Books published by Down & Out Books

During one of the first heavy snows of the winter, on the interstate outside the Twin Cities, Rushmore McKenzie is trapped behind an erratically-driven truck. Then a figure appears on the truck bed and a body is rolled out onto the road, right in front of McKenzie''s car. McKenzie avoids hitting the body, a bound woman who is barely alive, but his sudden braking in the middle of the highway starts a chain of accidents, resulting in a thirty-seven car pile-up. By the time the police arrive, and the EMTs and ambulances have taken care of the immediate injuries, the truck is long gone. <br><br>The injured woman awakens with no memories-not of the accident, not of anything-and is now referred to by the police as Unidentified Woman #15. With few leads, the detective in charge, McKenzie''s former partner and old friend Bobby Dunston, turns to McKenzie for a favor. Not that a favor is required, because when you dump a person in front of McKenzie''s moving car, he tends to take that personally. <br><br>Praise for UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #15: <br><br>"Housewright, winner of the prestigious national Edgar Award and three Minnesota Book Awards, strikes a perfect balance between fast-paced excitement as McKenzie chases the bad guys and his commitment to bar-owner Nina as they try to work out the nuances of their relationship since moving in together. All previous McKenzie thrillers earned high praise from critics, including several starred reviews, but in <i>Unidentified Woman #15</i> McKenzie comes alive as never before. It''s as though Housewright got a surge of energy that lets us into Mac''s mind so we know him even more intimately. And with a 12th book in a series, that''s a fine thing." -<i>St. Paul Pioneer Press</i> <br><br>"Housewright''s prose style is reminiscent of Donald E. Westlake''s: smoothly flowing, graceful, but never calling attention to itself. Rushmore is an amiable series lead... A strong addition to an always-reliable series, and a crime novel that will appeal both to readers looking for complex characters and satisfying style and to those interested mainly in story." -<i>Booklist</i> <br><br>"Take a well-written noir and mix it with humor and readers will anticipate this 12th series outing (after <i>The Devil May Care</i>), especially if they appreciate mysteries with a strong sense of place and an appealing sleuth who is still figuring out what to do with himself after leaving the police force. A solid choice for fans of Steve Hamilton, Dennis Lehane, or James Lee Burke." -<i>Library Journal</i> <br><br>"Unidentified woman #15 has no memory when she regains consciousness, but she believes the world is exactly the kind of ''place where sooner or later'' someone rolls ''you off the back of a speeding pickup truck.'' And here''s why I love McKenzie so much. Although he sees the world in a cynical way, he still tilts at windmills and fires stones from his slingshot. Housewright''s novels render the Twin Cities in familiar detail while helping us see things differently." -<i>Minneapolis StarTribune</i>

Long time grifters Sam and Rachel love two things: each other and the grift. On the run from the mob, the two lovers move from one con to the next, winning some and losing others, but always finding a way to survive.Episodes 10-12 of Season Two begins with The Sound of Breaking Bones by Eric Beetner. In Mississippi, Sam and Rachel pose as a godly couple running an adoption service, but they quickly run afoul of a local deacon whose tendencies run more to the Old Testament than the New.Scott Eubanks penned Episode 11, Still Life with Suitcase. This debut author''s work finds Sam and Rachel in Florida, working a variation of the fiddle scheme. Their targets are new money but the art involved is from an old master. The danger itself, however, is elemental.Episode 12, Down Comes the Night, officially closes out season two. Series creator and editor Frank Zafiro picks up with Sam and Rachel right where they left off in Episode 11. Deciding to face the threat of pursuing mobsters head on, the couple devises a plan to finally be free and safe. The life of a grifter, however, holds little hope of either.

Long time grifters Sam and Rachel love two things: each other and the grift. On the run from the mob, the two lovers move from one con to the next, winning some and losing others, but always finding a way to survive.Episodes 7-9 of Season Two begins with Gone Dead on You by Eryk Pruitt, a master of rural noir. Set in Pruitt''s fictional Lawles County, this tale brings an element of the supernatural into play as Rachel portrays a medium who speaks to the dead partner of a dirty cop as part of a revenge ploy.Swedish paranormal romance author Asa Maria Bradley penned Episode 8, Upgrade. When Sam and Rachel target a rich mark in San Francisco, the con is high tech but the strain on their relationship is even higher. Faced with a challenge they''ve never truly encountered before, the pair realizes they are risking more than their freedom on this one.Episode 9, The Money Block by Holly West, follows a reinvigorated Sam and Rachel in central California as they work a variation of an old scheme, updated for the digital age. But when their mark realizes he''s been taken, the repercussions are brutal, and Sam and Rachel lose more than they knew possible.

