Böcker utgivna av Down & Out Books

"I'd been a grown-up since age twelve, when my father strangled my mother and took my family, my home, my cat, and any chance at ever having a normal life away from me." The teenage daughter of a killer. "Kevin thinks he's a millionaire. This jar of pennies weighs a ton, so Kevin thinks he must be rich, but there's no connection between weight and value. Kevin's father is proof of that." What happens when Santa threatens to put Kevin on the naughty list? A divorced dentist. A former prostitute. A retired cop. An escaped convict. The daughters of a drunk. These are just some of the characters who bare their souls in this issue of Spinetingler Magazine. How does unimaginable loss redefine a teenager's life? What does it take for a mother who's barely coping with life to learn to appreciate her son? What could cause fifty-year-old secrets to surface? What truths will surface when our diverse cast of characters faces their defining moments? Join us on journeys fascinating and unforgettable.

A man wakes to find himself below ground in the abandoned subway stations of New York City. He has no idea how he got there, no idea who he is. In his pocket he finds only a wad of blood-stained cash and a deck of playing cards. Once above ground, he rents out a cheap apartment, previously occupied by an enigmatic artist named Max Leider who'd left most everything behind-books, clothes, personal letters. But most peculiar are a series of paintings, each one of a mysterious woman hidden behind a curtain. Without an identity of his own, the man becomes fascinated with Leider. He begins wearing his clothes. He begins painting on his canvases. He begins taking on his obsessions. But as his persona fully transforms into Max Leider, he will find some horrifying truths about the artist...and himself. Praise for THE BLADE THIS TIME: "Jon Bassoff's The Blade This Time is a nightmarish descent into the underbelly of New York City and the darkest corners of the psyche. A gritty, disorienting ride." -Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts "The Blade This Time a dark masterpiece of classic horror. Bassoff blends art, insanity, violence, and obsession into a haunting nightmare that you don't want to stop. Truly, Bassoff at his best." -C.J. Howell, author of The Last of the Smoking Bartenders "Jon Bassoff's latest full-length piece of noir, The Blade This Time, transports you into the bowels of urban, subterranean, humankind. Literally. A riveting, tightly woven masterpiece of hard-boiled loneliness, I was held mesmerized by it. Part Charlie Huston, part Henry Miller with a sprinkling of Bukowski, this is a novel you will not want to miss." -Vincent Zandri, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Remains and Orchard Grove "Dark and disturbing, a guided tour through one man's private hell. You can feel the pain, touch the grime, and smell the decay. I burned right through it, tripping on the feverish story arc, and came out the other side more than a little uneasy." -Tim Curran, author of Doll Face "The Blade This Time is the book David Goodis would have written if he'd taken WAY too much mescaline one weekend and holed himself up in an abandoned Port Richmond movie theater and hallucinated straight into his typewriter. Brilliantly demented. -Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest "Creepy, intriguing, compelling and well-crafted, Bassoff's novel is the kind of thing you didn't realize you were looking for until you're already up to your neck in it. And by then you're hooked." -Victor Gischler, author of The Deputy

The year is 1953. Disgraced in the psychiatric hospital where he'd practiced for nearly thirty years, Dr. Walter Freeman has taken to traversing the country and proselyting about a very new kind of salvation: the transorbital lobotomy. With an ice pick and a hammer, Freeman promises to cure depression and catatonia, delusions and psychosis, with a procedure as simple and safe as curing a toothache. When he enters the backwater Oklahoma town of Burnwood, however, his own sanity will be tested. Around him swirls a degenerate and delusional cast of characters-a preacher who believes his son to be the Messiah, a demented and violent young prostitute, and a trio of machete-wielding brothers-all weaved into a grotesque narrative that reveals how blind faith in anything can lead to destruction. Praise for THE INCURABLES: "A twisted tour through the asylum that Jon Bassoff calls his mind. The Incurables is filled with the mad and desperate, but ultimately it's the humanity that Bassoff finds in his broken characters that sets this novel apart. Don't get me wrong though, The Incurables is certifiably insane-and I mean that in the best possible way." -Johnny Shaw, Anthony Award-winning author of Big Maria "Jon Bassoff's The Incurables practically bleeds off the page with a dark poetry so intense, that you can still feel it after your eyes are closed. It's the rarest type of novel that won't only sink its teeth into you, it will leave you relishing the scar." -Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce "With influences and homage as wide and varied as The Alcoholics, Cuckoo's Nest, and 'Murder in the Red Barn,' The Incurables oddly and most affectionately invokes Nick Cave-but not Cave the singer, Cave the novelist-with its backwoods preachers, hellbent harlots, and dead-eyed dreamers. Think And the Ass Saw the Angel, only superiorly written, carved by prose that cuts deep. Bassoff's crooked trip to hell is a powerful rumination on the beauty of the damned." -Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and Lamentation "The Incurables reads like an unhinged murder ballad. In it, Bassoff's crafted a violent-and oddly affecting-ode to the outcasts, the downtrodden, the broken, the grotesque, and the misunderstood." -Chris Holm, author of The Big Reap "The Incurables is terse, sparse and brutal, yet strangely touching at times. Another winner from the Bassoff pen." -William Meikle, author of The Hole "Imagine One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as re-written by Elmore Leonard. A mesmerizing novel." -Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards

