“Murder Under The Boards: The Atlantic City Paranormal Mystery” by Christopher Pinto now available!

Murder Under The Boards by Christopher Pinto now available

ATTENTION MID-CENTURY NOIR MYSTERY LOVERS!

It’s here: The third novel in the Detective Bill Riggins series, “Murder Under The Boards: The Atlantic City Paranormal Mystery” by author Christopher Pinto (that’s me) is now available in print and for Kindle download at Amazon.com!

For those of you who follow my books, you’ll be thrilled by this new supernatural noir adventure featuring our intrepid NYC cop, Lieutenant Detective Bill Riggins. In this book, which takes place in 1957 with flashbacks to the 20s and flash-forwards to 1982, Riggins finds himself staying at the world famous Marlborough-Blenheim hotel in Atlantic City, NJ. It’s only a matter of hours before he encounters a ghostly apparition in his room…and finds out one of his best friends from childhood has been murdered in cold blood under the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

Fast cars, cool jazz, hot dames, steamy summer nights,  a serial killer, a secret network and more ghosts than Hackney’s has lobsters, “Murder Under The Boards” is the perfect book for people who dig the mid-century scene. From the world famous Steel Pier to Lucy the Margate Elephant, this book is packed with cool and fun stuff from Atlantic City’s colorful past.

Available through Amazon.com for Kindle for only $3.99, this 300-page book will keep you guessing till the last sentence! Print version also available to Tiki Lounge Talk readers at a 10% discount. Visit www.StarDustMysteries.com for more details and buying options.

Tropical Storm Isaac washed out a Weekend in South Florida

Living in the Tropics is great. There’s no better way to enjoy the Tiki good life than having a pool you can use year round, an outdoor Tiki bar and palm trees in your front yard. The downside is, you get Tropical Storms and Hurricanes now and then.

We got luck with Isaac. Unlike some of the other storms we’ve been hit with, so far this one is just dumping tons of rain on us. It’s already after 5:00pm on Sunday as I write this, and we’ve been lucky enough to not even have a power outage. The winds have been minimal and street flooding is no worse than we usually get during a rain storm.

But it is a wake-up call. We haven’t had a major storm hit our home in Sunrise (about 12 miles west of Fort Lauderdale Beach) since Wilma tore apart the area in 2005. Many of you out of the area may not even remember Wilma…it was overshadowed by Katrina, which caused substantial damage. But the fact is that Wilma was and still is listed as the most costliest storm in American history. So we’ve been lucky for 7 years…

It was Hurricane Wilma which gave me the idea for my Tiki-oriented murder mystery book, Murder on Tiki Island. Living through a Category 1 (up to 3) Hurricane was a real eye opener. It made me think of what it would have been like had it hit us head on…basically that would have meant almost total destruction. That led me to research storms of South Florida, which reminded me of the 1935 “Storm of the Century”, a Cat 5 ‘cane that destroyed a large chunk of the Florida Keys. That, and my own experience in the storms here, were the inspiration for my book.

All weather reports are indicating the worst of the storm is over for us. Tomorrow will probably be rainy but quiet. We dodged the bullet, again.

-Tiki Chris reporting from the storm shelter inside Pirate’s Cove Tiki Lounge

Noir Mystery “Murder Behind the Closet Door” By Chris Pinto availabe FREE for Kindle!

Murder Behind the Closet Door, The Wildwood Paranormal Mystery By Tiki Chris Pinto

Many of you know that I write noir-style murder mystery ghosts stories. Well, here’s some great news…

Yours truly is now a 5-star rated, Top 10 Amazon Best Seller! That’s right, Murder Behind the Closet Door has hit the #7 spot on the top 10 list for fiction-horror-ghosts, and the #10 spot for fiction-mysteries-hardboiled! So, in celebration…

Amazon.com is currently offering the Kindle version of Murder Behind the Closet Door: The Wildwood Paranormal Mystery by Christopher Pinto FREE.

There’s nothing cheaper than Free, baby!

You don’t even need a Kindle to get the ebook. You can read Kindle ebooks on your Mac, PC, iPhone, Android Phone, iPad and some other readers. Just download the free app from Kindle.

Murder Behind the Closet Door is a murder mystery-ghost story that takes place in Wildwood, NJ in the late 1970s, with flashbacks to the 1930s and ’50s. The book, written over a span of eight years, is a modern noir-style thriller mixing a fifty year-old murder mystery with the occult. Truly entertaining and original, Murder Behind The Closet Door opens a door on a very plausible, supernatural world where anything is possible.

About the book:

“A dilapidated house with an evil secret in the basement. An auto-wrecking yard with the devious, rusted remains of a murderer’s getaway car. An unsolved bank robbery with hundreds of thousands of dollars never found. A detective trying to solve an age old murder before his ticker runs out. A slow, agonizing death for an unfortunate victim and his soul reaching from beyond…

“Murder Behind The Closet Door” is a murder murder mystery ghost story that keeps you engaged and guessing from the first paragraph. Creepy, riveting, this story reveals another existence, one just beyond our own, where the occult and the paranormal meet reality and everyday people find themselves swept into very extraordinary circumstances.”

Read more about the book and get your FREE KINDLE BOOK at Amazon.com! Tell your friends…the Promotion ends soon!

-Tiki Chris P. reporting from the virtual library at Tiki Lounge Talk.

Bogart Cocktail and A Flash of Noir: Both FREE, here at the Tiki Lounge

A Flash of Noir, by Christopher Pinto

There’s a tinge of brandy in the air on this steamy night in Tikiland. The darkness is so thick and cruel that even the mice don’t want to step out for a crumb. A door creeks open in the darkness, and a man in a black trench coat and tilted fedora carefully picks his way through the tables until he reaches the bar…

For those of you who dig Noir style movies and fiction, I’ve got a real treat for you tonight:

“A Flash of Noir: Flash Fiction & Short, Short Stories with a Twist” by yours truly, Tiki Chris, is now

FREE

For a limited time, for Kindle!