Sophie DeMusa had plans. Finish college. Go to med school. Save the world. She never planned to be in a hospital bed, in a coma after ingesting too many pills. The homicide detective standing over her didn''t plan to be there either. After all, she wasn''t dead.Detective Jesus De La Cruz was ready to turn away from the sad story of a suicide attempt. When his AA sponsor, Dr. Oscar Bollier, pressed, Cruz begrudgingly agreed to investigate. It should have been an open-and-shut case.Except, if it was suicide, why were there two different 911 calls?As Cruz digs into the weeks and months before Sophie''s hospitalization, he unearths a twisted knot of reality and perception. A sex scandal, a jilted lover, a callous director, a rainmaker, and a quid pro quo all made decisions and took actions that affected Sophie''s life. But did one of them try to kill her? The facts have Cruz questioning if there is such a thing as an innocent man.Truth is a strong rope, tied in a noose. As he closes in, the knot tightens, but who will pay the price? A killer or a member of Cruz''s own family?

A missing shipment of drugs, an underground ring of camgirls, and the Knights of Satan motorcycle club are all caught in a tangle of deals gone bad with one thing in common: Bree Wells, a small-town teenager who recently vanished into the summer night.When Deputy Meg Shaw finds a connection between the missing girl and a murdered backwoods drug dealer, she fears the worst. As she follows Bree’s trail, she enters a web of exploitation and violence in a place where everyone has something to hide.Bree’s heartbroken boyfriend, Russ McCreech, is desperate to be the first to find her. The gentle, youngest son of an outlaw biker family, he won’t quit the search despite their ominous warnings. Soon, he discovers how dangerous it can be to ask the right questions of the wrong people.Meg and Russ come from different sides of town and different sides of the law. Their search for the same truth will make them either the greatest of allies or the worst of enemies…if they live long enough to find it.Praise for FOLLOW YOU DOWN:“If James Crumley got lost and ended up in the ramshackle backwaters of rural Michigan he might have written a book like Follow You Down. Deputy Meg Shaw, navigating tattoo parlors, strip bars, and biker clubs in search of a missing teenage girl, is one of the most believable and compelling investigators I’ve read in contemporary crime fiction. Follow You Down is at turns funny and horrifying, and Hyatt’s prose is taut as piano wire, run through with an amphetamine hum that refuses to stop, even long after the book is finished.” —Augustus Rose, author of The Readymade Thief“Follow You Down is everything a crime novel should be—it’s grounded, it’s full of well-earned surprises, and it’s tough enough that it doesn’t need to read like a fantasy. More than that, it’s a story of well-drawn, carefully observed human behavior, lending real weight to the idea that average people can end up as participants in horrific crimes. Like the town of Pike Lake in which it’s set, Follow You Down has an edge that cuts deep. I cannot recommend it highly enough.” —David Peak, author of Corpsepaint