Frankie Avicious is a hard-luck fellow with a sordid past. Living in a dreary meatpacking town, stuck in a loveless marriage, and spending his days slaughtering cattle, Frankie has nothing to look forward to but his next swallow of bargain whiskey. His wife is threatening to leave him, and the local sociopath is threatening to kill him. And then there's Scarlett Acres, a stripper with a heart of fool's gold. Frankie can't stop thinking about her... With the encouragement of a mysterious traveling salesman, Frankie sets out to reverse his destiny through a series of bizarre murders. The consequences of his brutality turn out to be far worse than even he could imagine. Praise for THE DISASSEMBLED MAN: "The Disassembled Man is lean and mean-with the emphasis on mean-a true psycho-noir novel that leaves the reader to work out the truth behind events we can only see from the point of view of the protagonist. The twist that comes maybe two thirds of the way through the book ups the stakes even more and those last few pages are a real mindbender. Taken as a whole, The Disassembled Man is a damn fine read; a brilliant and raw example of the Psycho Noir genre." -Russel D. McLean, Crime Scene Scotland "For the first third of Jon Bassoff's beautifully ugly first novel The Disassembled Man, I felt the presence of Jim Thompson. Nothing wrong with that, the tone and feel of Thompson are appropriate to the material. But then Bassoff gets going on his own and you realize that while he uses the same kind of Swiftian tone Thompson did, every nuance of ugliness writ large-I always had the feeling that Thompson used it as comic relief, a kind of fabulism if you will. Laughing past the graveyard that would all too soon claim you. I don't get that feeling at all with the Bassoff novel. The power of this book, and it has considerable power, is that Bassoff never apologies for his people or their story. An impressive and imposing debut." -Ed Gorman, Ed's New Improved Blog "Bassoff has written sheer, nasty beautiful prose with this book. The wince factor is high and the characters horridly riveting. The envelope has not just been pushed, but set on fire." -Jennifer Jordan, Crime Spree Magazine "The Disassembled Man is remarkable for its ugliness. It's hard to think of a book with a character as despicable as Frankie Avicious. This Jim Thompson on mescaline story is not for the faint of heart." -Nathan Cain, Independent Crime "Jon Bassoff's novel The Disassembled Man is a wince-inducing front row seat to a soul shredding. It's so unrelentingly dark, so hopeless and dank, that when the humor rears its fugly head you'll want to wretch because you laughed. You will hate yourself for those laughs. But you will laugh. Whatever literary tag it's given, The Disassembled Man is a hell of a statement." -Jedidiah Ayers, Hardboiled Wonderland "Bassoff is good, and the things that are at the heart of a good psycho noir-great characters, lurid action and a propellant plot-are all here in abundance." -John Kenyon, Things I'd Rather be Doing "Jim Thompson's psychotic hell brutally collides with Bruce Jay Friedman's absurdist humor in this shotgun blast of a novel." -Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes "Having read quite a number of psycho noirs, I'd have to say this one's a bit special. Jon Bassoff really nails it." -Allan Guthrie, author of Slammer "This is strong stuff, definitely not the kind of thing that you're going to find from a mainstream publisher. If you have a taste for the off-beat, this might be just what you're looking for." -Bill Crider, author of Murder in Four Parts "Flexer's gritty, nasty tale in the classic dime-novel tradition moves like a bullet from a Beretta." -Mike Segretto, author of The Bride of Trash

Russell Carver, an enigmatic and tortured man in search of a young girl gone missing, has come to Factory Town, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned buildings, crumbling asphalt, deadly characters, hidden secrets and unspeakable depravity. Wandering deeper and deeper into the dangerous, dream-like and darkly mysterious labyrinths in town, Russell stumbles upon clues that not only lead him closer to the missing girl, but to his own troubled past as well. Because in Factory Town nothing is what it seems, no one is safe, and there's no such thing as a clean escape. From Jon Bassoff, author of Corrosion, comes a dark, gritty and surreal novel that is at once a compelling mystery and an exploration into the darkest recesses of the human soul. Welcome to the haunting, frightening, and disturbing experience that is Russell Carver's search for the truth... Praise for FACTORY TOWN: "This is a profoundly discomfiting and pessimistic exploration of a deeply damaged man, and when Bassoff (Corrosion) invokes real-world horrors alongside the fantastical ugliness of Factory Town and its inhabitants, he suggests that similar foulness is common to all people. This is one to read with all the lights on." -Publishers Weekly "Factory Town: A hallucinatory descent into an urban hell that rivals Jim Thompson for stark terror. Jon Bassoff is a master of that territory where pulp becomes poetry, crime fiction mates with horror, but this novel is very much its own self-an unnervingly individual piece of work." -Ramsey Campbell, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Ancient Images "Factory Town is a journeyman's surreal voyage through the very heart of hell. A novel full of a crazed, ugly, vivid, disturbing energy held together by a deft hand. Bassoff is the king of creepy crime-horror fiction." -Tom Piccirilli, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Last Kind Words "For those of us who love the horror-crime genre, Jon Bassoff is a Godsend. Creepy, poetic, and beautifully dark, Factory Town is an absolutely mesmerizing ride." -John Rector, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Already Gone, Lost Things, and Out of the Black "In Factory Town, Jon Bassoff gives us Russell Carver, a man whose desperate search for a missing girl takes him to a bleak city where hope has long since been abandoned, and the grotesque is accepted as normal. By turns brutal and lyrical, shocking and uplifting, Factory Town provides a visceral experience unlike any other novel you'll read this year. Jon Bassoff is quickly becoming a must-read author in the field of dark fiction. Don't miss this worthy follow-up to last year's must-read Corrosion." -Allan Leverone, author of Final Vector and Mr. Midnight "No crime writer today does bleakness and despair as well as Jon Bassoff. He has the voice of a modern day David Goodis, if Goodis had been influenced by Stephen King. Factory Town is a thrilling genre bending mystery that is as scary as it gets." -Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving and The Returning "Factory Town is the novel Kafka would have written had he lived longer. Brilliant writing, this, in the vein of Jung's shadow world. Jon Bassoff's novel is the contemporary Pilgrim's Progress; Russell Carver, the Christian of John Bunyan's work, traveling through the Slough of Despond looking for a salvation that will never come. And, then-there are lines that make you weep at their truth and beauty, like: 'She had once been beautiful, so beautiful that I almost believed in God, but beauty falls apart, just like everything, rusts and rots, disintegrates and deteriorates.' This is nihilism in its final, apocalyptic, terrible form." -Les Edgerton, author of The Rapist, The Bitch and The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Ki

