I’m delighted to share my recent interview with Sheri at Inside Scoop Live, where we discuss my new crime novel, GROOVE, the influence of music on my writing, my years translating the work of Boris Vian, and the peculiar journey from literary translation to writing noir fiction.

GROOVE follows Eddie, a disciplined criminal with a passion for rare rhythm …

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Thank you to everyone who’s shown an interest in Groove. I appreciate the support, and I thought I’d share a short passage today.

In this scene, Eddie and Mike leave a man in the car and step into a roadside karaoke lounge. The evening’s entertainment leaves something to be desired.

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They left the fat man in the car and traversed a parking lot where not a single weed dared push its head through the blistering cracks in the asphalt. The place was about the size of a sporting goods store or an office supply warehouse or some other kind of business that had absolutely no chance of succeeding this far away from actual civilization. The entire structure was painted black except for a two-foot strip of siding at the base which was splashed with a ghastly hue of pink to match the neon sign up above. Eddie opened the door for Mike and the two men transitioned into a pool of blackness. It took their eyes quite a while to adjust, and as they stood there getting their bearings they were nearly knocked to the ground by the sonic blast from the opening strains of Celine Dion’s “I’m Your Lady.”

As things came into focus, they quickly realized that this was no run-of-the-mill karaoke lounge. The bartender, on the mean end of her thirties, was dressed in a black and white polka dot bikini. She wore a top hat with a velvet brim and a bow tie that she wore around her neck like a choker. Cocktail waitresses, all in lingerie, moved through the dimly lit space like half-dead tropical fish pushing their way through the murky waters of an unclean aquarium. Mike and Eddie took a seat in the darkest corner of the lounge and stared up at a sixty-year-old man on stage who was apparently trying to fend off old age with massive doses of anabolic steroids. He had biceps the size of cantaloupes and his right hand gripped a microphone for a petite brunette seated atop a barstool in a corset and garter belt, working her way through the refrain of the French-Canadian’s timeless pop classic.

“This is a brothel,” said Eddie.

“Or a hostess bar, at the very least,” concurred Mike.

A cocktail waitress swam through the dimness and hovered at the side of their table.

“Hey boys!” she chirped. “My name’s Pleasant.”

She placed a couple of cocktail napkins on the table.

“How about we share a bottle of champagne?” she suggested.

“And what’ll that set us back?” asked Eddie.

“Don’t be crude, Eddie,” said the doctor. “You’ll have to excuse my friend. By all means, a bottle of Cristal.”

“We ain’t got any Cristal,” said Pleasant. “We got Mumm’s. It’s a hundred.”

“Price is no object,” said the doctor. “Hurry back.”

The two men waited for their champagne and gazed back over at the bizarre performance unfolding on the little stage. Creepy old Charles Atlas was grinding up against the girl in the corset like a horny, incestuous grandfather. When she came to the chorus, he made the disastrous decision to try and sing harmony.

Groove Is Out

Groove is a crime novel about R&B, record collecting, obsession, violence, and the strange places desire can take you. It’s set in Los Angeles, a city I’ve lived in and around for most of my life, and one that has always seemed made for noir.

In some ways, writing Groove felt like a natural extension of the work I’ve done as a literary translator. I’ve spent years translating Boris Vian, whose books taught me a great deal about how comedy, brutality, music, and surrealism can occupy the same page.

I was especially pleased when noir legend James Sallis — author of Drive — praised my work in the Los Angeles Times. That meant a great deal to me.

Groove is lean, strange, funny, and dark. I hope it moves as quickly for you as it did for me while I was writing it.

Published by Close to the Bone / Grit Publications.

Paperback available now on Amazon:
Groove on Amazon

If you read it, I’d love to hear what you think.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has read my work, supported it, and encouraged me over the years. I couldn’t be happier to finally put this novel in your hands. I have not abandoned my political writing, and I’m working on a full-length book that will chronicle much of what I’ve been writing about for the last ten years.

—Paul