She is unstoppable. She murders the elderly, seeing it as compassion against their suffering. The police can''t curb her ritualized, angel of mercy rampage and as every new victim falls, the distance between them and her increases. Then the killer is caught in the act by the young, pregnant wife of Norm Braden. There is no option but to murder her too. As a widowed Norm struggles to return to his family, to his new normal, he is joined in grief by his wife''s twin sister. But, the killer is also having a difficult time recovering from the startling break in her ritual. Killing Norm''s wife has affected everything.So, one day she visits Norm, offering an olive branch. Maybe they can help each other move past it all. Their co-dependent, cat-and-mouse game begins. Revenge is within Norm''s grasp, but his religious beliefs force him to see the killer''s humanity despite her horrific shortfalls. The killer, a strange and exotic woman with a singular fixation on Norm, thinks she has found more than just the solution to her problems. She''s found her completion, her other half in Norm-if only she can replace the memory of his dead wife. If she can do that, she can continue murdering. Praise for TOGETHER THEY WERE CRIMSON:"Maybe it took me a long time to read Ryan Sayles. Too long it turns out. I''d seen the beautiful cover designs of his novels, grinned at some of the gut-punching titles like Maybe I Should Shoot You In the Face and The Subtle Art of Brutality. But now that I''ve read his newest hard-boiled offering, Together They Were Crimson, I can''t help but tell myself, ''Holy fuck, I''m gonna read every last word this guy writes.'' He''s that powerful, that talented, that damned good." -Vincent Zandri, New York Times bestselling Thriller and Shamus Award winning author of The Remains and The Embalmer"Together They Were Crimson tells the story of lives gone wrong, of lives perverted and bereft of mercy, and as only Ryan Sayles can do, ones that end in blood. Come for the prose, stay for the crimson. One step better: prepare." -Beau Johnson, author of All of Them to Burn"Sayles rides the line of balance between a procedural and a thriller, hitting all the right notes of both songs. Tense, driven, and satisfying!" -Frank Zafiro, author of the Charlie-316 series"Completely unlike all other serial killer novels I''ve read before. Sympathies cross the line repeatedly and pull me in further. Comparisons will be made, but this book is one of a kind." -Jeffery Hess, author of No Salvation, Beachhead, and Tushhog"Sayles is already notorious for writing hardboiled prose as if he were swinging a sledgehammer, but with Together They Were Crimson, we get to see another side of him, the violence is there, the tension is taut, but this time out, the story is carved into the page with the precision of a scalpel. Not to mention Sayles has given us one of the most memorable villains since Hannibal Lector. Sayles never fails to disappoint-or in this case surprise." -Brian Panowich, author of Hard Cash Valley and Bull Mountain

Daring thieves steal the 200-year-old Jade Lily from a Minneapolis art museum and then offer to sell it back for one-third of its insured value—$1,300,000. But there’s a catch. They demand that unlicensed P. I. Rushmore McKenzie act as go-between. McKenzie reluctantly agrees partly out of curiosity—why did the thieves pick him to deliver the ransom?—and partly because he feels he owes a favor to the insurance company that made him a millionaire years earlier.But when McKenzie makes contact with the thieves, he is bound, gagged and tossed in the back of a speeding van. It turns out there is a wide circle of misbegotten scoundrels who want the Lily for themselves, including a Bosnian thug, the U. S. State Department, a crooked cop, and a fortune hunter out of McKenzie’s past. The game soon turns dark and violent and as the bodies start piling up, McKenzie comes to believe the truth of the Jade Lily’s curse—terrible death follows anyone who touches it.Praise for CURSE OF THE JADE LILY:“McKenzie, who navigates a treacherous path just to stay (barely) alive, not only delivers a Nick Charles-like ending but metes out poetic justice to a fair number of participants.” —Publishers Weekly, stared review“Like the other entries in this entertaining series, the book is a contemporary mystery with overtones from the era of classic hard-boiled detectives: the Jade Lily itself, with its perhaps not so mythical curse; the first-person narration; the wonderfully named femme fatale, Heavenly Petryk. Rushmore is a likable series hero, a guy who’d rather be doing not much of anything but who won’t back down from a fight. The book works as a stand-alone, too, so readers unfamiliar with the series can jump right in.” —Booklist“The latest McKenzie mystery is a wonderful thriller... Filled with humor and a strong cast...this is a fast-paced winner...” —The Mystery Gazette“Housewright’s wit is every bit as sharp as (Robert B.) Parker’s, and as I read along, I was chuckling to myself over bits of dialogue and acerbic observations on McKenzie’s part... (It) has the snap and crackle of great storytelling. I can’t think of a better way to spend a couple of evenings than curled up with a new David Housewright novel. Check it out for yourself” —Killer Books

Here’s what we know is true.Timmy Milici, a low-level hitter with the infamous Atlanta-based Duplass crime family, ran off with Melody Duplass to Jacksonville, Florida. Olivia Duplass, her mother and head of the Duplass family, was incensed, and put a price on Timmy—a hundred thousand for his corpse, but with explicit instructions that her daughter not be harmed.We know that’s true.Or, at least, we think we do.Sixteen writers tell their versions of what happened those fateful days in this gripping novel-in-stories, brought to you from the team behind The Night of the Flood.Contributors: E.A. Aymar, Sarah M. Chen, Hilary Davidson, Alex Dolan, Rebecca Drake, Gwen Florio, Elizabeth Heiter, J.J. Hensley, Susi Holliday, Shannon Kirk, Tara Laskowski, Jenny Milchman, Alan Orloff, Tom Sweterlitsch, Art Taylor, and Wendy Tyson.

