Bücher veröffentlicht von Down & Out Books

It starts as a mission to honor a fallen comrade. It becomes a mission for justice.On a personal journey to return an heirloom to the father of his former colleague and lover, Jim Grant isn't sure what to expect in the dusty flatlands of Texas. He isn't expecting trouble from the local cowboys, but trouble is what he gets. With instincts honed from years as a covert operator, Grant is a small town's last hope against an army of good old boys and a violent kingpin who has everything to lose. And if he manages to keep his boots above ground he may just be able to lay to rest the memory of a soldier who died too soon.Praise for the books by Colin Campbell:"Very real. And very good." -Lee ChildThe Resurrection Man Series"A cop with a sharp eye, keen mind, and a lion's heart." -Reed Farrel Coleman"Campbell writes smart, rollercoaster tales with unstoppable forward momentum and thrilling authenticity. The Resurrection Man series is a blast." -Nick Petrie"Grim and gritty and packed with action and crackling dialogue." -Kirkus Review, for Jamaica Plain"Action packed. Tough-as-nails. The pages fly like the bullets, fistfights and one-liners that make this one of my favourite books of the year. Top stuff!" -Matt Hilton"Campbell's wry maverick Grant never fails to entertain." -Kirkus Review, for Montecito Heights"Sets up immediately and maintains a breakneck pace throughout. Its smart structure and unrelenting suspense will please Lee Child fans." -Library Journal Review"Harkens back to the gritty action series of the 70s and 80s, with a stylish noir voice." -Kirkus Reviews, for Adobe Flats"Crackerjack entertainment: taut, gritty and full of devilish twists." -Kirkus Reviews, for Snake Pass"Hard-hitting action and Grant's dry wit make this a rollicking good time." -Library Journal Review"Campbell's Beacon Hill is a great tale of violence and intrigue, stretching across the Atlantic and back again. In it, Jim Grant proves he is the real deal." -Reed Farrel ColemanThe UK Crime Novels"This is police procedural close-up and personal. A strong debut with enough gritty realism to make your eyes water, and a few savage laughs along the way." -Reginald Hill, for Through the Ruins of Midnight"An excellent story well told. A mixture of The Choirboys meets Harry Bosch." -Michael Jecks"Campbell's 30 years as a Yorkshire policeman infuse this unusual procedural with grim reality and the harsh humor that helps keep the coppers sane." -Kirkus Review, for Blue Knight White Cross"Every detail feels authentic, and Campbell's dark, muscular prose suggests the best pulp writers of the '50s." -Kirkus Review, for Northern Ex

Some have called Gary Waid’s unconventional Dancing Bear a self-incriminating, self-flagellant, self-abusive paean to the underbelly of American moral decadence. But if you’d like to read mostly-true stories about marijuana smuggling or federal prison, or even running from the law, this is the book for you.Not since Portnoy’s Complaint has there been such a sad-sack confession. And Waid won’t let you stop laughing until the last page.

Joe Ricker writes with a voice reminiscent of Jim Thompson and Raymond Carver. This collection of stories is set in the darkest corners of New England, where the damaged American underbelly emerges. The characters in these stories will challenge every notion you have of right and wrong, and you'll quickly realize that you've probably passed some of the characters in these stories on the streets. Be glad you kept walking. Walkin' After Midnight is a searing and poignant representation of the shadowy side of humanity, the part of our culture that we don't want to believe exists. But it does, and the author that Esquire referred to as "A man of letters who's gentle in the way that only the toughest of hard-asses can be" has brought it to your doorstep. Praise for WALKIN' AFTER MIDNIGHT: "Joe Ricker is a hard-boiled poet in the tradition of Charles Bukowski. He writes of lonely, scarred men, damaged women, and of haunted places we all know. These shorts are served straight up with no chaser. Like the best of noir, it's about people with few options and often no way out. Highly recommended."-Ace Atkins, New York Times bestselling author of The Forsaken and The Redeemers "Tough yet lyrical, bristling with hard-won wisdom, these stories knock you out of any comfort zone you may have found and into the red. Ricker knows people, violence and landscape. He knows truth, too. And these stories beat their fists like drums."-Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter "Joe Ricker's stories are like windows with ragged blinds twisted open to reveal the lives that go on all around us, in spite of us, and sometimes are us. His characters are dark, desperate, and fascinatingly vivid. Read Ricker and have your eyes opened."-Gerry Boyle, international bestselling author of Once Burned, a Jack McMorrow mystery "Walkin' after Midnight crackles with danger, and this noir collection of short stories announces Joe Ricker as a provocative new talent. His plots swerve and startle as characters emerge from smoky bars, carrying grudges into frozen landscapes. Ricker's style is a turns gritty, raw, and surprisingly tender, while his prose goes down like fine whiskey."-Carla Norton, New York Times bestselling author of Perfect Victim "Ricker writes literary noir. His stories are records of murder and deceit, acts committed by individuals with such considerable damage, and/or in such dire straits, that the actions they commit seem to them logical, and perhaps inevitable. Ricker does not celebrate violence and/or amorality; his fiction talks of such things in carefully crafted, measured prose, and the calm, relentless focus of his narratorial voice presents his characters, their actions and their pasts, without judgment, so that we readers may apply our own. In this manner, his writing becomes highly moral; it asks us to look at actions and decisions that are alien to many of us, and to find empathy where we might otherwise be inclined to turn away." -Christopher Coake, PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize

