Download or read book Grand Trunk and Shearer written by Ian Truman and published by D'Arcy Kennedy. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: GRAND TRUNK AND SHEARER, a D'Arcy Kennedy Crime Novel by Ian Truman. 1st in series.

Download or read book A Cougar s Kiss written by Frank De Blase and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s 1960 and Frankie Valentine is doing just fine. The transplanted New York photographer is living it up in the Hollywood sunshine surrounded by beautiful women more than willing to dispose of their clothes and pose. He has no reason to go back east. That is, until the body of a childhood friend, who had disappeared in 1950, turns up. Valentine flies back home to lend his expertise as a crime scene photographer and help out a friend who’s in a jam. Instead he finds a compromised crime scene, a hidden stash of cash, and trouble. A Junkie stripper and her mother—a woman who ushered Valentine into manhood—a mob boss racked with jealousy and homicidal rage and assorted low-lifes all roll out the unwelcome mat. It’s all blood, money, sex and lies…sealed with a Cougar’s Kiss. Praise for Frank De Blase… “A fifties pulp-noir that has ex-crimescene turned girlie photographer, Frankie Valentine leaving Hollywood for a return to Rochester to ferret out whodunit. Mobsters, murder and plenty of femme fatales…what’s not to love.” —Steve Hodel, New York Times bestselling author of Black Dahlia Avenger: A Genius for Murder “Frank De Blase writes with the world-weary wit and hardboiled grit of a literary veteran, but his natural talent for storytelling transcends mere nostalgia. The compelling immediacy of his charismatic voice carries the reader not down memory lane, but onward through a brilliantly realized alternate noir-verse that is vibrantly vivid and palpably pulpy, populated by colorful characters and drenched in retro-rich atmosphere.” —Will Viharo, author of the The Thrillville Pulp Fiction Collection and the Vic Valentine, Private Eye series

Download or read book The Blade This Time written by Jon Bassoff and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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

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 280 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 Route 12 written by Marietta Miles and published by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-11-09 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Route 12 is two haunting novellas set in Appalachia in the seventies and eighties. These are stories of people down on their luck—a girl crippled by a bad dose of polio vaccine, a young pregnant woman with no one to turn to, a mother desperate for cash who makes a terrible mistake. In this debut book from Marietta Miles, God's country is as corrupt as any place on earth and trusting anyone is a dangerous proposition. Praise for ROUTE 12: “Miles rolls on instinct infused with raw talent, utilizing a palate of emotion to repaint what we thought was Southern noir, turning it into something new, something poignant, something entirely hers.” —Tom Pitts, author of Hustle and Knuckleball

Download or read book Beware the Shill written by John Shepphird and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-04 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life can turn on a dime against the jagged cliffs of California’s Central Coast… Bruised, battered, but determined, Jane Innes must navigate a tangled web of deception, depravity and murder, and turn the tables on cunning swindlers. Using the art of deception, this out-of-work actress embarks on a daring caper—her last chance to take down a deadly adversary. Nominated for a 2017 Anthony Award, BEWARE THE SHILL concludes this thrilling trilogy from Shamus Award-winning author John Shepphird. Praise for the Shill books: “Sly, sexy and surprising, THE SHILL is a darkly comic Hollywood tale of a not-so-innocent out-of-work actress being groomed for larceny.” —Wallace Stroby, author of The Devil’s Share, Shoot the Woman First, and Cold Shot to the Heart “[THE SHILL is] a fast-paced heist story filled with colorful characters and interesting plot twists.” —S.W. Lauden, author of Crosswise “[KILL THE SHILL is] a fast and hard ride into a con trick. Told by a writer who pulls no punches this does not disappoint.” —Richard Godwin, author of Wrong Crowd “Hell hath no fury like an actress duped. Revenge is the motivation, deception the means to get even in this exciting crime thriller.” —Scott Adlerberg, author of Spiders and Flies and Jungle Horses, on KILL THE SHILL

Download or read book The Manipulated written by Nathan Walpow and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-06-04 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joe Portugal’s experienced killing before. He’s seen gunmen mow down a friend on little more than a whim. He’s known greed and ambition to drive his friends to murder. But now he’s face to face with a whole new degree of wickedness. A show business prodigy has been shot dead. Though no one—except perhaps the man’s father—will mourn him, his demise puts Joe in debt to a shadowy presence whose sway extends deep into Southern California industry, government, and law enforcement. And suddenly Joe begins to suspect that everyone he knows—his protégé, stunning television star Ronnie McKenzie; his new wife, Gina; and most disturbing of all, his prison vet father—is part of that clandestine coterie known as “the manipulated.” Nathan Walpow’s “snappy Chandleresque dialogue” (Los Angeles Times) adds punch to this intricate, darkly witty whodunit set in the trashier byways of Tinseltown. Praise for THE MANIPULATED: “I thought the last Joe Portugal mystery, One Last Hit, was unbeatable. Wrong. The Manipulated is even better. Suddenly this is a must-read series.” —Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher novels