“I’m dying as fast as I can,” Gaby Maoret tells private investigator Nick Polo. “But it’s not fast enough for them.”Them are the two brothers of Gaucho Carmichael, Gaby’s former lover, who disappeared seven years ago, shortly after granting Gaby a lifetime estate contract on a Telegraph Hill mansion in San Francisco, worth millions.Gaby has been living there, rent free, for all those years. She’s a noted artist, 75 years old, cancer ridden, but with a strong lust for life.She claims that the brothers, who will inherit the house when she dies, have been making threats on her life. Polo agrees to help her, and soon finds himself involved in an old murder case, a missing 5-million-dollar painting, an arson investigation and in conflict with a Mexican drug cartel enforcer.In order to help Gaby, Polo needs the assistance of his octogenarian sidekick, Mrs. Damonte, a self-described strega, a witch who can see into the future, and his Uncle Dominick, a bookie with connections to the gambling mobs in Las Vegas.And then he’s faced with the most perplexing problem of his career—does he tell the cops what he knows?

Eddie Clem was born in White Swan on the Yakama reservation in the 1950s and subsequently did what most Yakama boys did at that time—he learned to shoot hoops and rodeo, fell in love, grew into a man, had children, and then watched them repeat the same process.The way Eddie did this was unique to him, however, in several respects:• His mother dies when he is born;• His father disappears into the foothills of Mt. Adams as soon as his mother is buried;• He meets the love of his life in the fifth grade;• He accidentally kills his favorite cousin on his 11th birthday;• He turns out to be better than the other boys at both shooting hoops and rodeoing;• He comes of age just in time to spend a year as a medic in Vietnam;• The love of his life marries someone else.White Swan chronicles all of these things, but they are just the beginning of the story. How Eddie and all the people he loves eventually connect with each other unfolds in a tale that celebrates the power of love, family and a people who have been tied to each other for centuries in the space between a mountain and a river that bears their name in the heart of central Washington.Praise for WHITE SWAN:“Lono Waiwaiole’s writing in White Swan is graceful, spare, seasoned with gentle humor, never overwrought. Although I didn’t grow up on an Indian reservation, play basketball, or compete in a rodeo, I found myself really caring about Eddie Clem and the people he loved yet couldn’t love enough.” —Kathleen Tyau, author of Makai and A Little Too Much Is Enough“The characters in White Swan pull on your sleeve and insist you follow them through their lives. And you want to, because the minute you meet them they grab hold of your heart. Waiwaiole's deceptively plain writing hides depths of wisdom, like the calm surface of a mountain lake. Simply a beautiful book.” —SJ Rozan, bestselling author of Paper Son“Departing from his celebrated noir tales (The Wiley Series, Dark Paradise), Waiwaiole masterfully portrays a Native American family scarred by a father’s abandonment, who find their ultimate redemption through rebirth, renewal and forgiveness.” —Kiana Davenport, author of Shark Dialogues“As Hemingway did with his Nick Adams stories, Lono Waiwaiole paints America’s rural life—its indigenous people— with intense respect and compassion. He gets it. You the reader are thrown into those sometimes beautiful, sometimes sad, but always true moments, that we call Life. And like Hemingway, too, Lono Waiwaiole has given us an American masterpiece in the bargain.” —Kent Harrington, author of Last Ferry Home“White Swan explores the push and pull of family and how people are fated to be together, even though it may take a lifetime before destiny is fulfilled. A beautiful intergenerational saga rooted in the White Swan community on the Yakama Indian Reservation nestled in the mountains of Central Washington. With his indigenous heritage and current home in the Pacific Northwest, noted noir writer Lono Waiwaiole succeeds in this creative work that falls outside of mystery genre.” —Naomi Hirahara, Edgar Award-winning author of the Mas Arai series

