Catch My Killer! (The First Sam Truman Mystery) (The Sam Truman Mysteries) [Kindle Edition]

Ed Kurtz (Author)

Book Description

Sam Truman is a disgraced and unlicensed former private investigator without a proverbial pot to piss in. During a morning mission to scrape up enough bread to pay his rent at the flophouse, Sam intervenes in an attempted robbery and ends up shooting the robber to death with a gun he isn’t legally permitted to possess. In the aftermath of the shooting, Sam is visited by the bloody corpse of the dead robber, which is now being inhabited by the spirit of a murdered woman who charges Sam with the task of solving her murder.

Now Sam is up to his neck in a dark underworld of walking corpses, black magic, and Hell’s own army, and all because he agreed to a dead woman’s plea to “Catch my killer!”

Product Details

• File Size: 180 KB
• Print Length: 85 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Abattoir Press (April 1, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B007QM9N44
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #385,523 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Hardboiled Horror September 24, 2012

By Wag The Fox

Format:Kindle Edition

When it comes to urban fantasy, I enjoy the grittier styles that emulate or incorporate noir elements into the story. Such is the case with Catch My Killer, though I don't think this series of novellas is marketed as UF.

Sam Truman, the title character, is a down-on-his-luck private eye--so down in fact that he isn't even a P.I. anymore, legally speaking--holed up in a seedy hotel in 60s era New York. Things go from bad to worse when he busts up a robbery at his favorite diner, killing the young perp in the process. Things go worse to royally screwed when the dead guy shows up at his doorstep, apparently not as dead as he'd thought. Oh, the kid's dead all right, just possessed by the spirit of a person looking for help in catching their killer.

The atmosphere is all there. I could practically feel the grime on my Kindle as I read this book. And Sam Truman is the kind of hero I like, with a moral compass and a wonky way of following it. He feels familiar in a lot of ways if you've read your fair share of gumshoe diaries, but avoids feeling like a cliche. And the rabbithole adventure he goes on in tracking down a killer is really fun one, with a great blend of crime and horror.

Where the book faltered for me was in the almost cavalier manner he accepts the fact he's been hired by a ghost inhabiting a corpse. Within minutes, he's shooting the breeze with a zombie like it's another day at the office. I don't recall any mention of him already being initiated to the supernatural, so this strained by suspension of disbelief. In fact, it seemed like his client felt more shocked by these events than Sam.

Still, I managed to look past that niggling detail, and once I did I found a quick, entertaining mystery. It certainly enjoyed it enough to put the second installment, The Last Invasion, on my wish list. Each installment is written by a different author, much like Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin's The Dead Man series, and I've had a blast with those books. This is the Sam Truman Mystery and I'm glad it won't be the last.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A killer little cross genre romp April 13, 2012

By Colum Mcknight

Format:Kindle Edition

The first instalment of the Sam Truman series is a fun little jaunt back to the heyday of pulp mysteries and mass market horror novels I grew up with. The titular characters is tough as nails and massively enticing, making me yearn for more stories in the same vein. Thankfully Kurtz has the ability to pull something like this off, and buy does he ever.

The characters in this story are all larger than life, filled to the brim with attitude and style, and fast on the action. There's humour, emotion, style, and swagger in every chapter. Even the bad guys are killer. Watching the Satanic Panic styled, apparitions come to life on the page was a treat. I only wish someone would take this and run with it as a tv series.

If you dig hardboiled cop stories with a bit of a twist, this is definitely a book for you.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Horror and Humour, a Winning Combination November 7, 2012

By Lisa Llamrei, author of "Reflection of the Gods"

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Sam Truman is reminiscent of the old-style gumshoe PIs, but with a twist: he works for dead people. Down on his luck, no longer licenced as a PI, scrounging for rent money, this could have been one big cliche, but it wasn't. Reanimated corpses, Satan's minions, dildoes.

I've never laughed so hard at a horror novel.

More About the Author

Ed Kurtz is the author of BLEED, CONTROL, DEAD TRASH, and A WIND OF KNIVES, as well as numerous short stories. His work has appeared in Dark Moon Digest, Needle: A Magazine of Noir, BEAT to a PULP, Shotgun Honey, and the anthology Mutation Nation: Tales of Genetic Mishaps, Monsters, and Madness. Ed resides in Texas, where he is at work on his next novel and running his genre imprint, Redrum Horror.

Visit Ed Kurtz online at edkurtz.net.