Download or read book Gitmo written by Shawn Corridan and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-06-05 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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: “Amid the mayhem, the authors provide a number of surprising plot twists and quite a few laughs.” —Publishers Weekly “An exciting read that should appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, espionage thrillers and caper comedies.” —Kirkus Reviews

Download or read book Blood on the Bayou written by Greg Herren and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-09-15 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling novelists David Morrell, Alison Gaylin and Elaine Viets headline a new anthology of 22 tales exploring the unique aura of mystery of New Orleans and the surrounding bayou country. BLOOD ON THE BAYOU is published in conjunction with Bouchercon, the World Mystery Convention, which is being held in New Orleans in 2016. 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. These stories range from the light-hearted and fun to the darker side of crime, just as New Orleans and the bayou country can show both to the unsuspecting. All participants contributed their efforts to support our charity — the New Orleans Public Libraries — and by extension readers and writers everywhere. ALL PROFITS GO TO THE LIBRARY. Edited by Greg Herren with an Introduction by Heather Graham. Stories by Kaye Wilkinson Barley, Eric Beetner, G. J. Brown, Sheila Connolly, O'Neil De Noux, Barbara Ferrer, John Floyd, Alison Gaylin, Greg Herren, BV Lawson, R. T. Lawton, Deborah Lacy, Edith Maxwell, Liz Milliron, Terrie Farley Moran, David Morrell, Dino Parenti, Michael Penn, Gary Phillips, Thomas Pluck, Paula Pumphrey, and Elaine Viets.

Download or read book Life During Wartime Stories written by Thomas Pluck and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-01-29 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blackjack 21 of stories of people caught up in crime, facing bleak horrors, or spun in the whirlpool of human absurdity, this collects the best stories of Thomas Pluck. Take a ride on the neuter scooter in “The Big Snip”, selected as one of the best crime stories of 2016. Follow a mountain man who’s not what he seems into a snowbound frontier town where evil has sunk its claws. Dine at the most exclusive restaurant in New York, where “Eat the Rich” takes on a whole new meaning. And meet Denny the Dent, a hulking 350 pounds of muscle who wouldn’t harm a fly…but who’ll glad crush a bully’s skull. And read the Jay Desmarteaux yarn that takes off where Bad Boy Boogie ends. Read the stories readers call “hard-hitting bombs” full of “gut punches and belly laughs”…and be ready to get Plucked. Praise for Thomas Pluck: “Thomas Pluck is a crime writer to watch. Steeped in the genre’s grand tradition but with heart and bravado all his own, his writing is lean, smart and irresistibly compelling.” —Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me and Queenpin “He writes those quick, hard-hitting bombs as well or better than anybody on the scene today. Keep ’em coming.” —Wayne Dundee, author of the Joe Hannibal PI series and creator of Hardboiled Magazine “If you don’t know who Thomas Pluck is, you will soon enough. His short fiction is all over the internet and he combines jabs of clever humor with full-impact gut shots.” —Johnny Shaw, author of Dove Season and Big Maria

Download or read book Piggyback written by Tom Pitts and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book The Selected Letters of the Late Biagio Serafim Sciarra written by George Williams and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-02-19 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The stories in this breathless and relentless collection are rendered in a voice both elegant and manic, as if we’re seeing the world through a surreal and yet precise kaleidoscope, one that both celebrates and condemns our foibles and follies. Satirical and cutting as Jonathan Swift, hectic and skewed as Van Gogh, bitter and morbid as Poe, the stories collected in The Selected Letters of the Late Biagio Serafim Sciarra show us that all is not well in Paradise, that the savage wealth of America has created a land of lunacy. Perhaps only Gogol and Barthelme have written stories this fantastically brutal and beautiful. George Williams is one of the finest minds and writers of our generation.” —Eric Miles Williamson

