The Great Filling Station Holdup:

Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Jimmy Buffett

edited by Josh Pachter

Given the fun I had editing The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, I decided to do some more "inspired by" collections. Down & Out Books had bid on the Joni Mitchell one, so I asked publisher Eric Campbell if he'd be interested in a Jimmy Buffett version and -- at least in part, I think, because D&O is located in Florida -- he jumped on the idea.

I didn't want this one to be as big a volume, so I approached a smaller number of possible contributors and wound up with a total of sixteen stories, inspired by songs from sixteen of Jimmy's studio albums. I focused on Florida authors -- Micki Browning, Don Bruns, Jeffery Hess, Leigh Lundin, Alison McMahan (who wound up moving to New Hampshire before the book came out), Rick Ollerman, Neil Plakcy, and Elaine Viets -- but also included some folks I hadn't worked with before (Bruce Robert Coffin, Isabella Maldonado, Laura Oles, Robert J. Randisi, Lissa Marie Redmond) and a couple of my "go to" writers (Michael Bracken and John Floyd).

As with my contribution to the Joni book, I took the cover song for myself. "The Great Filling Station Holdup" is a third case for Texas PI Helmut Erhard, who first appeared in "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and then in "The Stopwatch of Death." Following through on something I did in those two earlier stories, this one also includes a truly massive Easter egg, which -- as of this writing, in any case -- no one has yet spotted....

Once again, Kristopher Zgorski did a cover reveal at his popular website, BOLO Books, and the trade paperback came out on February 22, 2021.

You can order the print version and/or e-book direct from Down & Out Books and it's also available on Amazon.

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