Download or read book A Scholar of Pain written by Grant Jerkins and published by ABC Group Documentation, an imprint of Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his debut short fiction collection, A Scholar of Pain, Grant Jerkins remains—as the Washington Post put it—“Determined to peer into the darkness and tell us exactly what he sees.” Here, the depth of that darkness is on evident, oftentimes poetic, display. We meet, and come reluctantly to sympathize with: The office chair-sniffer who only wants to be loved, a bottomed-out cough-syrup addict, a terminally ill school bus driver who takes her young riders on a drunken suicide run, and a cheated-on housewife who discovers her husband’s other woman isn’t a woman at all, but a…No spoilers here. Just read it. Read all sixteen of these deviant diversions. Peer into the darkness. Praise for A SCHOLAR OF PAIN: “A Scholar of Pain hits that literary sweet spot: Could be crime fiction, might be southern gothic—or even horror. The stories are funny as hell, too. And compassionate. In fact, Jerkins’ voice is amongst the most compassionate I’ve heard, because he extends it to some hideous wretches in a way that underscores the humanity I share with them. I heartily recommend Grant Jerkins.” —Jedidiah Ayers, author of Peckerwood and Fierce Bitches “Sophisticated. Elegant. Sleek and demolishing.” —Ryan Sayles, author of Subtle Art of Brutality and Warpath “A joyous celebration of the darkness within us all. With A Scholar of Pain, Grant Jerkins gives an unflinching look—with no anger or judgment—into the realities that surround us. It’s one thing to write a convincing and compassionate love story, but writing one that involves a sex doll, well that’s another thing completely.” —DH Tuck, author of Formica

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 110 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 Screen Test written by Jerry Kennealy and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-07-11 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In April of 1968 Steve McQueen arrives in San Francisco to film Bullitt. Rough-and-tumble SFPD Inspector Johnny O’Rorke, aka The Fixer, is the department’s Executive Protection Officer. His job is to make sure that visiting celebrities are well taken care of. O’Rorke is instructed to take special care of McQueen; the city’s movers and shakers are hoping to develop San Francisco into Hollywood North. McQueen takes a liking to O’Rorke, and when Russ Cortig, a member of his film crew, is busted at a wild Haight Ashbury party, he asks O’Rorke to try to have the charge dismissed. Fixing Cortig’s arrest sheet is a minor problem, but it leads O’Rorke into a tangled web of intrigue and corruption that includes the murder of one of his longtime informers, a crossdresser who goes by the name of Vanessa the Undresser, tangling with a Chinatown drug lord, being shot at by a sadistic Soviet hit man, going up against a wealthy former Russian Mafia leader now living in San Francisco, dealing with a vicious local gangster, Alec Zek, aka The Swine, and a chasing after a priceless blue diamond known as the Stalin Blue. If that isn’t complicated enough, O’Rorke breaks into a real sweat when McQueen asks him to make a screen test for a part in Bullitt. Praise for SCREEN TEST: “Steve McQueen. Bullitt. Transvestites. Murder. And the City by the Bay. Who could ask for more? Gear up for a rockin’ roller coaster ride up and down San Francisco’s tumultuous hills in Jerry Kennealy’s entertaining, triple-fast thriller Screen Test, but make sure to wear your seatbelt.” —Paul D. Marks, Shamus Award-winning author of White Heat Praise for the books of Jerry Kennealy: “Kennealy always delivers hard-boiled excitement nicely with humor and style.” —Booklist “Kennealy’s characters, combined with his seasoned ability to weave several plot elements into a smooth whole, make his books stand out in the crowded thriller genre.” —Publisher’s Weekly “Kennealy’s nicely crafted stories always hold my interest. Never a wasted word.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Download or read book Street Whispers Stories written by Liam Sweeny and published by All Due Respect, an imprint of Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An eclectic collection of pulp, grit and noir stories inspired by the Capital Region of New York, a rust-belt crossroads in the shadow of the city that never sleeps. Here’s a trip led by fat slobs in smoky, vomit-stained cabs, heading to the oasis of the strip club on a street lined with rusted out factories, ventilated with beer cans and rocks. No heroes and villains in these pages, just shades of grey and characters making choices between bad and worse. Tales of woe and macabre, the profane and ordinary dance with each other in a building where the forgotten stay, passing their street whispers like bottles from the bottom shelf.