Darkness is an attribute most of us rally against. It can consume. It can achieve. But if we so choose, it can also be held at bay. Enter Bishop Rider and the evil he’s chosen to obliterate since his family is taken from him. Operating outside the law, circumventing a system beyond repair, Bishop stalks this darkness the only way he knows how. Not only because these men deserve what he’s become, but because of a message he attempted to create has come back to haunt him, now, after all these years. It’s this story, along with other, unconnected tales that populate All of them to Burn.Come, meet Rider for the first time. Come, meet Rider for the last time.Come, watch the darkness burn.Praise for ALL OF THEM TO BURN:“Beau Johnson has done to his fiction what street thugs do to their victims: he holds it down and beats it for all its worth. I mean that in a good way. No, in a great way. Few authors are out there stamping their words onto the page the way Beau does. He’s equal parts slick, hammering, poetic and caustic. His talent is to be admired; his words are to be read.” —Ryan Sayles, author of the Richard Dean Buckner mysteries“Beau Johnson delivers another collection of masterfully written tales. Compelling and smart, these wild stories are full of twisted characters and seedy scenes. Greed. Anger. Revenge. Perhaps, justice. We are taken down a dark path, catching up with old favorites like Bishop Rider and John Batista along the way. We watch as the stories and characters connect and engage, bringing every thread together. The third in his series of connected shorts may be Beau Johnson’s best, yet.” —Marietta Miles, author of May and After the Storm“All of Them to Burn is a Molotov cocktail of classic crime fiction, but one with a sharp modern twist.” —Paul D. Brazill, author of Last Year’s Man and A Case of Noir“Beau Johnson’s stories are hard tales of revenge and sorrow. Nothing can prepare you for the darkness in these stories and nothing can make you turn away once you start reading. All of Them to Burn is an excellent collection.” —Nikki Dolson, author of All Things Violent“These chilling short stories—many featuring the return of the mythic-like hero, Bishop Rider—drop us into the darkest depths of human suffering and ruin. Beau Johnson can spin the most brutal of tales with raw emotion, savage honesty, and fierce humor. A standout collection from a seasoned storyteller.” —Sarah M. Chen, author of Cleaning Up Finn“All of Them to Burn is fast, sharp, violent, and gory. There’s something visceral at the core of Johnson’s work that simultaneously reflects the best and worst of humanity, and it shines in this collection. Come for the blood and viciousness and stay for the electric dialogue and outstanding last lines. I promise it’s all equally fun.” —Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs

“This splendid collection of border fiction is haunting and intense. Bravo to San Diego Sisters in Crime.” —T. Jefferson Parker, Edgar Award-winning author of The Last Good GuyGood stories start with characters crossing borders and finding themselves in worlds filled with hurt, harm, and danger. In Crossing Borders, the first anthology from Partners in Crime, the San Diego Chapter of Sisters in Crime, fifteen stories capture moments before, during and after characters cross borders and find themselves stumbling around strange lands that abound with saints, sinners, and monsters.Crossing Borders explores that liminal space—the place where people cross from not just from one place to another, like national boundaries, but the dividing line between life/death, stability/insanity, or innocence/guilt. This anthology contains stories that look at the duality of our lives, as we cross borders between people, values, and beliefs.Join us as we explore crossings, where a character, involved somehow in a crime, must pass over a border, literally or figuratively. As Rachel Howzell Hall says in our foreword: “Be prepared to hold your breath” as we enter that special space of crossing, transitioning, change, and death. Welcome to the border.Contributors: Lauren Avenius, Greta Boris, Pam Clark, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, Cornelia Feye, Cheryl Garrett, B. J. Graf, S.J. Haworth, Kim Keeline, Kathy Krevat, Melinda Loomis, Gerald Martin, Jo Perry, Barrie Summy, and Carl Vonderau.

Former top-flight prospect Oz Reyes heads security for Coastal Sports Network in Los Angeles. On the eve of the annual awards show, his boss Delma Dupree summons him to Miami. Since tearing his ACL in a bar fight eighteen years ago, Oz rarely returns to the city where he blew his NFL chances and lost the love of his life, Tania. At Delma's waterfront mansion, Oz encounters a chaotic scene with police and emergency vehicles. Delma's oldest son, Jackson, navigates the aftermath. There are three Dupree children: Jackson, Janelle, and Rodney, an adopted screw-up currently serving life in prison for the rape and murder of Janelle's daughter, Juniper. Jackson explains his mother has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, and was picked up by police wandering during the night. At first Delma seems fine to Oz, but when she asks Oz to look into Rodney's seemingly airtight conviction, her symptoms begin to show. Despite Oz's polite refusal, Delma insists he store a file, which she swears contains the truth of who really committed the crime.Once Oz comes in possession of that file, an open and shut case suddenly seems less so, as forces seen and unseen conspire to take Oz down. Fired from his job and attacked in his home, Oz dives headlong into South Florida's glitzy and glamorous underbelly, reopening a case the rich and powerful would prefer stay closed. With the help of Tania and her ex-convict brother, Angel, Oz uncovers a Miami rarely seen, one crawling with shifty detectives, rogue assassins, and hard-drinking, sexual deviants-and no one and nothing is what it seems.In the vein of modern mystery/pop culture writers such as Michael Connelly (Bosch novels), Gillian Flynn (Dark Places), and Dennis Lehane (Gone, Baby, Gone), Joe Clifford's Occam's Razor is a fast-paced, intricately plotted novel that balances accessible prose, masterful suspense, and a twisted, cinematic climax.

