Books published by Tortoise Books

This hard-hitting collection of creative essays explores the beauty and pain embedded in some of our favorite rough-and-tumble pastimes--roller derby, mixed martial arts, and teaching. Carlo Matos ties it all together with gusto, in a book that will send you reeling to the canvas again and again, and make you return every time for more.

Detective Art Topp has a wife…or rather, had a wife. It's really hard to tell. On one hand, he talks to her every day, and she talks back. On the other, he's still in shock from the day he walked into his Triple A Detective AAAgency office and found her lifeless body riddled with bullets, the catastrophic blowback from what should have been a simple investigation. Now he's promised his daughter he's going to figure out what happened. The only problem is, he's not much of a detective-just a washed-up middle-aged former telecom worker who went to the gun range too often, watched too many episodes of The Rockford Files, and suddenly decided it'd be fun to be a private eye. Or maybe there's another problem-he also knows it might have been his fault. And the cops are starting to wonder, too…Gunmetal Blue showcases Joseph G. Peterson at his inimitable best. It's delightfully absurd and horrifyingly plausible, a sad and funny look at what happens when our airy fantasies become gritty reality, and when that reality in turn falls apart into madness and nightmares.

In late December of 1941, two parachutists dropped into occupied Europe on a mission to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, an SS leader whom one contemporary called "the hidden pivot" of Nazi Germany.Six months later, they succeeded.This is the definitive telling of this oft-forgotten story--its fascinating background, its thrilling climax, and its tragic consequences. It draws on diverse resources and influences, including Plato's Republic, Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, the writings of Czechoslovakian president Tomáš Masaryk, Jaroslav Hašek's The Good Soldier Švejk, Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, and even Camus' The Fall and Bukowski's Ham on Rye. In doing so, it creates something wholly unique--a powerful meditation on the subjective nature of history, and on the ways we distort the past in order to preserve it as memory.

October, 1967. Yuri Gagarin sits atop a Proton rocket, ready to launch. After several turbulent years in the public eye, he's been chosen in secrecy to captain the Soviet Union's latest space spectacular: the first manned flight around the moon. The second story in the Altered Space series, Public Loneliness is a detailed and imaginative look at a country and a space program with a curious schizophrenia regarding publicity and secrecy. Based on extensive research, it's also a lively and literary story that references familiar classics (like Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea) and forgotten landmarks of Soviet socialist realism, while also touching on universal themes of adventure, alcoholism, heroism and shame. It's a compelling look behind the massive posters at the all-too-real man who led the human race into space.

May, 1970. After a one-month launch delay, Apollo 13 lands in the Fra Mauro Highlands of the moon¿and then the trouble starts.The first in a series of what-if stories from the golden age of space exploration, Zero Phase was written based on meticulous research, and with assistance from two Apollo astronauts: Dr. Edgar Mitchell, who visited the Fra Mauro Highlands¿and Captain Jim Lovell, who was supposed to. Dramatic, detailed, and finely written, this novella is a must-read for space aficionados and literary enthusiasts alike.The titles in the Altered Space series are wholly separate narratives, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Each one is an ens¿ of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets, and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.

A suburban lawyer obsessively searches for her out-of-work husband¿s sex doll; a grieving man buys a parrot for the stranger who saved his life; a retired Florida lineman discovers a power more vital than electricity. In his debut collection Adult Teeth, award-winning short story writer Jeremy T. Wilson skillfully presents a cast of compelling characters who grapple with life¿s big concerns: marriage, friendship, parenthood, death. With heartbreak and humor, these twelve stories explore the brutal truth that for all these characters, as for all of us, time is lying in wait, ready to punch us in the mouth.

April, 1972. Three legendary astronauts embark on man's boldest space voyage yet-a yearlong mission to fly past our nearest planetary neighbor, Venus.Island of Clouds, the first full-length novel in the Altered Space series, is a gripping space epic based on NASA mission proposals from the late 1960s. Touching on literary and cultural influences ranging from Borges and Bukowski to Solaris and Star Trek, this story of exploration also offers a literary probing of the dark reaches of human nature: alcoholism, capitalism, authority, fatherhood, and the ephemeral nature of desire.Each entry in the Altered Space series is a wholly separate narrative, but all deal with the mysteries of space and time, progress and circularity. Every title is an enso of words in which orbits of spacecraft, moons, planets and people allow us fresh perspectives on the cycles of our own lives.

Andy's a bartender on Chicago's West Side in the late 1970s. For years, he's been slinging beers to corrupt cops and fat Zenith employees, but given the neighborhood's ongoing decline, he's starting to wonder how long it can go on. He's serving workers from a dying factory in a dying neighborhood; he sees crime on the rise-and he decides to become a criminal himself."North and Central" perfectly evokes Chicago in the epic winter of '78-'79-the bleak season of blizzards and disco and John Wayne Gacy-capturing the city in microcosm through the denizens of one blue-collar watering hole. If Springsteen and Bukowski had teamed up to write a story about a Chicago bar, they'd have been hard pressed to do better than this; it's an anti-"Cheers", a bittersweet story about a place where everybody knows your nickname, and they're tired of you coming around because you're a degenerate. But it's more than just a static portrait; it's a gripping and moving story destined to earn its own place among the classics of Chicago literature.

This irresistible collection of stories brilliantly skewers the close-to-rich and not-so-famous of 21st century America. With keen yet kind perspective, Kaltman revels in the triumphs and travails of misfit trophy wives, psychic hotel maids, jilted bridegrooms, showtune-singing security guards, and assorted other oddballs. Always balancing her sharp eye with a soft heart, Kaltman ensures that this collection isn't just funny, but memorable and lovable as well.