Download or read book Polo s Long Shot written by Jerry Kennealy and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-07-17 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Texas Two Step written by Michael Pool and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-04-02 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cooper and Davis are a couple of jam band-obsessed Texas ex-pats growing some of Denver’s finest organic cannabis and living the good life on tour. Or, at least they were, until legal weed put the squeeze on their market and cramped their playboy lifestyle. When their last out-of-state distributor gets busted by an Illinois task force, they're left with no choice but to turn to their reckless former associate Elroy “Sancho” Watts to unload one last crop down in Teller County, Texas. But Sancho Watts has troubles of his own in the form of Texas Ranger Russ Kirkpatrick, tasked under the table with nailing Watts for anything that will stick because of his involvement in the drug-induced suicide of a state senator's son. Not to mention his infamous new business partner, Heisman quarterback and NFL burnout Bobby Burnell, a man working to rise from the ashes of his self-destructed football career by making a name for himself in his criminally inclined Teller County family, no matter who he has to double-cross to get there. What ensues is a pine-curtain criminal jamboree where everyone involved keeps their cards close to their vest, and all the high-stakes two-stepping is sure to result in bloodshed.

Download or read book Exacting Justice written by TG Wolff and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-04-23 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unknown killer is waging a war on drugs. The murders are horrendous but with a silver lining—now stop signs are the only objects lingering on corners in the city’s toughest neighborhoods. Half the city calls for the police to end the killer’s reign. The other half cheers the killer on, denouncing the tactics but celebrating the progress police haven’t been able to achieve. The gritty details of Cleveland’s drug underworld are nothing new to Homicide Detective Jesus De La Cruz. Two years earlier, Cruz worked undercover narcotics and was poised for a promotion that would have placed him in a coveted position within the drug organization. The deal went bad. Now he has a new face, a new job, and a new case. The killer moves through the streets with impunity, identity still unknown. Demands for progress from his superiors, accumulated grief of the victim’s relatives, growing pressure from the public, and elevated stress from his family quietly pull Cruz apart. With no out, the detective moves all in, putting his own head on the line to bait a killer. Praise for EXACTING JUSTICE: “TG Wolff’s Detective De La Cruz is caught in the crosshairs of solving heinous crimes, defending himself against a wrongful lawsuit, helping an abusive drug dealer’s family, thwarting his mother’s matchmaking, and falling in love. Pit against those who subvert justice and twist the law to suit their own ends, Cruz stands true while suffering his own demons—everything a hero should be. Wolff’s unsentimental and precise writing draws readers. Add Exacting Justice to your ‘to be read’ pile.” —E. B. Davis, mystery author “Working with an incarcerated population, I deal regularly with people who have made poor life decisions but who can be inherently funny, surprisingly talented, or overly concerned. I know that simple labels of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ don't work in the real world. In Exacting Justice, TG Wolff created characters just as messy, complicated, and dynamic as real life that keep you wanting to read page after page.” —Vincent Giammarco, Director of Behavioral Health Care

Download or read book May written by Marietta Miles and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-01-08 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: May, lonely caretaker and small-time weed dealer, has spent years trying to hunker down and hide from her damaged past. As a destructive nor’easter takes aim at her sleepy island home of Folly, May tries to hunker down once more after the island is evacuated. But death is in the air – not just from the storm, but from others on the island driven by darker demons – and May finds that this time, there’s nowhere to hide. Praise for MAY: “Every page has a lovely line, something to savor, even as the story uneasily slips under your skin. There’s beauty in the violence in this novella about loneliness and the lengths people go to free themselves from its grasp. You read May and imagine Marietta Miles sitting at the edge of the abyss, peering into it and scribbling into her notebook.” —E.A. Aymar, author of You’re As Good As Dead “Marietta Miles is a unique voice in modern noir, a writer of such dark scenes that only the power of her words can provide the light that releases the reader into a world where hope remains. Showcasing a Southern sensibility that reminds at times of Flannery O’Connor, Miles continually reveals further breadth (and depths) to her characters. A book of dark charms, May adds to the staggeringly beautiful intoxication delivered by last year’s Route 12.” —Rob Pierce, author of Uncle Dust and With The Right Enemies “May will haunt you long after you close the cover. Its every page is fraught with peril. Its every word oozes with tragedy You know it’s coming, but you won’t dare look away, lest you miss one of the freshest, most scintillating voices in Southern crime fiction.” —Eryk Pruitt, author of Dirtbags and What We Reckon “May is gripping and yet poignant. May Cosby and the people around her struggle against the present and the past, trying to piece together a life that’s worth living. Set along the fragile Folly Island of North Carolina as a frightening storm approaches, May looks back upon her choices and does her best to come to terms with them. Extremely atmospheric and at times heart-wrenching, May is a story of choosing to leave the wreckage of the past and search for hope in the future.” —Jen Conley, author of Cannibals “Marietta Miles’s May is an unfiltered, provocative deep-dive into the bleak life of an extraordinarily complex woman. Utterly engrossing and relentlessly heartbreaking, Miles’s sharp, powerful storytelling will have you rooting for May fiercely right up until the very end.” —Jennifer Hillier, author of Creep, Freak, and Wonderland

