In case you missed the news yesterday - and, if you were on the internet and at all tuned in to the crime fiction community, I'm not sure how you could have - Beau Johnson's iconic anti-hero, he of chainsaws, wood chippers, dull blades, napalm, and, in one particularly memorable case, a forklift, Bishop Rider, is back from the dead, and this time he's bringing friends.
Bishop, dead since the end of Johnson's fifth novel-in-stories, has returned, but this time, Beau isn't at the wheel. Instead, he asked friends and the community he has so tirelessly promoted to tell their own Bishop Rider stories, and, as someone who has seen an early edition of the book (and was lucky enough to be able to contribute a story), I can promise, everyone involved delivered.
To mark the occasion, today, we're going to give you the chapter titles, writers, and the first line of each story.
But first, let's take a moment to check out the cover for this phenomenal anthology:
Done? Preordered? Great! Now let's look at the first line of each story in this incredible anthology.
DARK WAS THE NIGHT, COLD WAS THE GROUND
by James D.F. Hannah
Sheriff Caleb Hatfield stepped out onto the front porch of the house along Watson Creek Road, pulling deep breaths of summer air into his lungs, willing away the smell of blood.
A SIP OF DARKNESS
by S.A. Cosby
Mackie looked up from his paper as the door opened and a wedge of sunlight sliced into the darkened interior of the bar.
RIDER HEARS THE BIRDS
by Mark Rapacz
Before he could wash the blood away from the loose flaps of skin on his knuckles, the water shut off.
BY THEIR WORKS YOU WILL KNOW THEM
by Peter O'Keefe
The man is a ghost. Guess that makes me a ghost hunter. Fair enough.
MOTHER'S SHOULDER
by Mary Thorson
“Have you heard of Mother's Shoulder?"
TWO INCHES FROM A MAIN ARTERY
by Tom Leins
I feel the skell's windpipe crunch under my gloved hand and topple his swollen body into the drainage ditch that runs alongside the decrepit red-brick warehouse.
BLACK SNAKES
by Meagan Lucas
Overgrown pines lined the rutted driveway, the tenacity of nature wearing away the best efforts of an earlier generation. Maybe everything did eventually go to shit.
THE FRIENDS OF REED ROBSON
by Jay Stringer
On his eighteenth birthday, Buddy Brooks announced to the whole room he would rob over one hundred banks.
MERRY CHRISTMAS, BISHOP RIDER
by Elford Alley
With every grunt, I think: Alex, you fucking shitbird.
FEED THE MACHINE
by Nick Kolakowski
Forty-five minutes. You can do a lot in forty-five minutes. Watch an episode of your favorite show. Cook a meal for your family. Lift some weights. Get fit. You could even save some lives.
BISHOP...HE EVERYWHERE
by Manny Torres
They came up through the floor like zombies in that Michael Jackson video.
THE LAST ACHES OF REMISSION
by Paul J. Garth
Eight months into his new life, the man once known as Louis Pritchett finally remembers how to breathe without fear again.
BLESS THIS MESS
by Rob Hart
Tina navigates the winding driveway.
SANCTITY
by Laurel Hightower
By the time I realize I miscalculated the anesthetic, I'm wrist deep in viscera.
ECHOES OF VENGEANCE
by Rob D. Smith
I posed Johnny Tcak like Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.
As good as these openings are, I promise, they're only scratching the surface of the carnage, pathos, humanity, and bloodshed inside BISHOP RIDER LIVES. A huge thanks to the editors of this anthology, Beau Johnson and Hector Acosta, and the publisher, Down and Out Books, for letting us give you a small preview.
BISHOP RIDER LIVES comes out June 3rd, and, seriously, you should preorder it now.
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