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The Potboiler Podcast

The Potboiler Podcast

By: Patrick Hughes
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About this listen

We need more fiction.

We need more beguiling villains worthy of the conflicted hero’s pursuit.

Their smokey rooms have to be soaked in familiar imagery, while swift subversions of any genre’s expectations make their entrances and turn over their tables. The roads they’re on have to twist and turn their mission so they lose sight of the incitement far behind them.

We need Hollow Grim, noir sleuth manhunter rifleman, and Eric Verrity, misunderstood superhuman crime fighter, among a small series of revolving main characters.

Welcome to the Potboiler. Pulpy paperback genre fiction with some fresh paint.

Good, fun reading for your ears.

Find out more at on my website: https://patrickhughes.ca/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Patrick Hughes
Art Drama & Plays Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • Hollow Grim & The Downfall - Part Three
    Oct 18 2025

    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 Tribune reporter and chronicler of his father’s exploits has the same thoughts about inevitability and tells him over the line that he intends to write the right ending for the story he believes is shared between the three of them.


    Riders have him surrounded. Their mission is clear. The downfall is upon them.


    The 3 episodes of this story will be offered with no commercial interruptions. Visit https://patrickhughes.ca/ for links to me and to my other projects. Please stick around after the story for some light business.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    1 hr and 11 mins
  • Hollow Grim & The Downfall - Part Two
    Oct 10 2025

    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 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 ink, in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, reported by a writer named Sterling Stern. They were the hero and his troubadour.


    Years after Charlie’s death, Hollow encounters the role that his father’s biographer played in crafting his legend, and how he continues to profit from it. He resolves that ending is going to have to be written not worthy of print.


    The 3 episodes of this story will be offered with no commercial interruptions. Visit https://patrickhughes.ca/ for links to me and to my other projects. Please stick around after the story for some light business.


    Enjoy


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    44 mins
  • Hollow Grim & The Downfall - Part One
    Sep 20 2025

    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 ink, in the pages of the Chicago Tribune, reported by a writer named Sterling Stern. They were the hero and his troubadour.


    As time passes and the story grows, tension grows between them as Charlie questions the value and veracity of celebrity. A young Hollow questions: is it the hero who makes the story or the story that makes the hero?


    The 3 episodes of this story will be offered with no commercial interruptions. Visit https://patrickhughes.ca/ for links to me and to my other projects. Please stick around after the story for some light business.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Show More Show Less
    58 mins
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