A mysterious Iraq war veteran with a horribly scarred face...A disturbed young man in a strange mountain town...A masked preacher with a terrible secret...Amidst a firestorm of violence, betrayal and horror, their three worlds will eventually collide in an old mining shack buried deep in the mountains. Corrosion, the shattering debut novel by Jon Bassoff, is equal parts Jim Thompson, Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner, and an unforgettable journey into the underbelly of crime and passion. Drawn from the darkest corners of the human experience, it is sure to haunt readers for years to come. Praise for CORROSION: "Bassoff confronts directly the traumatic stress disorder of our world today and tears off its mask, even if the face must follow." -New York Magazine "Corrosion is a beautifully bleak noir novel that stretches the boundaries of the genre to its breaking point. A virtuoso performance by the terrific Jon Bassoff." -Jason Starr, international bestselling author of The Craving "Like some unholy spawn of Cormac McCarthy's Child of God and Donald Ray Pollock's The Devil All the Time, Corrosion offers pungent writing, a cast of irresistibly damaged characters, and a narrative that's as twisted and audacious as any I have read in a long while. A dark gem." -Roger Smith, author of Dust Devils "Sharp, original, fierce, a real gut-ripper. Corrosion is one of the most startlingly original and unsettling novels I've read in ages. It ramps your pulse, it claws at your sweet spot. Bassoff has a career ahead of him brightly lit by a very bad star." -Tom Piccirilli, author of the Edgar Award-nominated novel The Cold Spot "Imagine Chuck Palahniuk filtered through Tarantino speak, blended with an acidic Jim Thompson and a book that cries out to be filmed by David Lynch, then you have a flavor of Corrosion. The debut novel from the unique Jon Bassoff begins a whole new genre: Corrosive Noir." -Ken Bruen, Shamus Award-winning author of The Guards "Jon Bassoff gives new meaning to the phrase 'Hell on earth' in his debut novel, Corrosion. It's a harrowing page-turning tale of lost, misplaced, and mangled identity that barrels its way to breakdowns and showdowns of literal and figurative biblical proportions." -Lynn Kostoff, author of Late Rain "Jon Bassoff's stream of conscious novel sports Faulkner-like as this dark tale is told in first person timelines. It will grip and engage and ultimately leave you shaken to the core. Not for the tenderhearted... not no way, not no how. Corrosion is the tale of a man on a mission from God... or is it the Devil? Dare to find out." -Charlie Stella, author of Johnny Porno "Talk about a book starting one way and then springing something on you...[Bassoff's Corrosion] is dark and funny and sick, a book as much about identity as it is about crime." -Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series "Corrosion is a fever dream, a lucid nightmare. It is at once poetic and brutal; hypnotic and vicious; empathetic and heartless. It is the most effective kind of horror-the kind you believe. Reading it is a deeply uncomfortable experience in the best possible way." -Marcus Sakey, author of The Two Deaths of Daniel Hayes "An archetypal, nightmare journey down a hall of mirrors. Corrosion will burn your eyeballs. Keeps you reading relentlessly to the end." -Jonathan Woods, author of A Death in Mexico

Meet the McGraws. They''re not criminals. They''re outlaws. They have made a living by driving anything and everything for the Stanleys, the criminal family who has been employing them for decades. It''s ended with Tucker. He''s gone straight, much to the disappointment of his father, Webb. When Webb vanishes after a job, and with him a truck load of drugs, the Stanleys want their drugs back or their money. With the help from his grandfather, Calvin-the original lead foot-Tucker is about to learn a whole lot about the family business in a crash course that might just get him killed. Praise for RUMRUNNERS: "By far the most fun I''ve had reading a novel in a long time." -Stuart MacBride, author of A Dark So Deadly "I stayed up half one night reading Rumrunners. Man, I love that book. Terrific. Dark magic." -Ken Bruen, author of the Jack Taylor series "Buckle up... Rumrunners is a fast and furious read." -Samuel W. Gailey, author of Deep Winter "Rumrunners just never lets up. It''s a fuel-injected, mile-a-minute thrill ride. I had a blast." -Grant Jerkins, author of A Very Simple Crime and Abnormal Man "Few contemporary writers do justice to the noir tradition the way Eric Beetner does. Others try to emulate and mimic; Beetner just takes the form and cuts his own jagged, raw and utterly readable path. Rumrunners is the latest example of his great storytelling skills, and his uncompromising commitment to the dark, often violent truth at the center of the human heart." -Gar Anthony Haywood, author of the Aaron Gunner series "Beetner is an old school talent, a crime writer''s crime writer like Gil Brewer (although, in my humble opinion, he''s better than Brewer), who writes stuff that is fast and funny and dark all at once." -Jake Hinkson, author of Hell On Church St. and The Big Ugly Praise for Eric Beetner: "To be blunt, he''s the 21st century''s answer to Jim Thompson." -LitReactor "Eric Beetner seems to have a formula that he has used for every book he has published: Fun plot + believable characters + witty dialogue + breakneck pace = novel that knocks your socks off." -Regular Guy Reading Noir "Beetner has a keen eye on how to plot a book that never allows the reader a chance to catch their breath." -Out of the Gutter

It''s 1971, and outlaw driver Calvin McGraw is grooming his 19-year-old son Webb to uphold the family name. Drugs, money, people-the McGraws drive anything and everything. When a delivery goes wrong, Calvin steps knee-deep in a turf war between his employer, the Stanleys, and a rival Midwestern crime syndicate, but his week gets a whole lot worse when Webb-on his first solo job-loses the cargo. Praise for LEADFOOT: "With Leadfoot, Beetner proves he is the one true master of the modern pulp novel." -Crimespree Magazine "Beetner populates Leadfoot with characters as rich and lively as any Elmore Leonard novel, and when Beetner punches the gas, you can almost see the McGraw''s middle fingers flying as they invite us all along for the ride." -Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain "A hell of a fun book. Crazy families, fast cars, a classic crime-it''s just an all-around good time. Fast, funny and thrilling on a classic level." -Steph Post, author of A Tree Born Crooked and Lightwood Praise for Eric Beetner: "To be blunt, he''s the 21st century''s answer to Jim Thompson." -LitReactor "Eric Beetner seems to have a formula that he has used for every book he has published: Fun plot + believable characters + witty dialogue + breakneck pace = novel that knocks your socks off." -Regular Guy Reading Noir "Beetner has a keen eye on how to plot a book that never allows the reader a chance to catch their breath." -Out of the Gutter