This is the book of the expanding man.What’s the end result of a crazy scheme to match some of music history’s most evocative and memorable songs with twelve of today’s most entertaining writers?You’re looking at it.With this collection there’s no need to chase the dragon, tour the Southland in a traveling minstrel show, or drink Scotch whiskey all night long. You’ve already bought the dream.Covering every game in the Grammy-winning catalog of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker—collectively celebrated as Steely Dan—these compulsively readable stories will stagger the mind of ramblers, wild gamblers, and—of course—the winners in the world.From the suburban streets of Annandale to the mystical spheres of Lhasa…from the shine of your Japan to the sparkle of your China…from Sunset Boulevard to Camarillo and from Scarsdale to Brooklyn … put these twelve masters of crime fiction behind the wheel, and come along for a ride you won’t soon forget.Like a Sunday in T.J., it’s cheap, but it’s not free.

Pulp According to David Goodis starts with six characteristics of 1950s pulp noir that fascinated mass-market readers, making them wish they were the protagonist, and yet feel relief that they were not. His thrillers are set in motion by suppressed guilt, sexual frustrations, explosions of violence, and the inaccessible nature of intimacy. Extremely valuable is a gangster-infested urban setting. Uniquely, Goodis saw a still-vibrant community solidarity down there. Another contribution was sympathy for the gang boss, doomed by his very success. He dramatizes all this in the stark language of the Philadelphia's "streets of no return." The book delineates the noir profundity of the author's work in the context of Franz Kafka's narratives. Goodis' precise sense of place, and painful insights about the indomitability of fate, parallel Kafka's. Both writers mix realism, the disorienting, and the dreamlike; both dwell on obsession and entrapment; both describe the protagonist's degeneration. Tragically, belief in obligations, especially family ones, keep independence out of reach. Other elements covered in this critical analysis of Goodis's work include his Hollywood script-writing career; his use of Freud, Arthur Miller, Faulkner and Hemingway; his obsession with incest; and his "noble loser's" indomitable perseverance. Praise for PULP ACCORDING TO DAVID GOODIS: "This was a fascinating read. [Gertzman] appears as an expert not only on Goodis's body of work but on the pulp era of fiction in general, mid-twentieth-century American history, Philadelphia history, literary analysis, and a litany of other subjects. The book is stylishly written and well designed for reaching a broader, nonacademic audience interested in the pulp's history, role in American culture, and meaning. Frankly, the crime fiction community needs more books like this!" -Chris Rhatigan, editor, publisher, and writer of hard-boiled and noir literature "Jay Gertzman is one of those rare maverick critics with the courage to explore the dark alleys of American literature, and to report back with commendable honesty about what he has found. His book Pulp According to David Goodis is a perfect match of critic to author, and it belongs in the collections of universities hoping to be regarded as major." -Michael Perkins, author of Evil Companions, Dark Matter, and The Secret Record: Modern Erotic Literature "The most comprehensive Goodis study yet. Gertzman culls the files, brings everything together and then some. Not only essential reading for all Goodis obsessives but an excellent introduction to one of noir's greatest writers." -Woody Haut, author Pulp Culture: Hard-boiled Fiction and the Cold War, Heartbreak and Vine, and Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction

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.

