Books by Gary Phillips

"Within these pages you'll find stories of those walking the straight and narrow; until something untoward happens. Maybe it's someone taking a step out of line, getting caught up in circumstances spiraling out of their control. Maybe they're planning the grift, the grab ... whatever it is to finally put them over. Other times the steps they take are to get themselves or people they care about out from under. You'll find the offerings in these pages are a rich mix of tone; tales told of hope, survival, revenge, and triumph. Excursions beyond the headlines and the hype. The settings herein reflect South Central today or chronicle its colorful past, such as the days of the jazz joints along Central Avenue ... From South Park to East Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, from the borderlands of Watts to the one-time Southern Pacific railroad tracks paralleling Slauson Avenue, take a tour of a section of Los Angeles that may be unfamiliar to you but you will get to know, at least a little, by the time you finish reading this entertaining and engaging anthology"--

There’s a taco truck in Chicago known among a certain segment of the population for its daily specials. Late at night and during the wee hours of the morning, it isn’t the food selection that attracts customers, it’s the illegal weapons available with the special order.Each episode of Guns & Tacos features the story of one Chicagoland resident who visits the taco truck seeking a solution to life’s problems, a solution that always comes in a to-go bag.Episode 1: “Tacos de Cazuela con Smith & Wesson” by Gary Phillips.Episode 2: “Three Brisket Tacos and a Sig Sauer” by Michael Bracken.Episode 3: “A Gyro and a Glock” by Frank Zafiro.Episodes 4-6 of Season One are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 2.

Praise for The Self-Correcting Organization"A must-read for every manager! Gary's best work to date." Doug Moynihan - Hospital CEO"With wisdom and good humor drawn from a life well lived, Gary Phillips has written an important and timely book, full of insights to help our organizations self-correct." Kevin Page - President of the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy University of Ottawa Former Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada"The Self-Correcting Organization is clearly written, easy to follow, logical, thought provoking and psychologically sound. It does a good job of capturing a mature consultant's life's thinking." Richard Schwindt - author of Emotional Recovery from Workplace MobbingThe "how-to manual" for resilient performance and Self-Correcting systems. - Optimize processes with minimal effort. - Improve culture without mentioning culture. - Diagnose performance issues in 6 questions.Packed with fresh ideas, practical tools and reliable techniques! Warning! Contains innovative ideas and unconventional wisdom. Readers suffering from hardening of the attitudes, advanced certainty, or "We've always done it this way." may experience - inspiration, "Whoa, that was obvious!", or "I think I can do this." May cause transient creativity. When in doubt consult others in your organization for feedback.

Malcolm Cavanaugh Bleekston, MC Bleak, McBleak, enjoys hobnobbing with the one percenters and stealing from them. In The Extractors, he puts his life on the line to take a greedy man's gain while wondering if his girlfriend sees through his façade. Ned "Noc" Brenner is a drifter with an unusual skill set-he's an extreme athlete good at whatever he does be it MMA fighting to riding a motorcycle off a mountaintop. After winning in an all-night poker game, this sets in motion a series of events in The Anti-Gravity Steal where Noc must use all his abilities to prevent wholesale destruction. Part Shaft and part Batman sans the cowl, Luke Warfield, a philanthropist with a black ops background, the Essex Man, goes on the trail in 10 Seconds to Death of the villain who killed his foster father and uncovers not only ghosts from his past, but must stop a deadly plan of mass slaughter in his own backyard. Bonus Essex Man short story, "Murder by Remote Control."

Twenty-one short stories written by Gary Phillips are included in TREACHEROUS: GRIFTERS, RUFFIANS AND KILLERS. Alan Cranis on bookgasm.com said, "Phillips obviously loves his anti-heroes, as the stories' major characters are all, as the subtitle promises, grifters, ruffians and killers. You may not be on their side, but you can't help but be fascinated by their escapades...Phillips unfaltering ear for contemporary urban dialogue and patois, relentless pacing that grabs you from the opening sentence-oh, and plenty of sex and violence, too." Publishers Weekly said of the trade paperback, "Most of the 20 highly entertaining selections in this new collection also spotlight the hip urban scene Phillips has made his own."