Look what was waiting for me when I got home tonight…
The Posthumous Man by Jake Hinkson
When Elliot Stilling killed himself, he thought his troubles were over. Then the ER doctors revived him. It’s infatuation at first sight when he meets his nurse, Felicia Vogan, a strange young woman with a weakness for sad sacks and losers. After she helps Elliot escape from the hospital, she takes him back to her place. He’s happy to go with her, even when she leads him straight to a gang planning a million dollar heist. Does Felicia just want Elliot to protect her from the outfit’s psychotic leader, Stan the Man? Or is Elliot being set up to take the hard fall? One thing’s for sure: if he’s going to survive this long night of deceit and murder, Elliot will have to finally face himself and his own dark past.
One Too Many Blows to the Head by Eric Beetner
Kansas City, 1939. One story from two points of view: the hunter and the hunted. Ray Ward – seeking revenge for his brother’s death in the boxing ring. Detective Dean Fokoli – hot on a killer’s trail.Ray’s hunt takes him underground into Kansas City’s criminal nightlife. Dean Fokoli lives there full time but he’s on the run from his own troubles. Two men racing forward to collide like a knockout punch.A razor-edged story of revenge, redemption and what happens when you confront the ghosts of the past.
Dirty Words by Todd Robinson
From the creator of Thuglit.com–DIRTY WORDS The first collection from award-winning short story writer, Todd Robinson. Featuring: SO LONG JOHNNIE SCUMBAG—selected for The Year’s Best Writing 2003 by Writer’s Digest. The Derringer Award nominated short, ROSES AT HIS FEET THE LONG COUNT—selected as a Notable Story of the Year in Best American Mystery Stories 2005. PLUS eight more tales of in-your-face crime fiction.
Dig Two Graves by Eric Beetner
Dig Two Graves is a novella-length piece about Val, an ex-con who thinks he has figured out the trick to continuing his bank robbing life without ever getting caught. Except then he gets caught.
It’s not his plan that backfires, oh no. There’s a rat somewhere and Val is pretty damn sure who it is. Ernesto, his prison lover who has joined him on the outside as his partner in bank robbery.
Val stalks the city night on the hunt for Ernesto to exact revenge for breaking the ultimate criminal code: you don’t rat out a partner.
A Bouquet of Bullets by Eric Beetner
From Award-winning short story writer Eric Beetner comes a collection of hardboiled crime tales about losers, punks and wanna-be criminals. These gritty stories bleed and sweat all over the page, but always with a pitch black sense of humor. For fans of Victor Gischler and Duane Swierczynski as much as Cornell Woolrich and Raymond Chandler these crime tales represent the new wave in pulp writers at its best. Winner of the 2012 Stalker award for Most Underrated Author, a finalist in the Derringer Awards, the Watery Grave International and the Million Writers Award, Eric Beetner’s short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Needle Magazine, Crimefactory, A Twist Of Noir, Beat To A Pulp, Pulp Pusher, Powder Burn Flash, Darkest Before Dawn, Thrillers, Killers N Chillers, Flash Fiction Offensive and more.
The toughest part will be deciding which to read first.