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 4: “Three Chalupas, Rice, Soda…and a Kimber .45” by Trey R. Barker.Episode 5: “Some Churros and El Burro” by William Dylan Powell.Episode 6: “A Beretta, Burritos, and Bears” by James A. Hearn.Episodes 1-3 of Season One are featured in Guns + Tacos Vol. 1.

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.

Jim Grant is at it again. Knee deep in shit, and shit deep in someone else’s past. So far so normal. Except this time it’s personal, and that’s why the past stings so much. Trouble comes in threes. Always has and always will. If Cole Thornton had recognized that he might have avoided much of what was to come. If he’d realized that the car crash was the start of his personal trifecta he could have moved on before Shelter Cove became a killing jar instead of a safe haven.Before the bodies on the beach and the shootings.And before Jim Grant came looking for him.

A sordid sex tape. A venture capital firm. A secret society of women. A Catholic nun. All have one connection in common: Miriam Cross.Miriam Cross, author, feminist and philanthropist, disappears from her Philadelphia home. A year later, a lonely recluse named Emily Cray is brutally murdered in her bed in a small Pennsylvania town. The police discover that Emily Cray and Miriam Cross were one and the same, but if they know who killed Miriam, they’re not sharing. Miriam’s niece Lucinda wants answers. She turns to the one woman she knows she can trust—private investigator Delilah Percy Powers.As Delilah and her team of female detectives—a militant homemaker, an ex-headmistress, and a former stripper—investigate Miriam’s death, they uncover more questions than solutions. Why had the famous author been living under a new identity? Who were the women seen coming out of Emily Cray’s home at all hours of the night? Did Miriam have a mysterious lover? What was Miriam’s allegiance to an international secret society of high-powered women? What was the famous author doing with a New York venture capital firm?As Delilah and her staff get closer to the truth, they become submerged in a criminal underworld of unfathomable cruelty and greed with implications that go far beyond the gruesome death of one woman or the boundaries of one country. Eventually Miriam’s fight for justice becomes Delilah’s own...until Delilah’s obsession with finding the truth proves just as deadly.Praise for A DARK HOMAGE:“A Dark Homage is masterful. Wendy Tyson’s novel is more than a compelling mystery, it’s a detailed, honest examination of tough-as-nails women who refuse to be intimidated, no matter how dark the story turns. Tyson skillfully turns from humor to tension in the span of a single sentence, and readers will be left wanting to know what happens next with Delilah and her team. A must read.” —E.A. Aymar, author of The Unrepentant(Previously published as The Seduction of Miriam Cross.)

Los Angeles in the 1940s. World War II is raging. But people find escape in the upbeat swing music of the black nightclub scene on Central Avenue. Bobby Saxon is one of the few white faces in a sea of black at the famous Club Alabam on Central. He comes to watch the Booker ‘Boom-Boom’ Taylor Orchestra—a swing band. But he doesn’t only want to watch—he wants to join the band. He’s pretty good on the 88s (the piano) and band-leader Booker lets him audition.Bobby gets his wish and finds himself playing on a temporary basis with the band for the “swells” on the Apollo, a gambling ship, just outside the legal limits of U.S. waters off the coast. But soon all hell breaks loose when Hans Dietrich, a German man, doing business in America gets into a fight with the band’s sax player, James Christmas. After the band’s next set, Dietrich’s dead body breaks through a false ceiling in the ship’s ballroom. And James is the prime suspect.The cops shut the ship down. And with the band unable to work now, Booker makes Bobby an offer: help clear James of the murder charges by playing detective and finding the real killer and he can have a permanent gig with the band. Booker thinks that Bobby, with his white skin and white privilege (though not a term used then) and boyish good looks, can go places Booker can’t to find the real killer, since he doesn’t trust the cops to do their job for a colored man.Bobby’s investigation takes him on a labyrinthine journey through the worlds of nightclubs, gambling ships and gangsters, corruption, anti-Semitism and racism. He also comes across David Chambers, an old high school friend, who may or may not be involved, as well as the dead German’s secretary and her tough and seemingly crazy boyfriend, Sam Wilde.Bobby’s determined to solve the case and get a permanent gig with the band. But he also needs to come to terms with his own double-life and secrets that he’s not ready to reveal to the world.