A Flash of Noir is a collection of flash fiction and short, short stories, laid down old-school style by master mystery writer Christopher Pinto. Writing in the genre of gumshoe detectives and sultry dames, creepy horror and hep cat jive, Pinto has put together a series of mostly one-page, 60-second reads that will transport you to another time…a darker, more sinister time.

From smokey bars in New York City to the tropical islands of the Florida keys, A Flash of Noir takes you for a spin through the seediest gin joints and darkest alleys. One minute you’re speeding down I-95 in a hot rod, the next you’re tasting cheap whiskey in a basement tap room where the women are heartless and the men are unforgiving. Gangsters, cops, private eyes, strippers, murderers, phantoms…plus a few comedy pieces to keep you from wanting to slit your wrists.

Over 40 stories of crime fiction, ghost stories, retro fiction and short beatnik poetry plus noir-esque original photographs by the author make this a fast, fun read. There’s even a flash written entirely of song titles…see if you can list every one!

AND THOUGH MONDAY, IT’S FREE!

All you need is an Amazon account and a Kindle or Kindle Reader App on your phone, ipad, computer, etc, and you’re all set! Just click this link, A Flash of Noir, to download this groovy tome for free.

BTW: Did I mention it’s free?

Your Weekend Vintage Cocktail: The Bogart Cocktail

You’re going to need something cool and noir-ish to sip while reading this book. What could be better than a cocktail named after Humphrey Bogart? Now, this wasn’t his kind of drink (he was mainly a Scotch man), but we can certainly picture this concoction as the house drink at Rick’s Cafe Americain in Casablanca.

•    1 1/2 oz. apple brandy
•    1 oz. brandy
•    1/4 oz. lemon syrup
•    1/4 oz. lime syrup
•    1/4 oz. vanilla vodka
•    Chilled cocktail glass
•    Lemon wheel, for garnish
•    Lime wheel, for garnish

Pour all ingredients except the wheels into a shaker and shake with crushed ice until a frost forms on the outside of the can. Strain into cocktail glasses, and garnish with the wheels. Serving on a silver plate with .45 caliber bullet adds a nice touch.

-Tiki Chris, reporting from the bar at Rick’s, c. 1944

Book Signing at the Mai Kai Tonight! Murder on Tiki Island, The Parrot Talks in Chocolate

Book signing by authors “Tiki” Chris Pinto and Everett Peacock

Tonight, Wednesday, January 4, 2012, 6pm-8pm

Mai Kai Polynesian Restaurant and Tiki Bar, Fort Lauderdale, FL

If you’re in South Florida this Wednesday, be sure to stop by The Mai Kai in Fort Lauderdale and meet yours truly, Tiki Chris P. and Hawaii’s own Everett Peacock for our first book signing together!

It’s a rare treat to team up with Everett Peacock, author of the Parrot Talks series and other Hawaiian tales of fiction. I will be selling and signing paperback copies of the Tiki world’s official murder mystery, Murder on Tiki Island, along with my Wildwood Murder mystery Murder Behind the Closet Door, while Everett’s books will include The Parrot Talks in Chocolate, In the Middle of the World’s Most Wonderful of Oceans, Tiwaka Goes To Waikiki and Death by Facebook.

The Mai Kai is the world’s most famous, oldest-standing, unchanged and theerfore koolest original mid-century Tiki bar in the world. Built in 1956, it just celebrated its 55th anniversary as the Tiki world’s Mecca. Millions of people have made the pilgrimage to Fort Lauderdale, FL to pay tribute to this temple of Tiki, and have done so by imbibing strong, vintage-style tropical drinks, enjoying incredible exotic foods, watching the authentic hula dancers and ending the evening off with a trinket from the gift shop. Now, that gift shop includes works from today’s Tiki artists from all over the world. The newest addition is a collection of Tiki-related books, including those groovy tomes mentioned above.

Everett Peacock

Everett Peacock lives on the island of Maui, in the state of Hawaii, USA. His books have delighted thousands of people, telling tales of the Hawaiian Islands and their interesting inhabitants. His works range from the very lighthearted and uplifting The Parrot Talks in Chocolate, to the spooky paranormal mystery Death by Facebook. All of his works transcend our everyday existence, blending the metaphysical with human reality. His books consistently achieve five-star reviews on many book review sites…and I personally recommend them to anyone who digs Tiki, Hawaii, parrots or cocktails served in coconuts.

"Tiki" Chris Pinto, old-school style

I, Tiki Chris Pinto, live down here in sunny South Florida with my wife Colleen, just a few miles west of the sparkling beaches of Fort Lauderdale and the rum-soaked delights of the Mai Kai. I’ve been writing since I was a kid, and my successes included several murder mystery stage plays, the 5-star rated novels Murder Behind the Closet Door and Murder on Tiki Island, and a collection of flash fiction entitled A Flash of Noir. Murder Under The Boards: The Atlantic City Murder Mystery is the novel that’s currently in the works, and will feature my recurring paranormal mystery theme along with my recurring flawed protagonist, Detective Bill Riggins. (For those of you who dig books by Stephen King and Mickey Spillane, you’ll flip for these titles).

Both Everett and I will have several books on hand for sale, and will also sign copies of books you’ve already purchased. Hell, we’ll even sign books we didn’t write. Why not!

Hope to see some of you kool kats and kittens at the Mai Kai tonight!

All of our books can be found on Amazon.com, in print and for Kindle, and for Nook. For more info visit StarDustMysteries.com.

-Tiki Chris P., reporting from the Molokai bar.