Michael In Hell Sequel

Many writers won't let others read partials of their current work in progress. I have no idea why because I think the feedback is worth it. I haven't been able to let my character, Michael Tucker, fade into the sunset, or in his case, into the fires of Hell.

I submitted the first three chapters of Two Weeks Burning, the Michael In Hell sequel, to several first readers to get reactions. The readers are sticklers and they find every mistake in spelling or coherence. I was worried because the novel combines The Bad Season and Michael In Hell into the last book of a trilogy.

I wondered how people who have read both novels would react to the third one because it has some bizarre plot twists. The readers like the novel so far. I often work on several books at once so I don't know how long it will take to finish the sequel, but it will feature the tense action, violence, and the lean writing of the previous books.

The Bad Season YS Gazelle Books Version

No living creature can survive a night in the Kentucky valley called Owenton Hollow during hot bad season summers. Locals fear the place. No one lives near it and all animals move to high ground before dark. Something hunts there and it hates all life. By 1995, several outsiders escaping the city had built houses near the hollow, and DEA agents began operations to stop a major Owenton drug dealer. No one warned the outsiders about the hollow, and this would be a bad season summer, the first in nineteen years. They would find out the hard way.

Based on fact and myth, this is the story of what happened when a misfit squad of strangers led by a Marine combat veteran faced the impossible...an enemy that could not die.

"The best Horror novel in 2006."
Dennis Duncan, Horrow World


"A fast, hard, unnerving ride from first page to last."
Gary A. Braunbeck, Bram Stoker Award Winner

Y.S Gazelle Books/ March 2009

The Real Michael Tucker from Michael In Hell

The man on the left is 58-year-old serial killer Michael Tucker, a former resident of St. Leon, Indiana and now an inmate and state executioner at the fictional Paddock Correctional Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio in the year 2008. He is the tragic Vietnam Marine hero of Dennis Latham's novel Michael In Hell.

The picture is a scene from a sequel, Two Weeks Burning. Tucker has red dye removed by laser from his neck and face and has grown hair. It's part of a deal with the warden that will allow him to lead a group of prisoners into combat against each other and an unknown killer in the rural Kentucky valley called Owenton Hollow from Latham's novel The Bad Season.

Tucker completes his own retinal scan while he is also scanned for any viral infections by prison robots. The Michael Tucker in the picture is the author Dennis Latham now at age 62. The novel Tucker is bigger than life, muscular, and relentless toward enemies.

"I've always been kind of an oddity of nature. I do fifty pushups and I pick up five pounds of muscle. It's something I rarely talk about or expose to anyone except my wife. I took this picture with my finger over the camera flash while facing a mirror. It really helps me to create if I can imagine or see an image of the character. Since most people who know me think I'm Michael Tucker, I decided to try the Tucker portrait since I don't know anyone else who matched his age and physical description."

"I'm not all that much of a roamer anymore (my characters do that for me) but I believe I could still perform up to Tucker's physical level if forced into some of the situations I create. I never planned a sequel, but Tucker has become kind of a cult figure with those who have read the novel. Everyone wanted the story to continue. I'm off and running, but I'll probably finish my novel Floater first. All five of my current books are available online, including Last Chance of a Crazy Virgin which just came out this week."

February 2009

What others say about Last Chance:

“Latham's style is lean and mean, tying all these divergent elements into a slam-bang, satisfying conclusion. As wild and improbable as these characters seemed, I hated to let them go at book's end, like a bunch of quirky favorite uncles or aunts whom your family never talks about. A somewhat twisted and very funny read. Highly recommended.”
Walt Hicks, Hellbound Books

“I almost got fired for reading it at work because I was laughing so loud.”
Pat Rencker/Cincinnati, Ohio

“I didn’t get any sleep for three nights while my wife read it in bed. She kept laughing and waking me up to read parts of the book out loud.”
Dave Beinkemper/Fort Walton Beach, Florida

“I began wondering who would be the best person to play each of the characters in the movie. I seriously believe it could be turned into a very funny, but strange, movie. You don't have to have a twisted sense of humor to enjoy it, but it helps.”
Jim Whittenburg/Cincinnati, Ohio