Download or read book A Better Kind of Hate written by Beau Johnson and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on with total page 139 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Praise for A BETTER KIND OF HATE: “Hard hitting stories of lives on the razor’s edge.” —Paul D. Brazill, author of Too Many Crooks, A Case of Noir, Guns of Brixton, The Last Laughand Kill Me Quick! “Beau Johnson is a lawless writer. Several—but not all—of the stories in his collection, A Better Kind of Hate, feature his renegade cop alter ego Bishop Rider, a battered and bruised, world-weary hero forced to operate outside a corrupt system to find justice. And that’s just what these stories have in common: justice, in all its muted, corrupt glory. Whether showcasing Rider or another flawed hero, Johnson operates in shades of gray, 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 “Beau’s ability to strike at the heart of human emotion is both unnerving, uncanny, and unique. It allows him to wring tears from the darkest recesses of the human experience. A dark chameleon who slides from twisted villain to damaged innocent like a well-tuned master of fiction. A how-to on the craft of short fiction.” —Tom Pitts, author of Hustle and American Static “A Better Kind of Hate will haunt you like a specter. An uneasy collection, Beau Johnson crafts each story with masterful precision and an icy cold edge. Each page, each word, escalates the tension, ratchets the foreboding . Dripping with psychological terror, nerve racking suspense and characters unhinged, A Better Kind of Hate is an offering of patience, plans, and revenge. Johnson’s talent is spectacular and terrifying.” —Marietta Miles, author of Route 12 “Beau Johnson writes from that place inside us all that is nothing but brutal honesty and grit. And while most people avoid this place, Beau milks it for every word he can.” —Ryan Sayles, author of the Richard Dean Buckner series

Download or read book Swann s Lake of Despair written by Charles Salzberg and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-02-06 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When rare photos‚ a scandalous diary‚ and a beautiful woman all go missing at once‚ the stage is set for three challenging cases for Henry Swann. It begins with an offer to partner up with his slovenly‚ unreliable frenemy‚ Goldblatt. The disbarred lawyer-turned-“facilitator” would provide the leads and muscle‚ while Swann would do all the fancy footwork. A lost diary by a free-loving Jazz Age flapper is worth enough to someone that Swann takes a beat down on an abandoned boardwalk. Pilfered photos of Marilyn Monroe propel him deep into the past of an alcoholic shutterbug‚ his wife; and he’s hired to search for a lonely writer’s runaway girlfriend. The cases converge and collide in a finale that lifts the curtain on crucial‚ deadly facts of life for everyone—including Swann himself. Praise for SWANN'S LAKE OF DESPAIR… “Smart, satisfying, even profound, this is exactly what every mystery reader is looking for: A terrific story, full of wit and originality, and a master class in voice. Charles Salzberg is a true talent, and his Henry Swann is a classic — complex, hilarious, and completely charming.” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, Mary Higgins Clark award winner for The Other Woman, Agatha winner for The Wrong Girl.

