Angel Luis Colón invites you on a short tour of the world as a literary mix tape to that strange goth girl with the lazy eye who still wants nothing to do with you; no matter how good that fedora looks on your head. So what’s in store for your brain? Follow three major moments in the life of gambling addict and mafia muscle, Sean Clarke as he goes from softhearted kid to full blown bastard to broken old man. Thrill at the short-lived and incredibly violent courtship, marriage, and honeymoon of Hank and Annie. The set of the country’s most popular trash TV talk show is appropriately trashier than what makes the air. Beards make absolutely terrible trophies. Sometimes you’ll crawl through the fire and smoke for a chance at a semi-decent score and a way out of working in a place called “Meat City”. All that along with even more violence, revenge, Lee Van Cleef, light sex crimes, and cannibals than you can shake a stick at!
From a host of bestselling and award-winning authors come the stories from the darkest corners of their imaginations featuring one of the most abhorrent acts of mankind; cannibalism! Throughout history, human beings have feasted on human flesh. Whether it was to survive starvation or to horrify their enemies or to satisfy their own deranged urges, people have eaten other people for centuries. Skin & Bones features stories by Patricia Abbott, Charles Ardai, Lawrence Block, Joe Clifford, Angel Luis Colón, Bill Crider, Glenn Gray, Tim Hall, Rob Hart, Tess Makovesky, Terrence McCauley, Marietta Miles, Richie Narvaez, Stuart Neville, Thomas Pluck, Ryan Sayles, S.A. Solomon, Jason Starr, Liam Sweeny, Dave Zeltserman, and Dana C. Kabel.
A Crime Novella. When two young girls disappear with a trunk-load of pot, unaware their payload has been packed with an extra five kilos of cocaine, a lovable loser persuades a sociopathic killer to pursue them across Northern California on a violent, twisted goose-chase that ends in a horrific place none of them could have foreseen. Praise for PIGGYBACK: “Piggyback restores noir to its dark kingdom, a rollicking pumping novel of losers, psychos, stone killers, idiotic amateur rip-off artists, and a road-movie of a story that is as fast as it is beautifully written. Think Don Winslow’s Savages meets Christopher Cook’s Robbers and you have the dark read of the year.” —Ken Bruen, two-time Shamus Award-winner “Piggyback is a wild frenzy of drugs, violence, and crazy plot twists. Somebody needs to make the film version.” Tony DuShane, author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk
The stories in this collection represent a range in topics and styles and feature a wide assortment of individuals who, although diverse, all have in common a singular element—trouble in their lives. That’s what fiction is about—trouble—and short stories have a particular mandate to be about the frailty of the human condition as well as its strength. The author has an affinity for the disenfranchised among us and it is those often heroic people that interest him the most. In these stories he treats them with the sensitivity and dignity they deserve. Praise for MONDAY’S MEAL: “The sad wives, passive or violent husbands, parolees, alcoholics and other failures in Les Edgerton's short-story collection are pretty miserable people. And yet misery does have its uses. Raymond Carver elevated the mournful complaints of the disenfranchised in his work, and Edgerton makes an admirable attempt to do the same.” —The New York Times Book Review “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 “Edgerton’s best stories are uncompromising in their casual amorality. They stare you down over the barrel of a gun, rip you up whether or not the trigger gets squeezed.” —Diane Lefer, Creative Writing Instructor in the MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts “When it comes to short stories, Americans rule the roost. Flannery O’ Connor, Raymond Carver, Stephen King, Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski, Richard Ford, Kyle Minor. And you can add Les Edgerton to that list. Monday’s Meal contains twenty-one tales of dirt realism, sharp slices of American life. Edgerton has a strong and sure grasp of the lives of people who are standing on the edge of a precipice.” —Paul Brazill, author of Too Many Crooks and The Last Laugh “Filled to bursting with writing you can taste. Whether dining on bisque and blackened redfish at an upscale cafe, or eating rank mule meat in a pine board cabin, the characters in Edgerton’s world bite down hard and grind up one another with their back teeth. Monday’s Meal is a most satisfyingly vivid and visceral feast.” —Melody Henion Stevenson, author of The Life Stone of Singing Bird “This collection of 21 unsettling stories will appeal to readers looking for nontraditional contemporary plots with characters living on the fringes of society. Several selections will haunt readers for some time as events often take a morbid twist; others will leave them wondering about the endings.”—School Library Journal
