Spotlighted Author Madeleine Review Author's Book, Writing...

Between These Pages

  These Places

By Frank Duffy

Review by Julia Madeleine

Whenever I start reading a Frank Duffy story, I can barely pull myself away. I let the dinner burn, the dogs whine to be let out, my own writing wait—so powerful is the lure of the arrangement of Duffy’s words on the page. You get sucked down into this beautifully dark, intimate, almost salacious vortex that seems other worldly, and yet strangely familiar. And it’s completely hypnotic.

So while my husband mops up the dog pee, I serve the burnt (it’s Cajun blackened!) chicken, and try to put into words for my family how amazing this guy’s writing is that I’m reading. They listen and nod, chewing their over cooked chicken. We enjoy lingering at the dinner table engaged in conversation, but I’m anticipating it being over so I can get back to reading Frank Duffy. As long as Frank is writing, I will be reading every word, every short story, novella, and full length work. I wish all the stories by other authors I read could be this damn good.

If you like Koontz and King, I know you'll love Duffy. And when you've finished reading it, read Duffy's novella, Mountains Of Smoke. It's simply brilliant.

Frank Duffy

Frank Duffy is the author of over forty short stories published in both Britain and America. He is the author of The Signal Block and Other Stories (Sideshow Press), Mountains of Smoke, a novelette (Sideshow Press), Photographs Showing Terrible Things, a limited edition chapbook (Sideshow Press) and the collection, Between These Pages, These Dark Places (Gallows Press). His story Unknown Causes will be included in the Gallows Press anthology due out March, 2012. He has been published in magazines as diverse as Estronomicon, Pulp Metal Magazine, and Dark Valentine. He has two new stories coming out for crime writer and editor Paul Brazil this year, Alcohol and Blood for The Drunk On The Moon P.I werewolf series, and for the crime anthology Brit Grit, the crime/horror story, Faces.

Frank lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. He teaches English by day, and writes fiction by night. He is heavily indebted to his wife, Ewa, for her muse like genius, and his two dogs, Mr. Mole and B, respectively, for their invaluable editorial prowess. He also thanks his mum for buying him a typewriter when he was eight years old, despite the worry that her son might have wanted to become a tabloid journalist.