With Choke on Your Lies, Smith presents his homage to one of his favorite detectives, Nero Wolfe, but written for the "internet porn" generation. Octavia VanderPlatts is wealthy, powerful, and "comfortable with her weight"-or to hear her say it, "a rich fat b****." Her IQ is at the genius level, and she uses it to manipulate and frighten anyone who tries to get in her way. She controls an empire built on discrimination lawsuits won against some of the nation's top companies. On top of that, Octavia doesn't care one wink what people think of her. So when she offers her old friend poetry professor Mick Thooft some help in his impending divorce, he smells an ulterior motive. Maybe because Frances didn't invite Octavia to the wedding for fear of her clearing the buffet. Not only does Octavia want to help, but she's got evidence-plenty of scandalous photos. That's not Mick's style, so he turns her down flat...until he discovers that Fran's trying to take their home based on a near-perfect forgery of his signature. After that he and Octavia charge forward, but soon find they're in deeper than they realized-robot pens, swinger clubs, and a blackmail scheme that holds an entire college faculty hostage. Just when Mick and Octavia are on the cusp of victory, it all goes terribly wrong. Mick is framed for murder and someone targets Octavia's immense wealth and secret backyard greenhouse full of exotic marijuana. With no one on their side except Octavia's butler Jennings, her new personal chef Harriet, and their "Amazon Warrior" lawyer Pamela, Octavia and Mick must find a way to turn the tables before they end up broke, humiliated, and in prison. Praise for CHOKE ON YOUR LIES: "What a fantastic rip roaring read. Anthony Neil Smith makes a great case for going to college. If I had known it was so filled with sex, more sex, violence and wicked drama, I might have gone. Really. It is a subtly complex novel that treats its characters with respect even when they are acting completely awful." -Josh Stallings, author of Young Americans "Anthony Neil Smith set his best book yet in one of the country's best known cesspools of corruption and wickedness: academia. There's enough viciousness, backstabbing and sexual depravity among Smith's small-college faculty to make Caligula look like an episode of The Little Rascals. Smith pulls off one of the hardest tricks in all of writing: he fascinates you with characters who, for the most part, are completely unlikable. And yet, you can't look away. Great book!" -J.D. Rhoades, author of the Jack Keller series "What a great book! Anthony Neil Smith riffs on the old Nero Wolfe novels, but completely makes it his own. This book has everything someone looks for in a crime novel. It's the kind of book that makes you want to take a shower after. You're going to cringe, laugh, and be blown away by the plot twists at the end." -Dave White, author of the Jackson Donne series "Choke on Your Lies is a finely-plotted and deftly structured story of a cuckolded husband reluctantly evening the score with an uber be-atch of a wife. The prose sings and the story rings true as the fully-rounded characters slide in and out like an insane chorus of the ill-intentioned. Anthony Neil Smith is shaping up to be one of the sharpest exponents of American noir. Not to be missed." -Tony Black, author of the DI Bob Valentine series

Because Lydia didn't have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life. But the beating turns to murder, and the murder into lust and desperation between Lydia and an underworld clean-up man. Meanwhile, overgrown frat boy car thieves take up cop killing as a side hobby. When these paths cross, a horror show of violence unfolds as they all slide into a hell of their own design, surrounded by the neon and noise of the casino strip on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Violent, vivid, life at hyper-speed. Psychosomatic is the debut novel from Anthony Neil Smith and it is a noir nightmare that asks how much is too much in a relationship, and what is the cost of leaving? Praise for PSYCHOSOMATIC: "The darkest song I've ever read" -Ken Bruen, bestselling author of the Jack Taylor series "Anthony Neil Smith takes hardboiled, crunches it, peels back the shell, and finishes it off with a flamethrower. You were warned." -Sean Doolittle, author of Safer and The Cleanup

Deputy Billy Lafitte is not unfamiliar with the law; he just prefers to enforce it, rather than abide by it. But his rule-bending and bribe-taking have gotten him kicked off the force in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he's been given a second chance...in the desolate, Siberian wastelands of rural Minnesota. Now Billy's only got the local girls and local booze to keep him company. Until one of the local girls-cute little Drew, bassist for a psychobilly band-asks Billy for help with her boyfriend. Something about the drugs Ian's been selling, some product he may have lost, and the men who are threatening him because of it. Billy agrees to look into it, and before long he's speeding down a snowy road, tracking a cell of terrorists, with a severed head in his truck's cab. And that's only the start... Praise for YELLOW MEDICINE: "On my list of the most original voices in crime fiction today, Anthony Neil Smith easily makes it into the top five. Yellow Medicine is a terrific read, a crime noir bullet-train ride on unsafe tracks."-Scott Wolven, author of Controlled Burn "Yellow Medicine gets its hooks into you from its first turbulent pages. It is the novel's complicated, captivating hero, Deputy Billy Lafitte, who holds you from beginning to end. He's a liar, a cheat and a pretty bad guy, but so richly rendered that, before you know it, you find yourself following him through the darkest of terrains, and eagerly."-Megan Abbott, author of the Edgar-nominated Queenpin "Yellow Medicine starts with one of the most memorable and engaging anti-heroes in recent memory. Mix in bent cops, a psychobilly band called Elvis Antichrist, meth cookers in the Minnesota sticks, and a truly nasty pack of wannabe jihadists. Add a liberal helping of guns, knives and explosives. You're gonna love it."-J.D. Rhoades, author of A Good Day in Hell and Safe and Sound "Anthony Neil Smith has taken the stark, freezing landscape of rural Minnesota and brought it to life with an injection of Louisiana Hot Sauce in the form of Deputy Billy Lafitte. A violent, bawdy, thrilling, edgy, gut-churning masterpiece."-Victor Gischler, author of Go Go Girls of the Apocalypse, Pistol Poets, and the Edgar-nominated Gun Monkeys "Smith deserves credit for taking a risk by creating a character like Lafitte, whose private code of honor-if any-is far more obscure than an anti-hero like Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer."- Publishers Weekly "All in all, though, Smith has a powerful voice and delivers quite a romp, offering along the way a sort of Tony Hillerman glimpse into a part of the country that is not often the subject of crime fiction."-Steve Glassman, Booklist

Billy Lafitte, former Deputy-Sheriff and motorcycle gang enforcer, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. For some of his enemies, that's still not enough punishment. Agents Colleen Hartle and Franklin Rome want Lafitte dead so bad, they've put a price on his head - eighteen grand to the first prisoner who takes him out. Gang leader Ri'Chess and Head Prison Guard Garner want to collect, and they don't mind who gets run over while they try - like inmate Bryce West, a pawn for whoever hurts him the most. Lafitte's church-going ex-mother-in-law believes in redemption... for everyone except Billy, perhaps. But she still believes a son has a right to see the truth about his father, so she brings his boy Ham for what she expects to be their final visit. When they all converge on a half-finished prison on the North Dakota prairie during a blizzard, something bad is bound to happen. The third chapter of the Billy Lafitte saga (following Yellow Medicine and Hogdoggin') tests the limits of everyone whose life revolves around this man and all his deeds. He's a shadow of his former self, but he still fights to survive, if only for spite. Sometimes, being the baddest ass of them all isn't worth it. Praise for THE BADDEST ASS: "It's gonna get bad up in here and it's gonna get sad and it's gonna get just plain nasty. Right now, this sits at the top of my 'Best Thrillers of 2013.'" -Les Edgerton, author of The Rapist, The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping and others "There are going to be the hardcore crowd who fucking love it, and there are going to be people who will never buy Smith's stuff again...I think it's a tremendous novel, the kind of book that would never be published by NY, one of those nasty little underground books that people hold onto with both hands." -Ray Banks, author of the Cal Innes novels and the Farrell & Cobb books