Malefactors is defined as “those who commit an offense against the law”, or more simply put, “one who does ill toward another”. This collection of short stories from Jim Wilsky is chock full of them. Tales that are all different, yet all the same. The locales and characters range from rural to urban. Office buildings, swamps, wealthy estates and corn fields are some of the places. The people range from folks with money to flat broke, from those who have a lot on the line to those who have nothing to lose, old and young alike. There are stone cold killers to good guys and those in between. Those walking on that shaky bridge, that thin tightrope that connects good and evil. The stories all share the same common ingredients though. Plots that are brutal, chaotic, desperate, vengeful and violent. These pages paint the rage and burning fire that dwells within almost everyone but only surface and re-erupt in some. From guns, to knives, to swords and bare hands, this collection will push all the right buttons for crime fiction readers. These specially selected stories touch every base. So, buckle up and read on.
When Almario “Go Go” Gato, a handsome young Cuban baseball player, goes missing mid-season, his agent Veronica Craven hires a private investigator to track down her best client. No police. No press. Enter Eli Sharpe, an Asheville, North Carolina-based ex-ballplayer turned private detective who specializes in investigating professional athletes. Eli begins by questioning Maria Gato, Almario’s roommate and fraternal twin. Maria watched while both her parents drowned on the boat ride from Cuba to America, so she is naturally desperate to get her only brother back. She tells Eli a secret: Almario may have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Eli tracks down Almario’s supposed girlfriend, a rich sorority girl, but is soon led to another woman in his life, Sheri Stuckey, his cocaine supplier and fiancée who works in tandem with a gay bartender named Dantonio Rushing. Stuckey, a drug abuser and single mother, claims Almario split because she wanted the two of them to check into rehab. But Rushing, dazzled by Almario’s boyish good looks, tells a different tale: Almario has taken out a $500,000 life insurance policy on himself and named Stuckey as the primary beneficiary. With the help of his mentor—a former homicide detective—and five ex fiancées who still care about him, Eli follows Go Go’s trail, determined to locate the elusive ballplayer before one of the nasty people in his life—or his own bad habits—do him in. Praise for GO GO GATO: “From its hero to its milieu to its eccentric, three-dimensional characters, Max Everhart’s Go Go Gato is a terrific read. The North Carolina minor-league baseball scene feels authentic and beloved, and I was always rooting for protagonist Eli Sharpe. The best news is that this excellent mystery is first in a series. Fans of Harlan Coben will want to check out Max Everhart, a major new talent!” —Steve Ulfelder, Edgar Award-finalist author of Wolverine Bros. Freight & Storage “Go Go Gato is the debut entry in a promising new series by Max Everhart, and it’s a fast-paced, entertaining tale. Eli Sharpe is a very appealing character who combines just the right amounts of wit, humor, intelligence and courage, and it will be fun to watch him in action as the series continues to grow and develop.” —James L. Thane, author of Until Death and No Place To Die “Max Everhart scores a homerun with this first novel in his new Eli Sharpe mystery series. Eli finds much more than he bargained for in his search for a missing baseball player in this fast read, best enjoyed with a glass of George Dickel in hand since that’s Eli’s favorite “poison”. Like a good curveball you won’t see the twist ending coming at you.” —Paul D. Marks, author of the Shamus Award-winning novel White Heat “This is an excellent read and the author’s characters are very real; in particular, Eli Sharpe and his friend Ernest Carpenter. Readers will enjoy the plot, and root for Eli to discover the criminal before a more serious crime occurs.” —Suspense Magazine
Cam Reynolds has a problem… When Cam’s longtime boss Tom Colcetti dies and leaves control of his criminal organization to his predatory son Tommy, Cam may finally get the chance to run a crew of his own. But Tommy has his eyes on new business horizons, and Cam just made a mistake that could destroy Tommy’s heavy-hitting new partnership. Now Cam must struggle against violent forces of betrayal, lust, and greed as he attempts to either salvage his career, or get out of the game with his life still intact.
