Here is a collection of tales varying in length, and differing in other ways as well. And with no relation to each other. There is an element of historical truth in each, together with lots of imagination. A few are what I would call poetic-prose mini stories. So I invite you to enjoy reading all of these stories as I have enjoyed creating them.

'The Mansion on the Hill' will disabuse you once and for all of the notion that rock 'n' roll was ever really about changing the world. It is absolutely essential read for any music aficionado whose curiosity is not satisfied by myth alone.

"What would it have been like to be a sixteen-year-old girl in 1925, unmarried and pregnant? In those days, society was cruel to a young woman in this situation. Family members often turned their backs out of embarrassment. The young woman was disgraced and ostracized. The child born out of wedlock was tarnished for life unless secretly adopted. Options were few. Abortion was illegal, expensive, and extremely risky, ignoring any moral issues. Scared and ashamed, many girls were sent to "visit" family in another city or states until the problem went away. A well-kept secret from society, over 100,000 of these young women were sent to Kansas City, Missouri. They traveled, mostly by train, to facilities like The Willows Maternity Sanitarium to hide their dilemma. The Willows was one of the largest homes in America for unwed, pregnant girls to live in seclusion. Months later they would return home empty handed to carry on as though nothing ever happened. They physical pain and trauma were over but the emotional wounds were never healed or forgotten. This is the incredible, true story of The Willows Maternity Sanitarium, the Haworth family who were savvy business owners yet deeply compassionate to these unfortunate girls, and the voices of several whose lives were touched by The Willows."--back cover.

THE STORY: The home of the Blackwoods near a Vermont village is a lonely, ominous abode, and Constance, the young mistress of the place, can't go out of the house without being insulted and stoned by the villagers. They have also composed a nasty s

Soon after she, her mother, and her younger brother move into an old house in an area once known as Beggarsgate, sixteen-year-old Emily begins to have terrifyingly real visions of seventeenth-century London devastated by the plague.

Philip is in despair at the thought of having to stay with 'stuck up old aunt Jane' in her vast gloomy mansion. Worse still, his awful cousin Susan is living there too. At first Susan and Phillip dislike each other intensely, but form an uneasy alliance when they discover the secret room upstairs. If it has been empty for several years, why is there a light on there every night? Intrigued, the two cousins start to investigate. As they dig deeper and deeper into the past the terrible secrets of The House on the Hill start to unfold...

Martin Preib is an officer in the Chicago Police Department—a beat cop whose first assignment as a rookie policeman was working on the wagon that picks up the dead. Inspired by Preib’s daily life on the job, The Wagon and Other Stories from the City chronicles the outer and inner lives of both a Chicago cop and the city itself. The book follows Preib as he transports body bags, forges an unlikely connection with his female partner, trains a younger officer, and finds himself among people long forgotten—or rendered invisible—by the rest of society. Preib recounts how he navigates the tenuous labyrinths of race and class in the urban metropolis, such as a domestic disturbance call involving a gang member and his abused girlfriend or a run-in with a group of drunk yuppies. As he encounters the real and imagined geographies of Chicago, the city reveals itself to be not just a backdrop, but a central force in his narrative of life and death. Preib’s accounts, all told in his breathtaking prose, come alive in ways that readers will long remember.

Horror.

“An enigmatic getaway driver chases, and is chased by, cops and mobsters” in this action-packed hard-boiled thriller debut (Kirkus Reviews). Meet Lennon, a mute Irish getaway driver who has fallen in with the wrong heist team on the wrong day at the wrong bank. Betrayed, his money stolen and his battered carcass left for dead, Lennon is on a one-way mission to find out who is responsible—and to get back his loot. But the robbery has sent a violent ripple effect through the streets of Philadelphia. And now a dirty cop, the Russian and Italian mobs, the mayor’s hired gun, and a keyboard player in a college rock band maneuver for position as this adrenaline-fueled novel twists and turns its way toward its explosive conclusion. One thing’s for sure: this cast of characters wakes up in a much different world by novel’s end—if they wake up at all. Praise for The Wheelman “If you are partial to fast-paced thrillers that present this world as an unforgiving, blood-soaked wasteland, you should love Duane Swierczynski’s first novel. Swierczynski’s novel, like those of [Elmore] Leonard, offers an undertow of humor beneath the churning sea of man’s inhumanity.” —The Washington Post “[A] promising debut. . . . The gripping tale of a heist gone wrong.” —Robert Wade, San Diego Union-Tribune “A great heist story in the rich tradition of Richard Stark’s Parker novels and Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing . . . keeps readers holding their breath to see what’s going to happen next. It is clearly the work of a maturing writer who is possessed of a keen style and abundant talent.” —Philadelphia Inquirer