Former Deputy Billy Lafitte is a no-good, grits-for-brains, despicable and dangerous traitor Special Agent Franklin Rome is sure of it. So sure, in fact, that he's willing to investigate outside departmental bounds. Willing to blackmail and bribe his fellow lawmen into helping him. Willing to ferret Lafitte out of whatever snake-hole he's hidden himself in, and do what the too-lax government wouldn't let him do back in Yellow Medicine county, just months ago... And Rome's plan is working. Squeeze a man's ex-wife, especially an ex-wife as unstable as Ginny Lafitte, and watch her overprotective man appear from thin air to stand by his family. No matter that Rome s had to bend a few rules in order to make it happen; Billy's end will justify Rome's means. Of course, Rome didn't count on Billy riding in to save the day on a turquoise motorcycle with a beard, fifty extra pounds of muscle, and the weight of a man named Steel God at his back. Nor did he think Billy would go and get himself caught up with paint-huffing, knife-wielding rednecks. And Rome certainly never predicted that a broken-hearted, vengeful woman named Colleen would be just as hot for Lafitte s blood as he is... Praise for HOGDOGGIN': "Smith's version of Minnesota is no Lake Wobegon; the inhabitants are refreshingly made up entirely of the deranged, the damaged, and the doomed. If you can picture the intellectual and physical mayhem that might have resulted from a Jim Thompson and Harry Crews collaboration, you'd be on the right track. But Anthony Neil Smith is his own writer-and a very fine one, indeed." -Booklist "The book's brutality is exemplified by the blood sport that provides the title, which matches vicious dogs like Rottweilers against helpless pigs. Fans of darkest noir will be most satisfied." -Publishers Weekly "Anthony Neil Smith has long been one of the best of the up-and-coming hardcore crime writers; Hogdoggin' marks his passage into the very front rank..." -Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest "Sex, drugs and rock and roll-kinky FBI agents, steroid ridden bikers and enough musical terrorism to keep your head busy for some time; Anthony Neil Smith's Hogdoggin' is like a killer song you can't get out of your head." -Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire mystery series

San Francisco private investigator Jake Diamond is known for his stained neckties and stash of sour-mash whiskey; but Jake is more likely to be toting a worn paperback Classic novel than a handgun. More over-easy than hard-boiled, Diamond can be beaten up and knocked around without taking it too personally; but when his friends and loved ones are threatened, it's a different story. When a Chicago thug known as Ralph Battle bursts into the office of Diamond Investigation waving a 44 magnum at Diamond and his trusty assistant, Jake has the distinct feeling that missing his lunch of fried calamari may not be the worst of his problems. Jake accompanies Battle to Chicago at the mandatory request of Max Lansdale, a mob-connected attorney, who asks Jake to search for a pair of ghosts and will not take no for an answer. Pushed to the edge, Jake is ready to put his rusty .38 to use to get Lansdale off his back. Running between San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles, Diamond tries to stay one step ahead of the man who will have Jake killed with no remorse as soon as Diamond proves useless. With the help of Joey Russo and a team of Jake's familiar cohorts, including Vinnie "Strings" Stradivarius, Darlene Roman and Sonny "The Chin" Badalamenti, Jake may be saved from becoming a murderer himself. May be. Trying to escape the wildest ride of his life; Jake is counting on luck, counting on a group of unlikely heroes, and counting to infinity. Praise for COUNTING TO INFINITY: "Fans of Mafiosi fiction should be the most satisfied." -Publishers Weekly

The follow-up to the award-winning Catching Water in a Net... Lefty Wright had it all figured. In fact he was doing the math as he crawled into the deserted house through the kitchen window. Get to the bedroom, crack open the wall safe, grab the envelope, fifteen minutes. One thousand dollars a minute. Nice score. What Lefty neglected to factor in were the unknowns. And when the police nab him red-handed and discover the dead body of a prominent Criminal Courts Judge stuffed beneath the bed, Lefty finds himself charged with first degree murder with no shoes, no one believing in his innocence, and one phone call. He calls Jake Diamond. In his second outing, Diamond attempts to prove Lefty's innocence while investigating a recent kidnapping and a fifteen year old homicide which may or may not be related to Lefty's dilemma. From San Francisco to the avocado fields of central California to the sound stages of a film shoot in Denver, Diamond's suspects seem to have one thing in common; they are in no condition to talk by the time Jake gets to them. Praise for CLUTCHING AT STRAWS: "A worthy successor to Catching Water in a Net, Abramo's second in the San Francisco based Jake Diamond series is a clever and well-crafted detective novel, gritty enough to satisfy hard-boiled readers but not so dark that it will put off more traditional mystery fans." -Publisher's Weekly "This workmanlike second entry in the Jake Diamond series finds the San Francisco PI searching for the real killer of an unpopular local judge after one of Diamond's clients, an accomplished burglar having a very bad night, is fingered for the murder. Although the story is light on action and suspense, it's comfort food for PI fans." -Booklist