A strange trip through the Kentucky countryside with a glue-sniffing, skull-cracking, squirrel-hunting private detective by the name of Neil Chambers… When Chambers is approached by a father who wants to get back his (adult) daughter, he takes the skeptic’s view of the case. But he has no idea the chaotic fever dream that he’s about to stumble into. Vicious rednecks, more vicious rich people, crooked sheriffs—Neil will fight them all. F*** solving the case; this is about survival. Praise for LOVE YOU TO A PULP: “DeWildt stands alone as a wicked wizard of crime fiction. Love You to a Pulp serves up heart and depravity in equal portions. Bold, brash, and completely original.” —Tom Pitts, author of Hustle “Chris DeWildt is the first honest-to-God heir apparent I’ve read to the rural noir master Jim Thompson.” —Joe Clifford, author of Lamentation “DeWildt has a tendency to drag his characters, as well as his avid readers, through the most despicable of circumstances, yet with Love You to a Pulp, that tradition lets a little redemption seep in through the cracks. A balance DeWildt handles like a pro. This book is full of masterful imagery from a provocative author at the top of his game, piled high on a bullet train of violence that demands that once you start watching, you don’t look away.” —Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain
The Origins Game Fair is proud and pleased to present Mystery!, our 2018 fiction anthology. The collection features stories by authors in the convention's Library program. This collection brings together fourteen tales of mystery set across genres, in a legion of times and places. Each author has provided a story which will give you an excellent opportunity to sample their skill and imagination.
Elmore Johnson has only got two friends, the bottle of Jim Beam in his coat pocket and a revolver named Lorraine. He worked for the Indianapolis Police Department until they booted him for exposing dirty cops. Now he makes a meager living snapping seedy photos. But when Elmore shoots pictures of the daughter of a wealthy CEO making cheap porn, the girl ends up dead. As the bodies pile up, Elmore finds himself trapped in the heart of a bizarre conspiracy until he discovers the horrifying truth about a place called Manifesto Destination. Alec Cizak’s Manifesto Destination will take you back to dystopian 1998 Indianapolis where everyone—the cops, big business, and even the little guy—is dirty and only looking out for themselves. His writing is boiled rock hard and keeps you turning one noir-infested page after another until you find yourself as paranoid as Elmore Johnson. Praise for MANIFESTO DESTINATION: “Alec Cizak finds the naked truth on the printed page. An artist with no fear and thankfully no moral center.” —David Cranmer, editor of Beat To a Pulp “The city of Indianapolis like you haven’t seen it before (at least not yet), seasoned with a splash of noir, a dash of dystopia and almost but not quite hard-boiled. More like Eggs Benedict—though that breakfast was originally invented as a hangover cure, and this might cause one. Alec Cizak’s heady mixture of sci-fi and P.I., bad cops and Big Brothers, is a dark, funny read, full of twists and a barely controlled rage at the state of our corporate nation. And by nudging his detective story into a disturbing but recognizable future, the author paints this concoction with an extra layer of despair, as we realize his Phil Dickian satire of manipulation is not just familiar, but also inevitable. Best read with Charlie Parker in the background (the hero probably wore out his ‘Charlie Parker With Strings’ tape, but it weaves the perfect soundtrack). Jazzy and weird, the whole thing is probably a thinly-veiled threat, but I had too much fun to heed any warnings. See you at the Magic Carpet before they tear it down.” —David James Keaton, author of Fish Bites Cop: Stories To Bash Authorities