Rushmore McKenzie is a former cop, current millionaire, and an occasional unlicensed P.I. who does favors for friends. Yet he has reservations when the daughter of his girlfriend Nina Truhler asks him to help her father, Nina’s ex-husband Jason Truhler, a man in serious trouble.En route to a Canadian blues festival on Highway 61, he met a girl, blacked out, and awoke hours later in a strange motel room with the girl’s murdered body on the floor. Slipping away unnoticed and heading home, he thought he got away with it—until he started getting texts with photos of the body and demands for blackmail money he couldn’t afford to pay.McKenzie soon discovers that Truhler was set up in a modified honey trap. But Truhler’s version of events wasn’t exactly the truth, either. And McKenzie soon finds himself trapped in the middle of a very serious game involving teenage prostitution with some of the most powerful men in the state on one side and some of the deadliest on the other.Praise for HIGHWAY 61:“Rushmore McKenzie agrees to help Jason Truhler, the ex-husband of his lover, Nina Truhler, in Housewright’s solid eighth novel featuring the Twin Cities ex-cop who occasionally does ‘favors’ for friends. Jason appears to be the victim of a variation on the badger game when he attended the Thunder Bay Blues Festival in Ontario. He woke the next morning in a cheap hotel room, naked, with a dead girl on the floor, lots of blood, and no memory—now he’s being blackmailed for murder. Trying to unravel the scam leads McKenzie into a morass involving an Internet sex ring, drug dealers, a pair of thugs called Big Joe and Little Joe Stippel, arsonists called Backdraft and Bug, and some of the Twin Cities’ most powerful people. The tenacious McKenzie bounces between cops, bad guys, and movers and shakers with a tenuous hold on legalities but a good grasp on ethics.” —Publisher’s Weekly“In his latest favor (see The Taking of Libbie, SD), Rushmore McKenzie is at his best as he muses over the outcome of good intentions in a caper that is too close to home. The story line is fast-paced as the hero figures out the motel game, but unprepared for the truth about Truhler. Instead of case closed, McKenzie finds deadly felons with ugly intent and even more lethal powerhouses with uglier intent targeting him. Readers will think twice before venturing on Highway 61.” —Mystery Gazette“As the title would suggest, this novel proves to be one of author David Housewright’s most fast-paced endeavors. The author consistently creates top-grade, expertly written mysteries. There’s much to like about the delectably smart-alecky Rushmore McKenzie and his insider’s take on The Cities. He’s the kind of guy whom many women would like to date, and whom many men would like to have as a friend. After all, he’s big on the favors.” —Shine from Yahoo