Never before has killing someone benefitted such a good cause... In 2014, Crimespree Magazine held an internet-based flash fiction contest. The rules were simple: somewhere in the story you had to "Kill Dan Malmon." That was it. The story had to be brief, inventive, and somewhere, Malmon had to die. Now, thanks to Down & Out Books, those original stories, plus a few more, are being collected into one volume with all proceeds going to the MS Society. If you hate MS as much as we do, and if your feelings towards Dan Malmon are rather ambivalent anyway, then this is the volume for you. Featuring stories by Hector Acosta, Eric Beetner, Dana Cameron, Sarah M. Chen, Matthew Clemens, Angel Luis Colón, Hilary Davidson, Cory Funk, Danny Gardner, Paul J. Garth, Rob Hart, Ed Kurtz, S.W. Lauden, Russel D. McLean, Jeff Macfee, Erin Mitchell, Erica Ruth Neubauer, Brad Parks, Thomas Pluck, Bryon Quertermous, Todd Robinson, Alex Segura, Jeff Shelby, Nathan Singer, Josh Stallings, Jay Stringer, R.D. Sullivan, Bryan VanMeter, Holly West and Dave White. Praise for KILLING MALMON: "I've never quite understood why people keep killing off Malmon. But they make a good case. Several cases. Many, many cases-for a good cause! Killing Malmon for fun and non-profit!" -Lori Rader-Day, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Day I Died "You can't spell marvelously grisly and a funky good time without K-I-L-L-I-N-G M-A-L-M-O-N. Do yourself a favor and dive in." -Shaun Harris, author of The Hemingway Thief "Look, I like Dan Malmon, so I feel kinda guilty enjoying the hell out of his many untimely demises. But this collection, which features some of the best crime writers on the planet, is a gonzo pulp confection that hits your system like a sugar high and leaves you smiling the whole way through." -Chris Holm, Anthony Award-winning author of The Killing Kind and Red Right Hand "Your mom is going to hate this." -Kristi Belcamino, author of the Gabriella Giovanni thriller series "Killing Malmon is an incredibly satisfying crime fiction sampler. Read it. I guarantee you'll leave with at least three new writers to check out (plus an inexplicable desire to protect and nurture Dan Malmon)." -Jess Lourey, TEDx presenter and Anthony- and Lefty-nominated author of the Witch Hunt thrillers and the Murder by Month mysteries "Come for the death of Dan Malmon, stay for the super-group of authors letting it all hang out, dropping tasty cut after tasty cut of pure noir." -Matthew FitzSimmons, author of the Gibson Vaughn series "Killing Malmon is like Murder on the Orient Express except (spoilers!) it's not by Agatha Christie, or on a train, or on its way to the Orient. Still, there's something wonderful and sweet watching thirty talented mystery writers line up to shoot, strangle, poison, dismember, and otherwise spell the demise of the one of the genuinely nicest guys in the business. If you're into that kind of thing like I am, read Killing Malmon." -Matthew Iden, author of the Marty Singer mystery series and The Winter Over "Life sure is hard for you." -Judy Malmon, Dan's mom "I love these stories!" -Diane Hackbarth, Kate's mom

"[A] rich and varied anthology..." -Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Janet Hutchings, Chris Grabenstein, Gary Phillips, and Hilary Davidson headline a new world tour anthology of 22 stories from the heartland of America to Italy, Japan, Mexico, Cuba, England, and more. Passport to Murder is published in conjunction with Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, held in 2017 in Toronto, Ontario. As with the convention itself, the anthology spreads a broad canopy across a wide variety of crime writers from across the country and around the world-including both veteran writers and the brightest up-and-coming talents in the field. All of the stories include some kind of travel ranging from a cross-America ride-sharing trip to tourists in Italy and Japan to a woman on the run in Mexico to murder in Cuba. And even a haunted hotel in Toronto. All participants contributed their efforts to support our charity-Frontier College, winner of the UNESCO Literacy Prize in 1977-and by extension readers and writers everywhere. ALL PROFITS GO TO FRONTIER COLLEGE. Edited by John McFetridge. Stories by Eric Beckstrom, Michael Bracken, Craig Faustus Buck, Susan Calder, Hilary Davidson, Michael Dymmoch, John Floyd, Chris Grabenstein, Marie Hannan-Mandel, Janet Hutchings, Marilyn Kay, Su Kopil, Rosemary McCracken, Tanis Mallow, LD Masterson, Gary Phillips, Karen Pullen, KM Rockwood, Scott Loring Sanders, Shawn Reilly Simmons, John Stickney, and Victoria Weisfeld.

The Crime of the Century is about to be committed...again... In the early hours of a Thursday morning in August 1963, one of the UK's most famous crimes was committed when a Royal Mail train, heading from Glasgow to London, was robbed of £2.6 million. Over five decades later, the real mastermind behind the robbery, a man who got no credit, but who wants it, is determined to top the original robbery by stealing the entire wealth of a fleeing Glasgow crime lord from a train-in exactly the same spot that the original crime took place. Meanwhile Charlie Wiggs, a small-time unassuming accountant, discovers that his friend, Tina, has stolen a drawing worth £400,000 in a bid to get out from under crushing debt-and it's now in that same Glasgow crime lord's collection, on that very train. If Tina can't get the drawing back she'll go to jail-or worse. Desperate, she asks Charlie to help. Charlie has only one solution: team up with the violent, bitter mastermind and steal the drawing back-and in the process, become one of the most notorious train robbers in British history. Praise for FALLING TOO: "Falling Too is a praiseworthy encore to Brown's debut novel, Falling, and more fun than a barrel of Glenfiddish." -J.L. Abramo, Shamus Award-winning author of Circling the Runway "Gordon Brown's Falling Too starts at a gallop and doesn't let up. A highly enjoyable read that is as much fun as it is gritty and pacey. This is Tartan Noir at its finest." -Matt Hilton, author of the Joe Hunter thrillers Praise for FALLING: "Chaos reigns as the plot comes thick and fast in this thriller told from alternating perspectives of a brilliantly drawn cast of characters. If Guy Richie is looking for his next hit crime caper, he could do worse." -Daily Record "Throughout, Brown keeps a firm, skilful grip on his material in what turns out to be a very promising debut novel." -The Herald

Buddy Kai and Dominic Rosario are enterprising native Hawaiian businessmen-competitors, actually-preparing to fight for control of the methamphetamine trade on the Big Island of Hawaii, where the population is small in relation to Oahu with it megapolis of Honolulu, but where the appetite for "ice"-as crystal meth is known in the local parlance-seems to both of them to be almost insatiable. When Buddy is approached by an L.A.-based Mexican cartel to be their main man on the Big Island, and becomes convinced that he and his particular cohorts and minions can go up against and defeat the entrenched Japanese organization, which has controlled all vice in the Islands, including the meth trade, since time immemorial, and which certainly has no intention of sharing, let alone being forced out, of such a lucrative criminal enterprise, the stage is set for Dark Paradise, Lono Waiwaiole's brilliant "Red Harvest in miniature," a noir novel-com-sociological study that truly tells it like it is, showing the society that has resulted from the policies of internal colonialism that have been practiced by the federal government of the United States, starting with the Calvinist missionaries of European descent and continuing through the last one hundred twenty-five years, with successive waves of imported foreign labor-Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, South Sea Islander-always with the native Hawaiians relegated to the bottom rung of the economic totem pole, where the only outs-just like in the mainland ghettos-are sports, entertainment, or drug-dealing. Maybe the situation will change some day, if enough people read and understand novels like Dark Paradise. *Starred Review* "Waiwaiole has an Elmore Leonard-touch with his lowlifes, injecting plenty of pop culture and humanizing quirks, but these guys never seem unrealistically lovable the way Leonard's rogues sometimes do. They're more like the cut-to-the-bone characters in a Daniel Woodrell novel, or even early Pelecanos-say, King Suckerman-loose cannons careening about a confined space: it's big, but it's still an island, and in the end, there's no place to run. Noir fans need to know about Waiwaiole right now. He's the real thing, and he's too good to miss." -Booklist

Wiley is a professional poker player in Portland who keeps vigil on the seedy streets of the city's darker side. He's no stranger to violence, but he's got a good heart and a noble streak that his friends and family know is a mile long. His enemies often see a streak of a different sort, particularly when he teams up with this best friend, Leon, and the two are simultaneously beloved and feared among those who know them. Wiley is also a man who solves problems for his friends. The murder of a young musician who is close to his extended family puts Wiley in a vengeful frame of mind. He follows the evidence through the darkest corners of the city. When the trail points to Hawai'i, a place in which Wiley has never set foot but seems lately to be calling him home, he heads for the land of his ancestors in the hopes of finding justice for his young friend. Reminiscent of the classic noir masters but with a modern twist all his own, Lono Waiwaiole is increasingly recognized as one of the groundbreaking masters of noir fiction.