You want heartfelt sensitive stories about the mid-life crisis of a middle-class white guy? How about ironic tales of suburban marriages where the love has faded? Yeah, if that's what you want, pick up some other book, because Crooked Roads, Alec Cizak's first short story collection, is not for you. This book is about real humans in the real streets of cities and small towns. People who are messed up, people at the edge of things-at the edge of sanity, at the edge of morality, at the edge of legality. Criminals, the homeless, the depraved, the perverted, and just normal folk at the end of their rope. Go ahead, pick it up, give it a read. We dare you. Praise for CROOKED ROADS: "With fists pounding against cliché and convention, Alec Cizak creates prose that is bold...and bloody." -David Cranmer, author of Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles, and publisher of Beat To a Pulp Books

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

Back in '68 they made killer music...now their music is killing them. It's been thirty years since Joe Portugal put his electric guitar away. Maybe that's one reason he's suffering a serious case of the mid-life doldrums. Then Joe stumbles upon a chance to put the band he was in as a teenager back together. And maybe his life too. All he has to do is find the lead guitarist, who hasn't been seen since the 70s. But when he starts to look, it's quickly clear that someone doesn't want to see a reunion tour...someone who's very handy with a gun. Praise for the Joe Portugal mysteries: "I love reading Nathan Walpow books...a solid, intelligent mystery...add Walpow's marvelous sense of humor and you'll see why he's winning new fans ever day." -Jan Burke, Edgar Award-winning author "Snappy Chandleresque dialogue." -Los Angeles Times "Joe's wry sense of humor will convert readers into loyal fans." -Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine "This guy is a hell of a writer." -Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher series

"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

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

Jon Catlett, a misanthropic literary obsessive, is facing the loss of the only thing in the world he loves; his used bookstore, a haven for fellow weirdos, outcasts, misunderstood geniuses and malcontents. Jon has several other problems, the least of which are his love affair with a bi-polar femme fatale heiress to a thriving northern steel company or the exponentially growing opiate habit he has developed. When Jon, during a deal gone wrong, accidentally kills a fellow drug addict, getting away with murder turns out to be the least of his worries. The steps he and Paul, the obsessive-compulsive manager of Jon's store, must take to cover up the killing result in the two cornering Louisville's blossoming heroin trade. From West End gangbangers to dirty cops and crusading narcotics detectives, Jon and his unstable partner in crime must dilute their morals and thicken their skin if they are to have any hope of surviving the lucrative but deadly life they've stumbled upon. Praise for THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS: "Poetic, down trodden and nihilistic, Jonathan Ashley treads through parts of the human psyche that others fear for one black tar mind-f**k-ride of a novel." -Frank Bill, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana and Donnybrook "Ashley breaks our hearts, he breaks all the rules and, most importantly, he breaks our expectations of what a simple crime story can be. He shatters it, in fact, leaving readers craving another deadly taste-much like the lost souls in this chilling, amazing story." -Patrick Wensink, author of Broken Piano for President "We live in a capitalistic society, yes, but nobody said doing business is easy or even enjoyable. Jonathan Ashley makes this point quite well in The Cost of Doing Business. Of course when the business is the heroin trade, the stakes are life and death, but is the suspicion, the betrayal, the plotting and scheming, all that different than what goes on in the corporate world? Louisville bookstore owner Jon Catlett leaves his used volumes of Yeats behind to get into the drug trade and make some real money, and the result is blood-filled mayhem. He never loses his sense of literate irony, though, taking us through a fast, unpredictable novel with equal parts darkness and humor. A very confident debut." -Scott Adlerberg, author of Spiders and Flies

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 soft-hearted 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!

Shayna Billups left Tommy Ruzzo and Seatown, Florida in smoking ruins before escaping to New Orleans. She's slinging rum drinks at a pirate-themed dive bar when a treasure map grabs her attention. All alone and thirsting for adventure, Shayna follows the clues to North Carolina where she assembles a band of drug-dealing pirates to wage war on a murderous mayor and his blood-thirsty biker gang. As the bodies pile up, Shayna wonders if Ruzzo will find her before she ends up in Davy Jones' Locker.

The three novels in Waiwaiole's dark and dangerous Wiley series chronicle the tragic twists and turns in the lives of two old friends after those lives have completely gone off the rails in Portland, Oregon. In LEON'S LEGACY, Waiwaiole goes back to where it all began - back when Wiley and Leon were high school kids pursuing the state basketball championship. Unfortunately, it was also the year that the crack gangs from California began to sink their talons into Portland's inner city, a juxtaposition that threatens not only their hoop quest but also their lives. An inner-city high school teacher and basketball coach when this actually occurred in Portland, Waiwaiole has a wealth of first-hand exposure to this story and the writing chops to deliver it convincingly. Praise for LEON'S LEGACY "Lono Waiwaiole writes with a command you don't see much anymore. He is the opposite of the winking hard-boil writer of today. He writes authentically and knowingly about America's underclass, the streets and being an outsider. Leon's Legacy is an unexpectedly honest novel about a violent teenage world, peopled with intensely believable characters whose upside down humanity will grab you." -Kent Harrington, author of The Red Jungle and Rat Machine