments

  1. kathleen

    I am in canada, and i have a Kobo ebook. Maybe I am SOL but i would really like to be able to buy a copy of Fish Bites Cop for my ereader, or to convert to my ereader or whatever. I can’t buy it from barnse and noble doe to canadianness, and i can’t buy from amazon becasue it will transfer it directly to a kindle which i do not, in fact possess. Is there any way that you can help me with this, or do i just need to give up and buy the paper back copy if i real want it, and accept that technology is a failure and the future we have been promised in a lie and everything is, in fact, stupid.

    xox
    kate

    ps, I found out about you through the booked. podcast.

    Reply
  2. david james keaton (Post author)

    Hi, Kate. If you’d like to email me, I’m sure we can work something out to sidestep the robot uprising and their feeble attempts to stop us from reading. Although robots one day burning books like that town in Footloose is kind of adorable 🙂

    -djk

    Reply

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