In Wiley's world, violence runs deep and loyalty runs even deeper. So when a prostitute named Miriam gets attached to the wrong guy, Wiley leaves the poker table, grabs his best friend, Leon, and starts looking for a way to shake her loose. Trouble is, the guy is a sociopathic pimp named Dookie who's on the lucky streak of a lifetime and who is starting to feel invincible. Their quest takes Wiley and Leon to Vegas and L.A.-plus a few desolate, dangerous sports in between-until they reach a brutal, vicious showdown back on the streets of the Portland they all call home. To Wiley it's more clear than ever that the only things worth knowing are who's on your side and who's got your back. Wiley has emerged as one of the darkest yet most human characters in modern noir fiction, and Lono Waiwaiole has hit his stride in Wiley's Shuffle, a powerful second novel from a true talent.

Wiley is a man who's drifting through the remains of his torn-up life like a ghost, playing poker to make ends meet but always on the edge of the abyss, not quite sure whether his minimal efforts at life are worth the trouble. When the estranged daughter he hasn't spoken to in a year turns up gutted with a sharp knife in a cheap motel room, Wiley's solitary life spins out of control and a violent showdown with both the killer and with his own bloody conscience becomes inevitable. He stalks the nasty underside of Portland's sex industry, jumping at every shadow and taking two steps back for every forward stride. But Wiley is determined to do this one thing right, perhaps to make amends to his lost daughter, or maybe to make peace with his own battered soul. Brutal, heartrending, ultimately a story of remorse, renewal, and the flickering possibility of redemption, Wiley's Lament signals the emergence of a significant and compelling new voice in the grand tradition of American noir.

Sometimes people kill for profit, sometimes revenge, and sometimes they do it just for the fun of it... Here are seventeen tales of crime, murder, and vengeance from Ed Kurtz, author of The Rib From Which I Remake the World and Bleed, including the acclaimed stories "A Good Marriage" and "The Trick." From backwoods Arkansas to the sleazy side of Cologne, Germany, America's first serial killer in nineteenth century Texas to a broken family descending into madness in 1920s England, no one escapes their own darkest drives and everyone learns there is Nothing You Can Do. Praise for novels by Ed Kurtz: "The Rib From Which I Remake the World isn't only the best book I've read this year, it is Ed Kurtz's best book yet. This is a haunting story of seeing through illusion and the terrifying reality of what it means to meet your maker." -Bracken MacLeod, author of Mountain Home and Stranded "A Wind of Knives dusts off the classic western's most enduring motifs and gives them a shine. With no lack of gunplay and bloodshed, the book also has heart and intelligence. In short, Kurtz delivers an intense, gritty, and moving story that takes a new look at the Old West." -Lee Thomas, award-winning author of The German and Ash Street "Nausea is a gritty, hard-edged tale with just the right amount of feeling, making this one hell of a story. All of Ed's gifts are on display here: fast pacing, memorable characters and brutal action that aren't easy to forget, but make for great reading." -Terrence McCauley, author of the James Hicks thrillers "Ed Kurtz proved to me that not all horror novels have to be blood and guts and gore. Don't get me wrong, those elements are in The Rib From Which I Remake the World, but Kurtz balances them with engaging characters and a captivating story." -Crimespree Magazine

The world has never been perfect. The world has never been all bad. But there has always been evil and men who drink of it. This ends now. Enter Bishop Rider and people like him who have had enough and are willing to embrace what most will not. The world will never be perfect. The world will never be all bad. It's the middle we must embrace. This, a better kind of hate. "Hard hitting stories of lives on the razor's edge." -Paul D. Brazill, author of Too Many Crooks "Beau Johnson is a lawless writer. Johnson operates where sometimes all it takes is for a bad man to kill a worse one. A stark and sobering reality, and a stellar debut." -Joe Clifford, author of the Jay Porter Thriller Series "Johnson writes from that place inside us all that is nothing but brutal honesty and grit. And while most people avoid this place, he milks it for every word he can." -Ryan Sayles, author of the Richard Dean Buckner series

Nick Polo is back in his eleventh adventure, once again helped along by his sidekick, the indomitable octogenarian self-described witch, Mrs. Damonte... Billionaire vintner Paul Bernier sets San Francisco ex-cop, ex-con, private eye Nick Polo off on a hunt to find a kukri, a priceless golden jewel-encrusted 14th century dagger, designed by the Emperor of India. The dagger has a long, bloody history, passing between war lords throughout the ages, including Saddam Hussain. The search has Polo bumping heads with Bernier's vindictive stepdaughter, his eccentric household staff, a Miami con man, a crooked private investigator, a drug dealing nightclub owner, a New York Mafia Don, and two viscous murderers. When all seems lost, Polo gets help from Mrs. Damonte, a self-described Strega, a witch, who believes that a day without a wake is like a day without sunshine. Praise for POLO'S LONG SHOT: "Nick Polo is the Saul Goodman of private investigators. He's charming, persuasive, immune to adversity, and just dirty enough to get the job done. He never ceases to amaze and, just when you think he's been bested, always produces an ace in the hole. Not since James Crumley's C.W. Sughrue have I so avidly rooted for a fictional character." -Jonathan Ashley, author of South of Cincinnati Praise for the Nick Polo mysteries: "A California PI himself, Kennealy captures some of the classic Hammett/Ross spirit in the Nick Polo series." -Publishers Weekly "Briskly written, and because Kennealy himself was a working private eye, most persuasive." -Philadelphia Inquirer "The Polo series all have a strong tradition of tight plotting, crisp dialogue, and self-deprecating humor." -Booklist "Kennealy writes crisply, brings alive the streets of San Francisco, and plots clearly and interestingly." -Washington Post "The writing is simple and direct, the action nonstop." -The New York Times

