Megan Abbott interviewing Patti Abbott

I really loved this small item: Megan Abbott interviewing her mother, Patricia Abbott, on their family reading habits, her (Megan's) tuition into crime fiction and lots of other matters. I still have Patricia's first novel, Concrete Angel, to read, but I will in the near future.

Everybody Lies out

My newest book, the short story anthology Everybody Lies, is finally out. It's available here - and of course it's in Finnish and the actual title is Kaikki valehtelevat, which is the literal translation of James Reasoner's story in the book.

The book consists of some 20 criminous short stories from writers like Reasoner, Jason Starr, Kevin Wignall, Duane Swierczynski, Vicki Hendricks and Patricia Abbott. All of the stories came previously out in my mags Isku, Ässä and Seikkailukertomuksia (= Adventure Stories), that were self-published pastiches of old-time crime rags. All the translations have been edited and proofread carefully. It's a nice and varied collection of new hardboiled and noir writing, especially since almost none of these writers are available in Finnish at the moment. Most of the stories were translated by me, but some of them were translated by some of my talented friends, namely Antti Autio, Tapani Bagge, Sonja Lahdenranta and Lotta Sonninen. Thanks for them for the big help! 

The beautiful cover was envisioned by a friend of mine, Jenni Jokiniemi, who works as a designer. This was her first book cover, if I understood correctly. I hope to collaborate with her more in the future. 

Here's the table of contents. 

I'm actually doing another collection in the same vein, of the flash fiction stories I published in Ässä. I've been asking for permissions from writers, but not all have responded. If you read this and remember having received an e-mail or a Facebook message from, please do respond! 

Patricia Abbott's short story collection – in Finnish!

Just when I finished my book on British crime paperbackers, I was notified that another book was ready to be picked from the printers. It's Patricia Abbott's Merenneidot (meaning "Mermaids") short story collection I edited and published with a small print run. The book collects six of Abbott's insightful, clever, cruel and empathetic crime stories, most of them are in the flash fiction length, but the longest story in the book is about ten pages long.

The stories are: "Mermaids", "My Hero", "How to Launder a Shirt", "Johnny Jinx", "Hole in the Wall" and "Initiation". Most of these were originally published in the web, but some were print publications. Most of the stories came out in Finnish in my magazines Isku and Ässä, but "Mermaids" and "How to Launder a Shirt" were translated for this book and were never before published in Finnish. "Johnny Jinx" and "Hole in the Wall" were translated by my friend Lotta Sonninen and I'm sure their translations are better than my attempts!

The cover is by Aapo Kukko as are my usual mini books. See the Ray Banks book here and the Ed Gorman book here. (Seems like I haven't blogged about the Gorman book, but it's a translation of his "Scream Queen".)

Most of the copies I'm selling are going to the libraries here in Finland, but this is also available through me for a measly three euros!