I can’t believe this. It’s happening. I’m about to be a published fiction writer! Kristopher Zgorski (BOLO  Books) and I wrote a short story together that was inspired by “Ticket to Ride” from the Beatles’ Help! album. This is, for both of us, our first published fiction. I’m thrilled that our story will be included in this amazing anthology, coming October 2023 and now up for preorder.

Publication Date: October 16, 2023
Publisher: Down and Out Books
Format: Print, Digital
Genre: Crime Fiction Anthology
Author Website: joshpachter.com


Book Synopsis
Happiness Is a Warm Gun is the sixth of Josh Pachter’s “inspired by” anthologies, following volumes of stories inspired by the songs of Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Buffett, Billy Joel, and Paul Simon…and the films of the Marx Brothers.

For this collection, the lyrics of the Beatles’ inspired the contributing authors to imagine a world in which murder, kidnapping, blackmail, and theft are as common as meter maids and yellow submarines. Each story was inspired by a song from one of the Fab Four’s studio albums: seventeen albums, seventeen songs, seventeen stories–by a total of eighteen authors (since one was written collaboratively by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, two of crime fiction’s leading bloggers).

Purchase Link


About the editor
Josh Pachter is an author, editor, and translator of crime fiction. His short stories have been appearing in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and elsewhere since 1968 — and his first novel, Dutch Threat, is coming from Genius Books this November. In 2020, the Short Mystery Fiction Society honored him with its Golden Derringer for Lifetime Achievement.

All comments are welcomed.