SilverBack Publishing’s next novella is
Origin Story
by award-winning author A.M. Adair.
A woman wakes from a coma to find herself in prison with no memory of who…or what she is. The vicious attack that almost killed her erased all that she was. But not what she did.
Her name is Elyse Tyson.
And she’s a serial killer.
Or at least she was.
This week, Beau Johnson recommends AUGUST SNOW, from Stephen Mack Jones.
“Man, if you haven’t read Stephen Mack Jones’ Detroit crime novels about an ex-cop named August Snow, you ought to.”
—Mike Lupica, The New York Daily News
“Wonderful.”
—Nancy Pearl for KUOW Seattle
“Stephen Mack Jones's rock-solid debut, August Snow, is powered by the outgoing personality of the title hero and his deep affections for his hometown of Detroit. This author proves himself a natural entertainer.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Jones, a Detroit-area poet and playwright brings the city, its environs, and its eateries to vital life in a mystery coiled around the contemporary crime du jour of cyber-finance meddling. His is that rare tale that, despite its thriller-level violence, maintains a fiercely warm heart at its core—and ends far too quickly.”
—The Boston Globe
“Today’s greatest crime writers give Beau Johnson’s blood-soaked creation his due in Bishop Rider Lives, with stories of terrifying violence and satisfying retribution in a world where it’s never been about saving people, but rather making the evildoers pay the price for their misdeeds. Often bloody but never nihilistic, this book will leave your pulse pounding in your ears and slake your thirst to see the bad guys get their comeuppance.” —Bobby Mathews, Anthony Award-nominated author of Magic City Blues and Living the Gimmick
“There is darkness. There is pain. And then there is The Morass. Full disclosure: Ashford has a banger here. Tread lightly.”—Beau Johnson, author of the Bishop Rider books
“The Morass combines the best of a Wolf Creek-style serial killer thriller with the most berserk creature feature you can possibly imagine, resulting in a lightning-fast horror novel you’ll never forget.”—Nick Kolakowski, author of Absolute Unit and Groundhog Slay
These are interconnected stories of a Croatian war refugee Kraj and his climb up the criminal ladder in Elmira, NY. He starts off fighting in a church basement for money. Next up is low-level errand boy work for Tricky Ricky, a local kingpin. Kraj uses his wit and considerable size later as a successful debt collector aka leg-breaker. I really enjoyed Kraj and his resourcefulness in these tight punchy tales. I hope this was as much fun to write as it was to read.
-- Rob Smith
***
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.
This week, Beau recommends Lowdown Road from Scott Von Doviak.
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One of “The Most Wanted Crime Novels of 2023” — Crimefictionlover.com
Join a heart-racing road trip across 1970s America as two cousins make the heist of their lives and must avoid the cops and criminals hot on their tails.
It’s the summer of ’74…Richard Nixon has resigned from office, CB radios are the hot new thing, and in the great state of Texas two cousins hatch a plan to drive $1 million worth of stolen weed to Idaho, where some lunatic is gearing up to jump Snake River Canyon on a rocket-powered motorcycle. But with a vengeful sheriff on their tail and the revered and feared marijuana kingpin of Central Texas out to get his stash back, Chuck and Dean are in for the ride of their lives – if they can make it out alive…
This week, Beau Johnson takes a look at Mark Westmoreland's A Violent Gospel.
“With this excellent collection of 15 jagged, fragmented pieces, dark fantasist Rosson subverts expectations and challenges his characters and his readers alike to second-guess their preconceptions. Evil is just as likely to spring from daily life as to lunge out of the supernatural in these disquieting tales. . . . These powerful stories will leave readers unsettled in the best ways.” – Publishers Weekly“Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons is an unforgettable and often heartbreaking one-two punch of satire of and elegy for a decayed America.” – Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Survivor Song
“Keith Rosson is a storyteller with magic and grit to spare. Mesmerizing from the first sentence to the last, Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons is a phenomenal collection.” – Andy Davidson, author of The Boatman’s Daughter
“Effortlessly brilliant, entertaining and full of raw emotion, Rosson’s work takes you out of your comfort zone and into new landscapes of fiction. Literate, horrific, humanistic, sardonic. I’ve never read stories quite like Rosson’s and that is a great thing.” – John Hornor Jacobs, author of A Lush and Seething Hell
“Equal parts profound and profane, HELL CHOSE ME is a damned good read—a vividly imagined pulp nightmare best read through splayed fingers.” – Chris Holm (Anthony Award winning author of THE KILLING KIND)
“Angel Luis Colón levels up in his first full-length novel with superb writing and a voice that seizes you from page one. A dark, dirty, gritty delight.” — Jennifer Hillier, author of JAR OF HEARTS
When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a heartbeat, head, or hands--the local mafia capo hires Isaiah Coleridge to look into the matter. The mob likes crime, but only the crime it controls . . . and as it turns out, Lee is the second independent contractor to meet a bad end on the business side of a serrated knife. One such death can be overlooked. Two makes a man wonder.
A guy in Harold Lee's business would make his fair share of enemies, and it seems a likely case of pure revenge. But as Coledrige turns over more stones, he finds himself dragged into something deeper and more insidious than he could have imagined, in a labyrinthine case spanning decades. At the center are an heiress moonlighting as a cabaret dancer, a powerful corporation with high-placed connections, and a serial killer who may have been honing his skills since the Vietnam War.