Download or read book Down Out The Magazine Volume 1 Issue 2 written by Rick Ollerman and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Picking up from where our last issue left off, we have another group of crime stories written especially for us. Starting with ex-police detective Lissa Marie Redmond whose short fiction has appeared in anthologies like Akashic’s Buffalo Noir and whose debut novel will be out in February 2018, we move along to novelist Andrew Welsh-Huggins, author of the Andy Hayes PI series. Then we have a chilling new tale by short story specialist Nick Kolakowsi, followed by this issue’s featured writer, Bill Crider, who takes us to Blacklin County, Texas, where he treats us to a new story starring everyone’s favorite sheriff, Dan Rhodes. Tim Lockhart’s debut novel came out earlier this year amidst a lot of buzz and he’s here with a very dark tale indeed. Next we offer a taste of J.J. Hensley’s fast-paced writing with an airborne story as we await the premiere of a new series early next year. Our trip to the past brings us to the legendary writer Carroll John Daly and his no-holds-barred character Race Williams, who never shot any man that didn’t deserve it. We close out the issue with a story strong with irony by Ben Boulden. Throw in a terrific column by J. Kingston Pierce and you’ve got another issue of Down & Out: The Magazine.

Download or read book The Logan Triad written by Nathan Walpow and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes those who do terrible things to good people slip through the cracks. That’s where Logan comes in. He tracks down the guilty and holds them accountable. He specializes in those who mistreat women and children. He works with a team of three young crime-fighters who’ve benefited from his efforts. And none of the four is above letting a little thing like the law get in his or her way. The Logan Triad includes three novellas: In “Logan’s Young Guns,” a young woman shows up in the emergency room, and Logan sets out to find the man responsible and make sure he doesn’t do it again. In “Logan Shoots First,” the team must balance a forced-prostitution ring with a lead on the case that’s haunted Logan for seven years. In “Logan Gets Caught,” a young woman from Logan’s past reappears, insisting he investigate the murder of her mother. Plus the bonus stories “Daughters” and “Johnny and the Warehouse Women.” Praise for Nathan Walpow… “There’s truth and humanity baked into his writing. I rate him among my absolute favorites.” —Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher thrillers.

Download or read book Beachhead written by Jeffery Hess and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-03-07 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s 1980 on Florida’s Gulf coast. Sun, drugs, gambling debts, and dirty deals push Navy-prison parolee Scotland Ross deeper into the life of crime he never wanted. His sister’s life, a potential newfound love, and his own freedom are all on the line as he tangles with a redneck gangster intent on becoming the state’s next governor. Will Scotland make the right choice or the one that keeps him alive? Beachhead is dark noir set in the state of sunshine. A story of crime and loyalty, love and hate, and choices made when everything you care about is on the line.

Download or read book Swann s Last Song written by Charles Salzberg and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2016-12-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Skip tracer Henry Swann cares little about anything but money, so when a beautiful Upper East Side woman shows up in his office and hires him to find her missing husband, he smiles and takes the cash. But when this seemingly simple missing-person case turns into homicide, Swann finds himself trapped in a complex web of connections and multiple identities that takes him out of New York City and across two continents. Praise for SWANN’S LAST SONG … “Swann’s got the smarts and hard-boiled cynicism of Sam Spade, but he’s also got a wicked sense of humor that keeps things cool even when the action gets hot.” —Brian Kilmeade, author of New York Times bestseller The Games Do Count “Salzberg’s a hell of a writer. He delivers thrills, insight and plenty of laughs. Swann is a very cool take on the classic P.I.” —Andrew Klavan, author of True Crime and Don’t Say a Word “A veritable travelogue of suspense, Swann’s Last Song grabs hold of the reader and doesn’t let go. Salzberg’s anti-hero is a soulful investigator and one of the most paradoxically endearing characters I’ve come across. I hope this isn’t Swann’s last song.” —Joy Behar (co-host of The View) “Salzberg defies expectations left and right in this subtly subversive, genre-twisting page turner. Swann’s Last Song is where literature meets entertainment” —Mark Goldblatt, author of Africa Speaks

