The Potboiler Podcast

The Hero Business - Part 12 The carefully curated Multi media campaign is putting Eric Verety and his expansive brand and his memorable silver V in front of every demographic and in every market. On magazine covers, in newspaper headlines, and on his own website, cleverly equipped with an “I need a hero” request button. Eric understands that his career has to be managed but is slowly lamenting the...

The Hero Business Part 11 Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing riding to the rescue. Let’s do the intro. Everyone sees Eric in a different light.  They see his shortcomings more often than his virtues. As his profile expands and evolves with his growing celebrity, the effects and affectations land differently with his growing circle of care and support and publicity. Mea...

Welcome to The Potboiler, I’m Patrick Hughes and this is Hollow Grim and The Bitter End, part three. Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that’s just the right amount of bitter, to make you appreciate the sweet. Let’s do the intro. The night started with the rumbling thunder of a storm approaching from the west. Young Hollow Grim watches his legendary lawman father, Marshall...

In Hollow Grim’s youth, his father US Marshal Charlie Grim was known as the man that brought law and Justice to Nevada. He is known across the west as fair, fierce, and an unmatched skill for measuring the man that stands in his path. With his celebrity would always come a challenge. With challenge comes conflict, with victory comes vendetta and growing list of names riding for your door...

Hollow Grim & The Bitter End - Part 1 Let’s do the intro. In Hollow Grim’s youth, his father US Marshal Charlie Grim was known as the man that brought law and Justice to Nevada. He is known across the west as fair, fierce, and an unmatched skill for measuring the man that stands in his path. With his celebrity would always come a challenge. With challenge comes conflict, with victory...

Part 10 The business of Eric Verrity the Hero begins, according to the plan imposed by his new PR guy, with an appearance on a national talk show.  The audience adores him, roaring their appreciation with every question from the talk show host. Eric feels the stage lights radiating down on him as his new reality loads more weight on him by the minute, and the cheers from the crowd increasingl...

Welcome to The Potboiler. Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that’s ready for the spotlight. Let’s do the intro. Three months have passed since Eric Verrity’s valiant rescue at the National Life Building and his life has changed dramatically.   His relationship with Molly has flourished, as has his connection with his once estranged foster brother Todd. Follo...

Hollow Grim is on the trail of Werner Worthington III, the closest thing he’s ever known to an arch enemy, and a notorious crimeboss that has reportedly already been killed twice since the deployment of his dead or alive arrest warrant. The twists and turns of the thickening hunt has taken Hollow to Worm’s own fortress, where a showdown waits for him and the growing band of hunters on the same tra...

Welcome to The Potboiler, I’m Patrick Hughes and this is Hollow Grim and The Third Worthington Murder, part two. Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that I think deserves some summer sun.   Let’s do the intro. Hollow Grim is on the trail of Werner Worthington III, the closest thing he’s ever known to an arch enemy, and a notorious crimeboss that has reportedly alre...

Welcome to The Potboiler, I’m Patrick Hughes and this is Hollow Grim and The Third Worthington Murder, Part One. Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that I think deserves some sunlight.   Let’s do the intro. Over the path of Hollow Grim’s life, following his legendary lawman father around their small Nevada town, in his early days as a military marksman for hire, a...

Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that I think deserves to shine.   Let’s do the intro. Hollow Grim knows a confrontation with Sterling Stern is inevitable and necessary, to end the exploitation of his father’s legacy in law enforcement. As he prepares to leave for Chicago, the new telephone in the Progress Hotel begins to chime.   The former Tribu...

Welcome to The Potboiler, I’m Patrick Hughes and this is Hollow Grim and The Downfall, part two. Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that I think deserves some sunlight.   Let’s do the intro. Hollow Grim is known across the western United States as a marksman man hunter for the US Marshal, a good killer hunting down the fugitives eluding the deputies and private ag...

Let’s do the intro. Hollow Grim is known across the western United States as a marksman man hunter for the US Marshal, a good killer hunting down the fugitives eluding the deputies and private agents. His celebrity is a burden for every day it’s a benefit. Any notoriety he’s found lives under the massive shadow of his legendary father, Marshal Charlie Grim. His father’s name was built in...

