Jay Desmarteaux raised a whole lot of hell in New Jersey after he was released from prison after 25 years for the murder of a rapist bully at his school. Now he’s on the run in his home state of Louisiana, where he traces his roots to an evil family tree that’s grown large and lush, watered with the blood of the innocent. Jay’s hunt for his parents will take him to the doors of stately plantation homes built by the enslaved, through the deadly and gorgeous heart of the bayou, to his greatest nightmare—a cell in the infamous state prison, where his only escape is the wildest show in the South—the Angola Prison Rodeo. Scarred and shell-shocked, Jay Desmarteaux faces his deadliest adversaries yet: the demons within himself and the brutality wrought by his privileged ancestors. The Boy from County Hell is coming home... Praise for THE BOY FROM COUNTY HELL: “Thomas Pluck’s The Boy From County Hell is raucous and rollicking, just like The Pogues song it adapts its name from. There are echoes of James Lee Burke, Barry Gifford, and Joe R. Lansdale, but Pluck’s book burns hot and bright with its own indomitable punk spirit. Joyous, wild, dark fun.” —William Boyle, author of City of Margins, A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, The Lonely Witness, and Gravesend “Blistering, violent, and written with Technicolor flourishes that are Pluck’s unmistakable signature. The Boy from County Hell is a hell of a book.” —Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase “Pluck has crafted a hard-charging thriller that stomps the pedal from page one and never lets up. Crackling with exciting characters and language that pops off the page, The Boy From County Hell is a mad tale of rage, retribution, and no small helping of heart and soul. I loved it.” —Bill Loehfelm, author of the Maureen Coughlin series “Wow. The Boy from County Hell by Thomas Pluck is as wild as a night in a cage with an amorous monkey. So smart and tense and relentless. Pluck decides on his premise, and stays true to it until the rowdy end, but the real star here is his control of style, both hardboiled and poetic at the same time. Impressed.” —Joe R. Lansdale" “The Boy from County Hell is a harrowing and at times deeply philosophical journey through the heart of rage. Thomas Pluck is our trustworthy tour guide through that undiscovered country. With deft prose and an eye towards redemption and revelation Pluck accomplishes an amazing feat. We find ourselves feeling sympathy for the boy from county Hell” —SA. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears

The end of the world is nigh and only one man can stop the coming apocalypse. Shane MacGowan has the ultimate weapon; the greatest song ever written and to save the world, his mammy and Teresa he just has to remember how it feckin goes.

It’s the kind of offer only Henry Malone would get: Local strip club owner Wallace “Bada” Bingham wants Henry to run for sheriff of Parker County, West Virginia, and he’s willing to back the candidacy. But while Henry considers the proposal, Bingham’s got an additional job offer: Investigate the robbery of a money-counting room at a washed-up country musician’s concert. Indecent proposals, semi-pro wrestlers, and a dead body soon follow, and Henry, along with his well-armed A.A. sponsor Woody, soon discover Bingham’s not telling him everything. To find the answers, catch the killer, and retrieve the money, Henry and Woody must put everything at risk and confront the forces who want control of Parker County—no matter what the costs, or who has to die. Praise for Books in the Henry Malone Series: “James D.F. Hannah is the real deal… (He) shows with this book he has no trouble holding his own against Robert B. Parker and Lawrence Block.” —Dave Zeltserman, author of Small Crimes and Pariah, for She Talks to Angels “Friend of the Devil is a blisteringly paced tour-de-force of the American underbelly, packed with crackling dialogue and pulse-pounding violence.” —Nick Kolakowski, author of Boise Longpig Hunting Club and Absolute Unit

Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir, Volume 2, the second entry of the hard-hitting anthology series, is a crime-fiction cocktail that will again knock readers into a literary stupor. Contributors push hard against the boundaries of crime fiction, driving their work into places short crime fiction doesn’t often go, into a world where the mean streets seem gentrified by comparison and happy endings are the exception rather than the rule. And they do all this in contemporary settings, bringing noir into the 21st century. Like any good cocktail, Mickey Finn is a heady mix of ingredients that packs a punch, and when you’ve finished reading every story, you’ll know that you’ve been “slipped a Mickey.” The nineteen contributors, including some of today’s most respected short-story writers and new writers making their mark on the genre, include: Trey R. Barker, John Bosworth, Michael Bracken, Scott Bradfield, S.M. Fedor, Nils Gilbertson, J.D. Graves, James A. Hearn, Janice Law, Hugh Lessig, Gabe Morran, Rick Ollerman, Josh Pachter, Robert Petyo, Stephen D. Rogers, Albert Tucher, Joseph S. Walker, Sam Wiebe, and Stacy Woodson.

The first day of summer is the last day of a young accountant’s life. Colin McHenry is out for his regular run when an SUV crosses into his path, crushing him. Within hours of the hit-skip, Cleveland Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz finds the vehicle in the owner’s garage, who’s on vacation three time zones away. The setup is obvious, but not the hand behind it. The suspects read like a list out of a textbook: the jilted fiancée, the jealous coworker, the overlooked subordinate, the dirty client. His plate already full, Cruz is assigned to a “special project,” a case needing to be solved quickly and quietly. Cleveland Water technicians are the targets of focused attacks. The crimes range from intimidation to assault. The locations swing between the east, west, and south sides of the city. This is definitely madness, but there is a method behind it. The two cases are different and yet the same. Motives, opportunities, and alibis don’t point in a single direction. In these mysteries, Cruz has to think laterally, yanking down the curtain to expose the master minding the strings.