Download or read book A Negro and an Ofay written by Danny Gardner and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1952, after a year on the run, disgraced Chicago Police Officer Elliot Caprice wakes up in a jailhouse in St. Louis. His friends from his hometown secure his release and he returns to find the family farm in foreclosure and the man who raised him dying in a flophouse. Desperate for money, he accepts a straight job as a process server and eventually crosses paths with a powerful family from Chicago’s North Shore. A captain of industry is dead, the key to his estate disappeared with the chauffeur, and soon Elliot is in up to his neck. The mixed-race son of Illinois farm country must return to the Windy City with the Chicago Police on his heels and the Syndicate at his throat. Good thing he’s had a lifetime of playing both sides to the middle. Praise for A NEGRO AND AN OFAY: “A a solid entry in the ranks of African-American crime fiction.” —Publishers Weekly “Fans of Walter Mosley and George Pelecanos are going to devour Danny Gardner’s brilliant new book. A Negro and an Ofay breathes exciting new life into noir fiction.” —Jonathan Maberry, The New York Times bestselling author “Elliot Caprice is a terrific character with his own Midwestern territory and Danny Gardner tells his stories with style and cunning.” —Peter Blauner, The New York Times bestselling author and co-Executive Producer of CBS’s Blue Bloods “Danny Gardner’s Elliot Caprice is a complex mix of muscle and brain, of toughness and heart, of doing wrong and only sometimes getting it right. A Negro and an Ofay reads like a long lost Raymond Chandler, one that he wrote from the south side of Chicago.” —Lori Rader-Day, Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of Little Pretty Things and The Black Hour “Danny Gardner’s masterful debut engenders echoes of the greats. I had the impression I had somehow stumbled across a previously undiscovered work of Chester Himes, or Jim Thompson, or Walter Mosley―or all three magically rolled into one.”―David Corbett, prize-winning author of The Mercy of the Night “Immersive, poignant and utterly enthralling. Written from the middle of America’s great racial divide, it’s satirical, cool and irrevocably honest; imbued with an inherent nobility that rivals any modern day hero.” —Tom Avitabile, bestselling author of Give Us This Day “A Negro and an Ofay is a smart, crisp, historically accurate, and unapologetically racial narrative that signals the arrival of a strong, necessary voice in crime fiction. This is the best debut you’ll read in a long time.” —Gabino Iglesias, author of Zero Saints “Hard-boiled don’t get much harder than this. Danny Gardner hits all the right notes, but with enough swagger and voice to make it completely his own. Elliot Caprice is a fantastic character, stuck between two worlds—black and white, good and bad—and I really hope to see more of him.” —Rob W. Hart, author of South Village “One of the best tools Gardner has in his toolbox…is his sense of humanity.” —Scott Waldyn, Literary Orphans Journal “…it manages to be smart, historical, and about identity/racial issues while retaining all the entertainment value that pulpy thrillers bring to the table. This is a book with a carefully crafted plot that touches on a lot of issues that were as relevant six decades ago as they are now.” —Out of the Gutter Review “This is a stunning debut! A powerful combination of brilliant storytelling and a breathtaking grasp of dialog subtext that strongly reminds of Mamet. Gardner is destined to become a big name in this writing game.” —Les Edgerton, author of The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping “Elliot Caprice is a trouble magnet and that makes for a great character.” —Simon Wood, author of The One That Got Away “Plenty of hardboiled patter and a dense plot with a great sense of place and wonderful dialogue.” —Eric Beetner, author of Rumrunners “A Negro and an Ofay forces us to look into the brutal mirror of our past in the hope we might understand our future. With his sharp as a whip crack writing, Gardner may just change the world” —Paul Bishop, author of Lie Catchers

Download or read book Swann s Way Out written by Charles Salzberg and published by Down & Out Books. This book was released on 2017-02-20 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a limited time only! Purchase SWANN’S WAY OUT for just $2.99 and get a link to download the first book in this series, SWANN’S LAST SONG, for FREE! A friendly poker game leads Henry Swann out to Hollywood where he tries to find the man, Rusty Jacobs, responsible for embezzling $1,000,000 from his client, and then bring back the dough. Swann finds Jacobs, but the mercurial wannabe film producer is involved in a “surefire” movie project aimed at the growing Christian market. And the money? Well, it seems to have vanished into thin air. At the same time, thanks to his irrepressible partner, Goldblatt, Swann finds himself knee-deep in the New York City art world, as he tries to get justice for another client who’s possibly been defrauded on the purchase of a valuable painting that may or may not be a fake. As if this isn’t enough to keep him busy, in the midst of these two troubling cases, Swann finds that the teenage son whom he hasn’t seen in a dozen years has run away from his grandparent’s Minnesota home and, chasing after a girl, has possibly become involved with a cult. And so, a guilt-ridden Swann has to take time out from his paying cases to find his son. Praise for the Henry Swann Mysteries: “I always love it when I come across a new private detective to admire and worship, someone who is brave where I’m weak, someone who gets his hands dirty while I keep mine clean. Henry Swann is such a detective and he tells a great story. For fans of hard-boiled mysteries or just plain old good fiction, I’m sure you’ll love Swann Dives In.” —Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir! and the creator of Bored to Death. “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, on Swann’s Lake of Despair “Salzberg’s a hell of a writer. He delivers thrills, insight and plenty of laughs. Swann is a very cool take on the classic PI.” —Andrew Klavan, author of True Crime, on Swann’s Last Song