Friend of the Devil:

Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Grateful Dead

edited by Josh Pachter

This is my seventh "inspired by" anthology, following The Beat of Black Wings: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Joni Mitchell, The Great Filling Station Holdup: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Jimmy Buffett, Only the Good Die Young: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Billy Joel, Monkey Business: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Films of the Marx Brothers, Paranoia Blues: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Paul Simon, and Happiness Is a Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles.

For this one, I returned to writing the title story myself and invited a bunch of authors (including several from the Bay Area) to contribute the rest of the stories. I had some challenges, this time around: several of the people who originally agreed to write Dead-inspired stories ultimately withdrew from the project due to health issues, so I had to replace them on relatively short notice.

It all worked out, though, and I was once again able to shepherd a couple of people who hadn't previously published any prose-form crime fiction into print: Linda Landrigan (who has for many years been the editor of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine) and David Avallone (who writes for comic books and graphic novels and is the son of my old friend, the legendary Michael Avallone). Plus this time around I got my Flemish friend Dominique Biebau to provide a take on the song "What's Become of the Baby" from the Aoxomoxoa album, and I translated it into English for the book.

For my own story, "Friend of the Devil," I imagined a young man driving a truckload of illicit cigarettes from his home in Chino up to the Bay Area, which gave me the opportunity to use the lovely word "buttlegging."

On September 6, 2024, Kristopher Zgorski did a cover reveal at BOLO Books.

In late September and October 2024, Art Taylor ran essays by contributors on four consecutive Tuesdays at his "First Two Pages" blog: Avram Lavinsky (September 24), Linda Landrigan (October 1), Faye Snowden (October 8), and David Avallone (October 15).

You can order the book from Down and Out Books, and it's also available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other clicks-and-mortar megavendors.

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