Potboiler is an old term for pulpy paperback genre writing that’s ready to face the bad guy.   Let’s do the intro. Todd needs Eric’s help. A disgruntled worker at an office building downtown has taken his coworkers hostage, and has a bomb set explode. Todd doesn’t have time to negotiate or space to rush the scene. He knows that Eric is his best and only chance. The encount...

Eric has spent a life not being injured and aware he was being hurt. He didn’t have the awareness to understand the pain he’d endured could have an affect on the people that care for him. As he shares more of his story with Molly he has to contend with the hurt she feels for him. As Todd discovers that the motel fire was likely arson, Eric is also forced to confront that his actions draw...

Eric’s heroic deeds have reintroduced his long estranged foster brother into his life, and while his relationship with Molly deepens, his life of solitude and habit is becoming an increasingly distant memory. At the same time his new doctor is seeking a deeper understanding of his strength and his weaknesses. After leaving a session with his doctor, Eric encounters a young woman on the bus th...

Eric’s memories of his therapy as a teenager with Doctor Harmon and the parallel lines stringing to his current discussions with Doctor Maynard diverge as young Eric learns Doctor Harmon has terminal cancer and is getting his affairs in order. Arrangements have been made to see Eric securely into financial adulthood. Meanwhile, Dr. Maynard clinical interest in his patient grows into fasc...

As his court mandated therapy continues, Eric’s memory counters his new doctor’s interest in his pursuits with that of the child psychiatrist. Shortly after his foster brother Todd’s harrowing football injury, Dr. Harmon begins visits with Eric who has matched his brother in a descent into depression. Doctor Harmon quickly sees something special in Eric, encouraging him to accept the things t...

Following Eric’s brave intervention during an attempted robbery at her corner store, Molly insists on cooking Eric a home cooked meal. Watching her work in his kitchen, Eric recalls his the period of his childhood in the foster home of the Danvers, lead with images of the kind and maternal Mrs. Danvers, and his impressive foster brother Todd. His memories carry him through the formative perio...

Eric is an exceptional young man that has spent his life being told that the things that make him special are flaws and limitations. He just wants to help. Helping a stranger at a moment of vulnerability is a complex thing. It’s a intrusion, even if it’s the right thing to do. As Eric begins his court mandated therapy, his friendship with Molly, the proprietress of his neighbor...

Who is your hero? Who comes through the dark of your nightmare to defend you from your worst fear? When that image appears in your mind’s eye, what qualities define what you see? Is your hero the kind of idol we all have grown to know, impressive by every physical standard, instantly worthy of your trust and your favor? Is your hero a statue, a movie poster, a legend? What if the figure...

Hollow’s strategy has turned to desperation. Uncertain in the dropping temperature exactly how much of his life has left him, he knows his choice now to act or let the cold take him, but without knowing which of the judge’s enemies has taken this action his disadvantage is practically a death sentence. The three episodes of this story will be offered with no commercial interruptions. Vis...

Every year ends with winter. It comes to an end like everything else, with lifeless unforgiving cold. As Hollow Grim monitors his wounds, as the temperature drops, and as the day grows increasingly dire, the search through his memory of Judge Jameson’s past for a suspect continues to occupy his mind.   He needs to know the rifle that has him cornered on the frozen ridge so he c...

On a desolate day in January, Hollow Grim is hunting deer on a familiar trail, where Doc Shillington’s land backs on to Judge Irving Jameson’s expansive family property. Hiking the migration path Hollow has hunted on since his father used to take him every Sunday, a rifle shot from across the valley suddenly makes him the hunted, taking shelter on the frigid cliffside. Unable to move without...

A compulsion to hunt, to untie a knotted riddle, and to answer an injustice he can’t tolerate has led Hollow Grim to an encounter with a suspected child killer, who was only moments from the end of his rifle’s deadly aim but has managed to turn the trap against him. Hollow is captive by the killer he’s been hunting, a man of his own compulsions. Instead of dispatching his problem, this killer...