When Cillian Kennedy's body was fished out of the canal, no one believed his death was due to natural causes. But when the police wrote it off as an accidental death, four of his friends and family roamed the city in the search of any clue that may lead to the killer. Answers were found down dead end roads, on the edge of the industrial harbour front, in an abandoned building now a crack den, through obscure networks of anti-racist skinheads, the racist Heritage Front, former gay bashers, the flailing Irish mob and the Mohawk MMA circuit. Featuring some of Montreal's most notorious neighbourhoods, and told in a uniquely gritty raconteur voice, Grand Trunk and Shearer offers more than the typical run-of-the-mill mystery novel. At a crossroads between noir, private eye and literary fiction, it is a book that will please those who have come to ask more of the genre with profound characterization, down to earth style, minimalist setting, believable violence and flawless dialogue. Praise for GRAND TRUNK AND SHEARER: "D'Arcy Kennedy's search for his brother's killer is a gut-wrenching trip into a world of people left behind by gentrification, forgotten by changing politics and trying to hang onto what little family they have left. It's authentic, it's raw, and it's got heart. It's a trip worth taking." -John McFetridge, author of A Little More Free

Twenty years after the publication of his first short story collection, Monday's Meal, Les Edgerton delivers the goods once again in this collection of harrowing tales of outlaws, ex-cons, frightened men and women, rap-partners throwing back tall boys and taller tales, children forced to become killers, stabbings and shootings, bad asses and sad asses...a wide-ranging collection of distinct and memorable characters who will exhibit a kind of wisdom not obtainable from the halls of academia. This is not a gathering of people contemplating their navels but real people facing the consequences of their actions...and it ain't often pretty. Praise for Les Edgerton... "Les Edgerton has swiftly become my favorite crime writer. Original voice, uncompromising attitude and a pure hardboiled style leap him to the front ranks of my reading list. He will become legendary." -Joe R. Lansdale, author of Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, Edge of Dark Water, The Thicket, and the Hap and Leonard series, the books behind the TV series of the same name, and many others "Reading Les Edgerton's stories is like listening to those old World War II broadcasts from the London blitz, with the reporter crouching under a restaurant table, microphone in hand, while the bombs drop on the city and the ceiling caves in. Edgerton reports on the world and the news is not good. There's a kind of wacky wisdom in these bulletins from the underside of life; the stories are full of people you hope never move in next door, for whom ordinary life is an impossible dream. This is good fiction; Edgerton writes lean and nasty prose." -Dr. Francois Camoin, Director, Graduate School of English, University of Utah and author of Benbow and Paradise, Like Love, But Not Exactly, Deadly Virtues, The End of the World Is Los Angeles and Why Men Are Afraid of Women "Les Edgerton is the new High King of Noir." -Ken Bruen, author of The Emerald Lie, The Guards, Pimp, and many others

Tenacious trucker Jojo Boudreaux and her co-driver beau Tyler Boone spend their days- and nights- delivering cargo coast to coast. Old Blue, their custom Peterbilt tractor-trailer makes the perfect home for a man who never had one and a Louisiana tomboy who thinks an oven is for storing guns. But life on the road isn't all sing-a-longs and sunsets. When Jojo and Boone are called in to deliver an abandoned load of high-profile pharmaceuticals to a secure warehouse, they delay their vacation for the quick, easy job with the big paycheck, forgetting that nothing quick and easy ever comes with a big paycheck. Grand Theft Cargo is a wild ride from start to finish with a secretive highwayman, explosive house bombs, singing telegrams, flaming mice, secret cancer drugs, dead truckers, an agency that can't be named, and enough crashes and car chases to remind you these road cowboys have no qualms crossing the zipper to walk the dog in the hammer lane. Praise for Grand Theft Cargo... "Grand Theft Cargo is replete with clever dialogue and colorful characters, and a plot that speeds along like a Freightliner. Strap yourself in before you start to read this one." -Baron R. Birtcher, award-winning author of Rain Dogs and South California Purples. "Grand Theft Cargo is a high-speed thrill ride with enough crashes and explosions to keep your heart racing from the first to last page!" -M.K. Gilroy, author of the Kristen Conner Mystery Series. "A guaranteed thrill ride with plenty of twists and turns." -Chuck Barrett, bestselling author of Disruption. "Grand Theft Cargo is east bound and down with great characters, loaded up and truckin' with action. This is 18 wheels of mystery firing on all cylinders. Get behind the wheel and enjoy the ride." -Eric Beetner, author of Rumrunners and Leadfoot.

Crystal on Electric Acetate is the first and ultimate original collection of short stories by crime and mystery novelist Richard Godwin. Comprising a fascinating and versatile range of stories previously published in great and ground-breaking cutting-edge paper and online magazines, this collection sums up his take on noir. From urban decay to Gothic explosion, at once revolutionary, iconoclastic, erotic and dark as that cellar next door. "If you think this is one genre, think again. If you think you can work out what hybrid genre this is, think again. Mutation exists at all levels. Welcome to the mix of stories." -Richard Godwin "Godwin is truly one of our great authors." -Luca Veste, author of Dead Gone

"Amid the mayhem, the authors provide a number of surprising plot twists and quite a few laughs." -Publishers Weekly Retired smuggler Dixon Sweeney exits Raiford after eight long years behind bars, vowing "From here on out, things are gonna be different." And boy is he right: his wife has left him, emptied his safe deposit box, moved their entire house to Key West, and is shacking up with Sweeney's former partner and Best Man. Worse yet, Buck Wiggins is after him for a sixty-five grand debt. But Sweeney's broke! So Buck sends Gooch and Gunther Canseco, twin towers of steroidal ape stuff to tune Sweeney up each week until he pays Buck back. And he thought life in prison sucked! When a mysterious Cuban-American approaches Sweeney with an offer, Sweeney is forced to accept. The payoff? A cool half mil. The problem? The money is hidden inside a house in Cuba. Worse yet: on Guantanamo Naval Base, a.k.a. GITMO! Strap on your seat belt and prepare for the ride of your life, as unlikely hero Dixon Sweeney and his beat-up Chris-Craft challenge the Gulf Stream, waterspouts, man-eating sharks, the crazy Canseco twins, the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, the entire Cuban military and one super sexy senorita in this hilarious romp through the Florida Straits! Praise for GITMO: "An exciting read that should appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, espionage thrillers and caper comedies." -Kirkus Reviews