Shortly after her brother, Stormy, is convicted of the brutal murder of a classmate, seventeen-year-old Lizzy Greiner is found dead in an abandoned mountain shack, the result of an apparent suicide by fire. Next to Lizzy’s charred body, investigators find several of her journals, safely stored inside a fireproof box. It soon becomes evident that these journals contain a narrative that Lizzy wanted the police read, the truth that she wanted them to know.Detective Russ Buchanan is tasked with determining the veracity of her narrative, including Lizzy’s belief and obsession that the mysterious and murderous Lantern Man is haunting the mountains near her family’s house. He interviews family members, teachers, and classmates; he studies her psychologist’s extensive case notes. And he learns that Lizzy isn’t the only one who believes in the Lantern Man. After generations of ghost stories, is it possible that the Lantern Man actually does exist, a real-life boogeyman? Did he have something to do with the murder? Or is he simply a figment of Lizzie’s deluded imagination, an attempt to rationalize her brother’s brutality? The further into the investigation he delves, the more Buchanan questions everything he thought he knew about Lizzy’s death and the murder for which her brother was convicted.Praise for THE LANTERN MAN:“The Lantern Man is an extraordinary novel that defies categorization. With shades of Stephen King, Silence of the Lambs, journalism, and author Jon Bassoff’s own groundbreaking vision of how to use the printed page to give readers the best story possible, The Lantern Man is a landmark novel that will make you wonder, marvel, and remember.” —James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor“The Lantern Man is disorienting in the best sense of the word. Jon Bassoff masterfully blurs the lines between genres—no, scratch that, among genres—by creating a hellish hall of competing mirrors, each holding its own twisted version of the truth. The Lantern Man is a true shape-shifter of a novel. It’s one that will remain with readers long after the last page.” —Lynn Kostoff, author of A Choice of Nightmares and Words to Die For“An engaging and immersive mashup of mystery and horror, Jon Bassoff’s The Lantern Man offers a dizzying world of clues interlacing the disappearances of several girls with the mythology of a local boogeyman. Bassoff weaves a tight and creepy tale through a series of mediums: a girl’s diary, police transcripts, a detective’s notes, newspaper articles, letters, photos, and sketches. The result is an exceptionally creative, compelling, and dark whodunit that will leave its readers, like the Lantern Man himself, hungry for more.” —Carter Wilson, USA Today bestselling author“The Lantern Man is a brilliant—and terrifying—puzzle-box narrative that dares you to keep reading. It's the kind of book that you better cancel any plans you might have before you start.” —Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse“Ever been eyebrows deep in a horrifying investigation? You’re about to be... Part memoir, part case file and completely absorbing, The Lantern Man is a compelling pastiche on the verge of madness.” —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire mysteries, the basis for the Netflix drama Longmire“A genre-bending novel—an original, captivating mystery that might pave the way we write crime fiction forever.” —Jax Miller, author of Freedom’s Child

Welcome to the world of Cockney rhyming slang, where what is said means something completely different than how it sounds. Originally, it was a coded language created by criminals for deceiving undercover police officers during Victorian times. Common phrases like septic tank, holy water, brown bread, tomfoolery and mince pies don’t mean what you think they mean. Others, like Barnaby Rudge, gypsy’s kiss, smash and grab, butcher’s hook, kick and prance and bubble and squeak paint a picture.There are stories to be written about these phrases and in Trouble & Strife, the coded and colorful phrases of Cockney rhyming slang became the inspiration for eleven killer crimes stories from writers on both sides of the pond. A few choice words include:Babbling Brook is a talkative inmate at the state penitentiary.A hairdresser has to pay his dues for a crime that took place at Barnet Fair.And you never want to meet a Lady from Bristol.You don’t have to understand rhyming slang to enjoy this book. You just have to enjoy a damn good story. To see what the authors have come up with you'll have to turn the page and have a butcher’s.Edited by Simon Wood with stories by Steve Brewer, Susanna Calkins, Colin Campbell, Angel Luis Colón, Robert Dugoni, Paul Finch, Catriona McPherson, Travis Richardson, Johnny Shaw, Jay Stringer, and Sam Wiebe.

When Anderson West takes on the pro-bono case of Jessica Smith, a twenty-something restaurant hostess being stalked, the last thing he expects is for his investigation to spiral into breaking and entering, assault, and legal threats from the suspects and the victim.But that’s what happens when you run a private investigation firm with your rule-breaking, loose-cannon sister at your side.While Anderson spends his time deducing and interviewing possible suspects, Carrie handles interrogations in her own unique—and personal—fashion. And it seems like everyone is a suspect. There are Jessica’s ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend, her incredibly creepy boss and the suspicious reverend at her church who definitely seems to be hiding something.Or someone.The closer Anderson and Carrie get to an answer, the more danger Jessica finds herself in. Her stalker’s notes become increasingly more threatening, trading the scary phone calls and text messages for terrifying photographs and notes at her gym, work, and home. To make things even more complicated, Jessica’s backstory begins to unravel, and the secrets of her past could potentially solve everything…if only she’d let Anderson and Carrie in.With time ticking down, will the brother-sister investigative team be able to solve Jessica’s case before she tries something foolhardy, like facing up to the tenacious bastard on her own, armed only with a handgun and a prayer?