"You have the right not to be killed!"
Crime Songs available now
G’day friends. I’m pleased to announce that Crime Songs—a brand-new anthology from Close to the Bone Publishing—has just been released. It’s a collection of 16 crime stories by crime writers from around the globe, each one inspired by a song chosen by the author.
My contribution is Know Your Rights, based on the opening track of The Clash’s 1982 album Combat Rock. After the sprawling mess that was Sandinista—which I love, by the way—the Clash hit back with Combat Rock, an album that always felt to me like the musical equivalent of a men’s adventure magazine. The first song, Know Your Rights, is three minutes and forty-one seconds of subliminal noir, detailing everything wrong with the system and how “rights” skew against the lower class. Perfect inspiration for a crime story.
I haven’t been writing much fiction lately—working on a follow-up to Baker Street—but this gave me the chance to dive back in. And I think it’s my most depraved, violent story yet (something I’m strangely proud of).
Here’s a taste from the opening:
NIGHT. THE SIDE-vision mirror disintegrated, and the window blew in. Osmond, who sat behind the wheel, turned his face away as shattered glass cubes flew throughout the car interior. His neck and cheek caught pellets. Shotgun blast. Stung like a motherfucker.
“Whose stupid fucken idea was this?” he yelled as Kelso and Charlene clambered into the back seat. “I thought you said they had no security.”
If that whets your appetite for some gritty, music-fuelled crime fiction, pick up a copy of Crime Songs and dig in—you’ll find plenty to keep you up at night.
You can find it here.
David Foster is an Australian author who writes under the pen names James Hopwood, A.W. Hart, and Jack Tunney. Under the latter, he has contributed three titles to the popular Fight Card series. His short fiction has been published in over 50 publications worldwide, including by Clan Destine Press, Wolfpack Publishing, and Pro Se Productions, to name but a few. In 2015, he contributed to the multi-award-winning anthology Legends of New Pulp Fiction, published by Airship 27 Publishing.
Foster’s non-fiction work appeared in the award-winning Crime Factory Magazine, as well as contributing numerous articles exploring pulp fiction in popular culture to Girl Gangs, Biker Boys, and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980 (2017, PM Press) and Sticking It To The Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980 (2019, PM Press). He has also contributed articles on the ANZAC war experience to Remembrance (2024, Union Street 21).
Foster lives in the old Pentridge Prison complex, behind high grey stone walls, in inner-suburban Melbourne, Australia.