Download or read book No Happy Endings written by Angel Luis Colón and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fantine Park is not the woman her mother was — she’s certainly not the safecracker her mother was either. Hell, she’s not much of anything useful these days. Fresh off parole after a stint in the joint for a poorly thought out casino robbery, Fantine finds herself confronted by an old partner of her mother’s and right back in the thick of it. Unfortunately, the man dragging her back to the life she left behind, one Aleksei Uryvich, is a complete bully and an idiot — content to believe he can get anything he wants with his brutish nature and the threat of a bullet for Fan’s elderly father, Jae. The score: semen. Yes, semen. Gallons of it. Particularly, the genetic man-batter from supposed Ivy Leaguers and other elite. The material nets top dollar from Asia and Aleksei is foaming at the mouth at the profit potential. The plan: there is no real plan. Fantine has to get it out of Evensight Storage; a sperm bank situated right by the Battery Park Tunnel in Manhattan. A place barely anyone but a sad sack with an empty sack sees the inside of on a day to day basis. There’s no guarantee anyone involved in this mess is getting out alive, especially when Fantine finds herself face to face with the psychopath known as O Leiteiro — The Milkman. Praise for NO HAPPY ENDINGS … “This Angel from hell writes hardcore pulp fiction as sick, slick, funny, and thrilling as Willeford meets Westlake. Fantine Park is a great new bad-ass heroine.” — Thomas Pluck, author of Blade of Dishonor and Bad Boy Boogie “In No Happy Endings, Angel Colón milks every drop of tension as he leads his heroine, Fantine, from one sticky situation to another. Try to read with your fingers covering your eyes, hoping to shield your eyes from the nonstop action, violence, and mayhem as the reader cranks along to an inevitable, satisfying climax.” — Eryk Pruitt, author of Dirtbags and Hashtag “Imagine an oversexed-on-speed remake of Big Trouble in Little China as told by the Krays, or maybe a club-kid update of Jim Thompson’s The Alcoholics, and you still don’t come anywhere near the depravity, perversion, and holy mind fuck of this latest offering by Angel Colón. No Happy Endings takes the time-tested trope of retired robber on a final heist, and with more double crosses than Jesus after a three-day bender, delivers one of the most weirdly original, satisfying, and unexpected capers of the year.” — Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and the Jay Porter Thriller Series “No Happy Endings is a trip of a book. Right from the first sentence, you know you’ve entered Colón’s world of dark humor and interesting positions. This is tale of Fantine Park, a young safe cracker who gets mixed up in one bizarre New York situation — sperm bank fraud, if that’s what you call it. With Colon’s popping wry prose, No Happy Endings moves at a breakneck pace, is fabulously entertaining, and has one of the best female leads you’ll read in a long time.” — Jen Conley, author of Cannibals: Stories from the Edge of the Pine Barrens “Deftly mixing a delightfully twisted premise with deliciously dark humor and an authentic emotional core, No Happy Endings firmly positions Angel Luis Colón as a top voice in the new generation of crime fiction writers. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.” — Holly West, Anthony Award-nominated author of the Mistress of Fortune series “Not only does No Happy Endings deliver on the outrageous premise, Angel Colón somehow manages to make it absolutely plausible. A true page-turner packed with colorful characters, biting one-liners and some of the most repulsive murder scenes a twisted mind could conjure.” — S.W. Lauden, author of Crosswise “This is a heist book like no other, perfectly captured by Colón’s intense, no-frills style. Loaded with dark humor, tightly-choreographed action and a memorable protagonist in Fantine Park, No Happy Endings hits hard, with a jaw-breaking impact that won’t fade overnight.” — Alex Segura, author of Silent City and Down the Darkest Street

Download or read book Down Out The Magazine Volume 1 Issue 1 written by Eric Beetner and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know a healthy appetite for well-written short stories exists and we want to help make things better. Our goal with Down & Out: The Magazine is to be a little different than other magazines by standing on the shoulders of the giants that have come before us, or at least tiptoe along the arrows in the backs of the pioneers of modern magazine publishing. Each issue will feature a story based on a series character like this issue’s brand-new Moe Prager story by Reed Farrel Coleman. If you’re a fan of Moe, who is now retired, you’ll want to read this fantastic story. We also have new tales by established and well-known writers. This debut issue includes series stories by Eric Beetner, Michael A. Black, Jen Conley, Terrence McCauley, Rick Ollerman, and Thomas Pluck. J. Kingston Pierce, fresh off his former beat from Kirkus Reviews, introduces “Placed in Evidence,” his non-fiction column only to be found here. Finally, we’ll take a bit of the long road as we answer the question of what happened to crime fiction after Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler moved on from the pulps in “A Few Cents a Word.” This issue we re-introduce Frederick Nebel with the first of his Donahue series, “Rough Justice.” This is a fun one. For fans of good writing, good literature, and good crime...welcome.