“During the Jurassic Period, the Stegosaurus roamed North America. It had a massive torso, a long narrow skull, and a brain like an acorn. Lacking capacity for quick response, you could set fire to its rear end and the pain signal wouldn’t reach the tiny brain for ten minutes. Yet, it survived for millions of years because it was unique and different. This pretty much describes Mr. Latham and his work from my point of view.”
Ernst Krisinsky/Director Sunnyvale Mental Rehab

Writing Update: Last Chance of a Crazy Virgin & Book Sales

This a spit whatever you're drinking through your nose, stay up and keep everyone else awake while you laugh novel, (from what I've been told.) I've laughed at it myself a few times over the years. It was supposed to have been published by Bantam long ago, but they only had one opening at the time and a famous author got the slot. That version was longer and under the title, I Guess You're Still A Virgin.

In 2001, it was published in limited edition by BooksOnScreen under the title Driving With Ace, and again as an e-book by Clocktower around 2004. This time around it will be Y.S.Gazelle as Last Chance of a Crazy Virgin and it should be out by February 2009. It's a crazy comedy set in 1982 about a 24 year old city bus driver named John Elvin...a virgin with a crazy family, a crazy shrink, and lots of enemies. I had fun with it.

I've sold over 300 copies of my other books at the local Ameri-Stop. They don't sell books, but the owner let me put in a little display and the books keep selling. The local newspapers are writer unfriendly to all area writers (I've never figured out why), and with little or no publicity, I average selling a book in a store that doesn't sell books almost every day.

Living With Ghosts As I Write

Got a call from the ghost hunters (PINK) in Kentucky last night. They spent the night at my house in March and picked up the most EVPs they have ever recorded. Last week they did a presentation at the Independence, Kentucky Library and had a crowd of 100 people. They are using an EVP from my house, among others, where a voice says "Glad I'm dead and they get mad," after the question as to why they haunt my house.

Among things we've experienced: I've been poked, slapped, had my hair yanked, had something crawl into bed with me almost every time I take a nap, and watched my Christmas tree get torn down one year by something I couldn't see. Lights go on and off, exercise equipment starts by itself and runs full tilt, crashes, bangs, and thumps all the time. I called PINK because something hit my big screen television so hard it moved the entire stand sideways and terrified my cats and dog. I've seen the woman pass through the dining room. We have three distinct spirits in our house and they make their presence known at times. The male makes it clear he doesn't like us being there. The woman makes physical contact (pokes,light slaps), and the child makes very little contact. The thing that bothered me the most was the long ringing of the phone: one short ring and then one continous ring until you picked it up to get a dial tone. It did it all night one night until we unplugged all the phones. The Christmas tree was the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. The branches bent down from top to bottom in a wave like someone walked on them. Ornaments flew everywhere and the lights and television made an electric short circuit sound while the tv screen went all static.The house is Victorian, pre-1900, probably around 1870, no one knows for sure. At least one past resident has been murdered, and it used to be a doctor's office at one time.

Channel 19 in Cincinnati is coming to film the outside of the house for their morning show on PINK October 31. I guess it will also feature some of the EVPs from my house, and a place called the Loveland Castle in Loveland, Ohio. I'm not real sure how much of their visit here will be on the show, but PINK tells me our EVPs are the big hit of their presentations.

Sudden Victims To Be Released In July

Climb aboard the Alternate Reality Train for a trip to bizarre worlds where reality ends and terror creates sudden victims. You'll meet ghosts and demons, killers and warriors, the psychotic and the suicidal, the good, the bad, the innocent and the tormented. Discover why a man's friends commit suicide when he's with them. Find out what happens when shadows bite. Spend a night in jail with a body dragged from the river. Witness the long term effect war inflicts on the warriors. Visit a gambling boat with a demon who cheats for you, and try to survive a night in a haunted nightclub. The train has arrived and you have a ticket.

Sudden Victims is my first story collection. I spend most of my writing time on novels. I have expanded "Floater" one of the longer stories in the collection into a full length film script. Most of us go through life pretty much on a straight path, knowing what to expect from each day. In this collection, my characters are suddenly jerked from their straight paths into bizarre circumstances where they become the sudden victims. Their reactions create the stories. The book should begin to show up in online stores around July 1.