Books by Les Edgerton

The new novel from multi-award-winning author Les Edgerton

A mix of Cajun gumbo, a couple tablespoons of kinky sex and a dash of unusual New Orleans settings and you wind up with Les Edgerton's latest romp fest! Pete Halliday is busted out of baseball for gambling and travels to New Orleans to make his fortune hustling. Five years later, he's deep in debt to a bookie and in cahoots with Tommy LeClerc, a Cajun with a tiny bit of Indian blood who considers himself a red man. Tommy inveigles a reluctant Pete into one scheme after another, the latest a kidnapping scheme where they'll snatch the Cajun Mafia King and hold his amputated hand for some serious jack. Along the way, Pete is double-crossed by Tommy and falls in love with part-time hooker and full-time waitress Cat Duplaisir. With both the Italian and Cajun mobs after them, a chase through Jazz Fest, a Tourette's outbreak in a black bar and other zany adventures, all seems lost. Fans of Tim Dorsey's character Serge Storms, and readers who enjoy Christopher Moore and Carl Hiaasen, will enjoy this story. Praise for THE GENUINE, IMITATION, PLASTIC KIDNAPPING: "A hard-driving, relentless story with grab-you-by-the-throat characters." -Grant Blackwood, New York Times bestselling author "The Genuine, Imitation, Plastic Kidnapping is not for the faint of heart, and that's just one of its selling points. If you like crime fiction that cracks wise while offering a peek into the darker recesses, this is the book for you." -Bill Fitzhugh, author of Pest Control and The Exterminators "… a dark crime comedy that will have you laughing from page one. It crackles with manic energy and mad thrills. If you're looking for a different kind of edgy crime novel, this is the one to grab." -Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes Mysteries "Les Edgerton's latest book is the real deal, and has everything to keep you turning the pages. It's a caper, full of fun and high-jinx, but it's also bitter-sweet, engendering a full range of emotions. You'll smile, you'll wince, you'll laugh out loud, and sometimes you'll even cringe, but you'll come away from the read feeling thoroughly satisfied and entertained. A terrific read." -Matt Hilton, author of the bestselling Joe Hunter thrillers

Twenty years after the publication of his first short story collection, Monday's Meal, Les Edgerton delivers the goods once again in this collection of harrowing tales of outlaws, ex-cons, frightened men and women, rap-partners throwing back tall boys and taller tales, children forced to become killers, stabbings and shootings, bad asses and sad asses...a wide-ranging collection of distinct and memorable characters who will exhibit a kind of wisdom not obtainable from the halls of academia. This is not a gathering of people contemplating their navels but real people facing the consequences of their actions...and it ain't often pretty. Praise for Les Edgerton... "Les Edgerton has swiftly become my favorite crime writer. Original voice, uncompromising attitude and a pure hardboiled style leap him to the front ranks of my reading list. He will become legendary." -Joe R. Lansdale, author of Paradise Sky, The Bottoms, Edge of Dark Water, The Thicket, and the Hap and Leonard series, the books behind the TV series of the same name, and many others "Reading Les Edgerton's stories is like listening to those old World War II broadcasts from the London blitz, with the reporter crouching under a restaurant table, microphone in hand, while the bombs drop on the city and the ceiling caves in. Edgerton reports on the world and the news is not good. There's a kind of wacky wisdom in these bulletins from the underside of life; the stories are full of people you hope never move in next door, for whom ordinary life is an impossible dream. This is good fiction; Edgerton writes lean and nasty prose." -Dr. Francois Camoin, Director, Graduate School of English, University of Utah and author of Benbow and Paradise, Like Love, But Not Exactly, Deadly Virtues, The End of the World Is Los Angeles and Why Men Are Afraid of Women "Les Edgerton is the new High King of Noir." -Ken Bruen, author of The Emerald Lie, The Guards, Pimp, and many others

Seventeen stories screaming past the red line, tires tearing across the highway, guns stained with smoke and gore.Seventeen stories of heroes and anti-heroes on desperate journeys, white knuckles on steering wheels, hearts pounding to the staccato beat of magnum hollow points slamming against flesh and steel.Seventeen stories of hard-bitten souls hurtling over asphalt, the desert, the sea, and even through space itself in adventures fueled by vengeance, betrayal, madness, and murder.Seventeen stories of tough justice, redemption, and salvation.Hang on.

Jake and his pal Bud's journey begins six months after he is released on parole and is occasioned when his girlfriend Donna dumps him and aborts their child. After a suicide attempt where the Norelco shaver cord he used to hang himself breaks, on an impulse-everything in Jake's life happens "just like that"-he calls up Bud, who lives by the same credo, and the two take off with no particular destination in mind. They're just going "south"-somewhere where it's warm. An hour before they leave, Jake on another impulse, holds up a convenience store to get some traveling money. Ultimately, they end up in New Orleans and then Lake Charles, Louisiana and from there, back to Indiana. Along the way are many "watercooler" moments and near the end Jake takes a fall when he is caught burglarizing a bar back in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, gets shot in the leg and is returned to Pendleton where he kills the inmate he had a nasty encounter with during his first stay in prison. Just Like That is based on an actual trip the author took with an ex-prison cellmate under similar circumstances as protagonist Jake Mayes does in the narrative. The scenes in Pendleton are also based on true experiences he had while incarcerated. Approximately 85% of the novel is taken from real life. Portions of the book have previously appeared as short stories in the literary magazines Murdaland, Flatmancrooked, and High Plains Literary Review, the latter of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was selected for inclusion in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Mystery Stories, 2001. Praise for JUST LIKE THAT: "Edgerton's got a story to tell you so get ready; it's coming at you fast. Get ready..." -Linwood Barclay, international bestseller "Edgerton draws memorable portraits of these dangerous and unpredictable characters." -Library Journal "Just Like That is yet another Les Edgerton winner. In his prison memoir, Edgerton conjures up in honest, Bukowski-esque prose a mad dog life lived behind and beyond the bars of institutional correctional facilities. Literature's version of Johnny Cash, America has yet another gifted bard to sing the blues of time served. I have long believed Edgerton to be an American original, who has for too long remained one of our best kept literary secrets." -Cortright McMeel, author of Short "Just Like That has it all. Great dialogue, whipcrack scenes and meaty characters haul you along on a hardboiled crime road-trip worthy of the Elmore Leonard and Joe R Lansdale. A shot to the heart as well as the head, Just Like That is highly recommended." -Paul D. Brazill, author of A Case of Noir "Edgerton establishes the kind convincing, and wrenching, interiority with his characters achieved by only the most adept fiction writers." -Peter Donahue, Sam Houston State University "Edgerton's best stories are uncompromising in their casual amorality. They stare you down over the barrel of a gun, rip you up whether or not the trigger gets squeezed." -Diane Lefer, UCLA and Vermont College, author of The Circles I Move In "Les Edgerton creates a vivid and compelling world. We feel the rhythm of his language and live in the skins of his characters. Altogether, a memorable experience." -Gladys Swan, Missouri University and Vermont College, author of A Visit to Stranger "Les Edgerton writes like a poet with a mean streak, and his prose goes down easy and smooth like good liquor as it carves up your insides." -Henry Perez, bestselling author of Mourn the Living "The characters in Edgerton's world bite down hard and grind up one another with their back teeth. Their authenticity is palpable as soft-shelled clams; these are sad, mean, fully human characters who long for connection almost as fiercely as they fear it." -Melody Henion Stevenson, author of The Life Stone of Singing Bird