Download or read book The Sin Tax written by Preston Lang and published by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-06-10 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Everyone knows that cigarettes will kill you… Mark works the overnight in a grimy deli in the Bronx, selling gray-market smokes and bad meat. His hot-headed manager Janet pushes him to help her con their boss into paying cash for a truck full of tax-free cigarettes. Soon he finds that Janet is willing to do nearly anything to grab the money, and what they’re up to is a lot more dangerous than three packs a day.

Download or read book South of Cincinnati written by Jonathan Ashley and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-07-10 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jon Catlett and Paul Frank have turned their once-failing used bookstore into one of the most thriving businesses in the Highlands. But they paid in blood for their success, for Twice Told Books is not just another dusty thrift shop, but a front for the largest heroin distribution network ever based in Louisville. The two eccentric intellectuals-turned-gun thugs enlist the help of an unscrupulous narcotics cop nicknamed Mad Dog and a former marine importing dope through Fort Knox from Afghanistan purer than anything the city has ever seen. In between trading muzzle flashes with a corrupt and psychotic DEA agent and thwarting two crusading homicide detectives, Catlett and Frank plan to corner the market…or at least everything South of Cincinnati. Praise for SOUTH OF CINCINNATI: “If you only read one book this year, make it South of Cincinnati. Hits all the right notes in a narrative to have you renew your faith in the sheer joy of a great book.” —Ken Bruen, bestselling author of the Jack Taylor series “Scumbag addicts, dirty cops, savage brutality, and the price of a broken heart. My kind of people. My kind of book. In his latest Jon Catlett novel, author Jonathan Ashley tackles the toughest question facing a junkie: what’s harder to kick—the dope or the girl? South of Cincinnati is a thrilling head-first dive into the dirty drug underworld as we watch a hero trying not to drown in pursuit of his humanity.” —Joe Clifford, author of Junkie Love and the Jay Porter thriller series “Jonathan Ashley is elbowing his way to the front of the crowd of crime writers with his crisp dialogue, edgy characters and relentlessly gritty action. South of Cincinnati is a razor-sharp slice through the mire of the Midwestern drug underworld, allowing us to peek from a safe distance.” —Joe Ricker is the author of Walkin’ After Midnight

Download or read book Clutching at Straws written by J.L. Abramo and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-06-19 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

Download or read book Down with the Underdogs written by Ian Truman and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gentrification is moving in hard and fast in Montreal’s South-Western districts. D’Arcy Kennedy finds himself out of breath, out of a job and raising a kid in a small home meant for another era. As the bulldozers take away entire chapters of his life, he turns to old acquaintances for work, leaning in on his hard-earned reputation as a good PI to find employment with the Irish mafia. But even organized crime is struggling to keep up with the changing landscape of the City. Weed is going legal, trust funds are pushing realtors and people who would have not dared cross the Irish not so long ago now defy them carelessly. Navigating his past and staking his future on this new life, D’Arcy Kennedy will have to thread a razor thin line between the law, loyalty and his own family if he wants a place for him and his own at the end of it all. Praise for DOWN WITH THE UNDERDOGS: “A working class family man strikes a deal with the devil in Ian Truman’s fast-paced, volatile Down with the Underdogs. The result is class warfare on the streets of Montreal. Truman offers an unflinching portrait of a city caught in the throes of gentrification, and one person’s struggle to fight back. An excellent read.” —Sam Wiebe, author of the Wakeland novels. “Truman captures life on the edges—of culture, of language, of the legal and illegal, of the sane and the mad. And he tells a great story in the process.” —Warren Moore, author of Broken Glass Waltzes