Two neuroscientists – Graham (45); an overweight insomniac with hemorrhoids, and Isaac (27); a naïve and neurotic romanticizer of LOVE – are about to embark on groundbreaking research into near death experiences and maybe even proof of God; if, of course, their personal lives don’t explode by then. All Graham really wants is to be some kind of hero to his children whereas Isaac is young and naïve, and hopelessly drunk on the idea of true love. The story follows the two scientists as their trial falls apart along with their personal lives. For Isaac, a string of strange and often hilarious sexual encounters will lead him towards the love of his life while Graham, on a quest to find courage, will find the only thing that ever really mattered – his family. Faraday’s Cage explores the idiosyncrasies of marriage, casual sex, political correctness, consciousness, identity, and what it means to be happy being average.

A collection of 29 Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups - some of them sweet and endearing, and some of them just down right mean and unsettling. There is the gorgeous and heart-warming tale of Charlie, the little raindrop who is scared to jump off the cloud and be who he is meant to be; the endearing love story between Mabel and Abel, an elderly couple seeking the services of a hitman as a test of their love; the heart-wrenching tale of Felicity, a young girl on the eve of an abortion, wishing it were yesterday; and a re-telling of Red Riding Hood, one full terror and bloodsplattering twists. A surreal journey, as if the lovechild of Albert Camus, Stephen King, and the Dali Lama had sought, with a broken heart, to unease and frighten as much as delight and enlighten. P.S. You die at the end.

A newspaper editor in upstate New York is drawn into a deadly web of hatred and suspicion when he joins the hunt for a kidnapped little boy in this gritty and evocative thriller from an Edgar Award–winning author Long Creek in New York’s Hill County is an angry place—depressed, suspicious, and unforgiving. In the aftermath of a late-November snowstorm, one of the town’s youngest citizens, five-year-old Jamie Brokow, the son of wealthy divorced parents, is abducted. His family pays the kidnappers their ransom, but the boy is never returned—and soon afterward, Fran Spicer, the local reporter covering the case, dies as the result of a mysterious car crash that the police are all too eager to attribute to alcohol. Will Schafer edits a newspaper in a neighboring county, and he’s less willing to dismiss the death of his friend Spicer so easily. Schafer won’t find much local support for his investigation, however—strangers like him are not welcome in Long Creek. Still, he is determined to uncover the truth and see that justice is served, for Fran and for little Jamie. But the hunt could have powerful, unanticipated consequences for everyone involved: Schafer, the townspeople, the police, the devastated family . . . and an odd, disfigured hermit, drawn from his solitude in the forest by the frightened cries of a small child in the night.

One beautiful summer Mitch Roberts is visiting his grandmother in a small Kansas town. A young girl there wants Roberts to help free her brother who has been on death row for fourteen years. The girl insists her brother did not commit the crime. So, Roberts gives up his vacation to investigate but no one is willing to talk, either about the crime or the long-ago love affair that seems to be connected with it. Then a loaded shotgun blasts through the terrified silence and the killer coils to strike again. Gaylord Dold is the author of fifteen works of fiction including the highly acclaimed private detective series featuring Mitch Roberts, a well as numerous contemporary crime thrillers. Many of his novels have been singled out for awards and praise by a number of critics and writer’s organizations.

Jay Desmarteaux raised a whole lot of hell in New Jersey after he was released from prison after 25 years for the murder of a rapist bully at his school. Now he's on the run in his home state of Louisiana, where he traces his roots to an evil family tree that's grown large and lush, watered with the blood of the innocent. Jay's hunt for his parents will take him to the doors of stately plantation homes built by the enslaved, through the deadly and gorgeous heart of the bayou, to his greatest nightmare-a cell in the infamous state prison, where his only escape is the wildest show in the South-the Angola Prison Rodeo. Scarred and shell-shocked, Jay Desmarteaux faces his deadliest adversaries yet: the demons within himself and the brutality wrought by his privileged ancestors. The Boy from County Hell is coming home... Praise for THE BOY FROM COUNTY HELL: "Thomas Pluck's The Boy From County Hell is raucous and rollicking, just like The Pogues song it adapts its name from. There are echoes of James Lee Burke, Barry Gifford, and Joe R. Lansdale, but Pluck's book burns hot and bright with its own indomitable punk spirit. Joyous, wild, dark fun." -William Boyle, author of City of Margins, A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, The Lonely Witness, and Gravesend "Blistering, violent, and written with Technicolor flourishes that are Pluck's unmistakable signature. The Boy from County Hell is a hell of a book." -Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase "Pluck has crafted a hard-charging thriller that stomps the pedal from page one and never lets up. Crackling with exciting characters and language that pops off the page, The Boy From County Hell is a mad tale of rage, retribution, and no small helping of heart and soul. I loved it." -Bill Loehfelm, author of the Maureen Coughlin series "Wow. The Boy from County Hell by Thomas Pluck is as wild as a night in a cage with an amorous monkey. So smart and tense and relentless. Pluck decides on his premise, and stays true to it until the rowdy end, but the real star here is his control of style, both hardboiled and poetic at the same time. Impressed." -Joe R. Lansdale "The Boy from County Hell is a harrowing and at times deeply philosophical journey through the heart of rage. Thomas Pluck is our trustworthy tour guide through that undiscovered country. With deft prose and an eye towards redemption and revelation Pluck accomplishes an amazing feat. We find ourselves feeling sympathy for the boy from county Hell" -SA. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears