The Mentalist's second season debuts Sept. 24. Check it out.

The formidable Jedidiah Ayres, who is named like one of my characters, has posted a review of my unpublished novel Dirtnap Avenue on his blog Hardboiled Wonderland. Jed, who will be sharing the pages of Sex, Thugs and Rock & Roll with me this summer, seemed like the perfect person to review my novel about the criminal roots of St. Louis, catching many of my crime-nerd references:

His first novel, Dirtnap Avenue mines the same rich ground. Harper draws upon the sensationalized and mythologized elements of Missouri’s outlaw tradition and crime history from the James Younger Gang to Tom Egan and up to the Chain of Rocks Bridge murders and so does his protagonist, Jesse Priest, who sees himself as belonging to that tradition as a singular unfolding narrative and is seeking his place in it.

Thanks for the kind words, Jed.

Currently reading: The amazing In the Rogue Blood by John Carlos Blake.

I'm proud to announce that I'm the new staff writer on The Mentalist (Tuesdays on CBS, yo). I'm going to be working for Bruno Heller, who not only created the show but also created one of the all-time greats, HBO's Rome. I have no idea what's going to happen next in my life, but it should be fun.

The bad news is that all my other stuff is going to grind to a halt, at least for little while. But do stay tuned.

Currently reading: I just finished Dave Cullen's new book Columbine, which is quite good, and True Grit, which is even better. Next up is In the Rogue Blood by James Carlos Blake, or maybe The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell.

I've just had an interview published by Bookspot Central as part of their "Bookless" series of short story interviews. Go check it out, and thanks to Brian for selecting me.

In other news, I have a lot of other news that isn't quite news yet, so stay tuned for updates.

Currently reading: True Grit.

My short story "Red Hair and Black Leather" has been nominated by Bookspot Central as one of the best mystery stories on the web. Please vote early and vote often.

I've updated the fiction section. You'll find a slightly longer version of "I Wish They Never Named Him Mad Dog" than appeared in the now-defunct Demolition. While I feel the published version is tighter, I wanted to put this one on the site, as it makes more explicit the connection between good ol' Geat Mashburn and some of the other characters in my universe. Also new is a short play, The Accidental Torturer, which I intially wrote a few years back, but only recently got in good enough shape to share. And finally, enough time has passed since the publication of Out of the Gutter #5 to go ahead and throw "Just Look What the Bitch Made You Do" onto the site. It's a fun read.

I haven't done a Trash Culture update in a while, but in the meantime, enjoy the super-sludgey sounds of Electric Wizard

As the year closes I'm working on a new spec script for the Warner Bros. workshop, a Supernatural with the working title of "Stairway to Hell." After that, I plan to write at least one short story before I begin work on an orginal teevee script that I'll have done in March.

I just got my copy of Out of the Gutter in the mail, and haven't read anything in it yet, but it looks great.

To show you how backlogged I am right now, I'm going to share with you the title of everything I've got titles for right now that are in some stage of note-taking, outline form or draft. Some of these are no more that a paragraph in a notebook, one is forty-thousand words long. My New Year's resolution is to shrink the list, or at least have some different names on next year's list.

Lucy in the Pit

Cutter's Beach

Hollywood Trash

A Bushwhack at Hog-Scald Holler

The Scapegoat

Fastnight Crip

Poser

Supervillian

The Mother of Bandits

I Hear They Burn For Murder*

The Pickpocket

Midnight Down Pecker's Beach

The Accidental Torturer

Blight

*(Okay, all I have for that one is the title, but that title kicks fucking ass. Keep your mitts off it.)

My story "Just Look What the Bitch Made You Do" has won first place in the first-ever Revenge Fiction contest in Out of the Gutter (10-minute reads division). The stories were selected by crime-fiction heavyweights Victor Gischler and Anthony Neil Smith, so its an honor (and a free tee-shirt). Pre-order your copy of Issue Five of OOTG now.

In other news, I'm neck-deep in the Warner Bros. Television Writers Workshop, so my fiction is on hold at the moment. I'm currently polishing a screenplay based on my short story "Like Riding a Moped." I'm dying to start a new novel (tentatively titled Lucy in the Pit) and get back to Poser.

Currently Reading: Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez and Imajica by Clive Barker (second time).

Maybe you should kill the bitch first, seeing as how she was the one who promised you true love forever and then went and sat on another man’s dick.

That's the first line of my new story "Just Look What the Bitch Made You Do," which will appear in issue five of Out of the Gutter, available for pre-order now. Aside from housing one of my most disturbing stories, the new issue also sports new stories by Charlie Stella and fellow Write Club member Justin Porter. There's also a nonfiction piece on Aryan Circle (the inspiration for the Aryan Steel prison gang at the center of "Heart Check") that I'm looking forward to, and also an advice column from an ex-junkie. Out of the Gutter is going to break big soon, so you might as well get on board now and look extra-hep.

Now Reading: a lot of stuff about dogs and dog fighting for a new story (or possibly, novel).