Year: 2011

Review of “Lola” from New Jersey Noir

My short story for New Jersey Noir anthology called “Lola” was reviewed at Little Big Crime Blog. “I didn’t think this story was going to be my favorite of the week.  It felt like a pretty ordinary piece at first.  But stories, like people for that matter, can surprise you. The narrator is a would-be portrait artist who makes his living preparing stretchers for more successful painters.  One day riding the PATH trains back to Hoboken he becomes attracted to a young woman.  Pretty soon he is obsessed with her, and this is obviously not the first time he has gone down this path.  I was pretty sure I knew where this journey was headed. Well.  Can’t say much more without giving away the store.  Let’s just say Santlofer has some surprises in store for his characters, and for us. A perfect ending is one that leaves the reader saying: “I never saw that coming, … Read more

My Own Dark Places – La Noir

Mulholland books asked the contributors to LA Noire: The Collected Stories why Los Angeles is so associated with the Noir genre.  Here is my response: “When Rockstar asked me to put together an anthology to accompany their darkly beautiful video game, LA NOIRE, I pounced. Having been enamored with noir both on the page and on the screen since my brooding teenage years, my mind was spinning Chandleresque tales before I wrote a single word or asked another author to contribute. I wanted to invite a hundred writers but it ended up a small collection, every story burnished black as ebony, all jittery gems that invite the reader to trespass along those sunny/seamy LA streets. For my own story I slipped into the mind of a killer and had fun mixing fact and fiction, bringing in shadowy underworld figures I’d only read about, like Mickey Cohen and Johnny Stompanato, real life bad guys who seem … Read more