Blood Guts And Whiskey

She had an ass like a heart turned upside down and cut in half--and that's what we call foreshadowing, friend. Gruesome and glam, vicious and violent, this collection of the best new neo-noir fiction will hit you like a biker boot to the skull. Unleashed from the net's most hardcore award-winning site, these down, dirty, and deeply depraved tales don't just cut the edge . . . they pour gasoline on it and toss it in a meth lab full of C-4 . . . "Just because I killed my best friend with my bare hands doesn't make me all that bad. . . Christ, I loved the guy like a brother." Throw down a shot with the last word in badass--a scheming stripper playing one fool too far; the rage-haunted lesbian who's the last word in nightmare revenge; a mercenary sheriff doomed by ruthless payback; avenging street angels unleashing holy hell --and just try and stagger away intact. . . "This country's got a motto. It's pura vida, and it means when life gets you down, put your feet up, sister. But I lift my legs for no man." So settle back with your favorite rot-gut, keep your brass knuckles handy, and hang where the odds are never good, darkness is a permanent state of mind, and the house always takes all . . . Blood, Guts, And Whiskey "Lean, mean stories. . .today's brightest writers provide some of the darkest tales you've ever read." –Max Allan Collins Big Daddy Thug/Todd Robinson's writing has appeared in Plots With Guns, Danger City, Demolition, Out Of The Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Crimespree and Writers Digest's The Year's Best Writing 2003. He was nominated for a 2006 Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and is the creator and chief editor of Thuglit.com. The stories he's edited for Thuglit.com have been nominated for several awards, including The Derringer and The Million Writer's Award, and been have been selected for The Best American Mystery Stories and Best Noir 2006. He lives and works in New York with his wife (Lady Detroit), a ferret named Matilda, and three freakin' cats.

After graduating from Mississippi State University in 1976, Di Rushing and her husband, Sam, found themselves back on their family farm near Merigold, Mississippi, with 350 acres and no real clue what to do. The couple decided to open the first winery in Mississippi, and with it, a successful business was born. Six years later, a small restaurant joined the Delta winery. Both businesses were thriving by 1990, with eight national award-winning wines, a beautiful vineyard, and a successful restaurant. But in March of 1990, a series of unforeseen events rocked the operation. After the Rushings discovered one of the tour guides, Ray Russell, selling drugs in the winery parking lot, they fired him. He responded with a terrorizing vengeance that persisted over the next nine months. In the early morning hours, the former guide broke into the winery, crept into the wine cellar, and released the entire inventory—nearly a quarter of a million dollars’ worth—down the drain. Fortunately, his incompetence thwarted his most destructive intention to blow up the restaurant. In his rampage, he broke all the windows, which allowed the gas from the kitchen oven to escape, sparing the premises. Though the Rushings rebuilt with the help of their community, Russell continued to stalk and threaten the young family. As his menacing behavior continued to escalate, the Rushings closed their business of fourteen years and moved to Ouray, Colorado, where they began rebuilding their lives. Culminating in the sudden, violent murders of Russell, his wife, and his father twenty-five years later, this book tells a story of both shock and resilience, charting Mississippi history in the process. Intertwined with the true crime narrative, The Delta in the Rearview Mirror: The Life and Death of Mississippi’s First Winery details author Di Rushing’s life in and out of Mississippi, including growing up in 1960s Greenville, attending university, traveling overseas, and the relationships she cultivated along the way.

Hilary Davidson's The Next One to Fall takes place three months after the events of her debut novel, the Anthony Award–winning The Damage Done. Travel writer Lily Moore has been persuaded by her closest friend, photographer Jesse Robb, to visit Peru with him. Jesse is convinced that the trip will lure Lily out of her dark mood, but Lily is haunted by betrayal and loss. At Machu Picchu, the famous Lost City of the Incas, they discover a woman clinging to life at the bottom of an ancient stone staircase. Just before the woman dies, she tells Lily the name of the man who pushed her. When the local police investigate, the forensic evidence they find doesn't match what Lily knows. Unable to accept the official ruling of accidental death, Lily hunts down the wealthy man who was the dead woman's traveling companion and discovers a pattern of dead and missing women in his wake. Obsessed with getting justice for these women, Lily sets in motion a violent chain of events that will have devastating consequences. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Darkly comic and wickedly incisive, Kieran Shea’s The Americana Psychorama is an assemblage of stories portraying a delightfully bleak but all-too-familiar America. A suburban man stumbles into more than he bargained for when he steals a neighboring teenager’s drug stash. A teenage boy acts out when his widower father brings home a much younger clone of his mother. A thief discovers that karma can be both swift and random. And more than one couple finds their interpersonal conflict suddenly overshadowed by the malevolent outside forces they face. In settings that run the gamut from the historical west to a near-future post-apocalypse, the characters of these stories—whether felons or lovers, dockhands or diplomats, vigilantes or frauds, monsters or artificial life forms, con men or survivors, fathers or sons—are all, in some way, blindsided by the easy corruptions and outlandish hostilities of everyday life. Mixing styles, genres, and lengths, The Americana Psychorama presents Kieran Shea’s short-story writing at its best. Unique, brash, and wholly original. Praise for THE AMERICANA PSYCHORAMA: “These short, sharp stabs of the knife showcase a writer intent on showing us life in the cracks of the American dream. There are crimes, gallows humor, and the type of characters you wouldn’t want to pick up hitchhiking. Shea will give you a shot of 100 proof, served in a dirty ashtray and lit on fire. And you’ll love it.” —Eric Beetner, author of All The Way Down “Shea puts more heart and guts into a single story than most writers do a novel.” —Nik Korpon, author of Wear Your Home Like a Scar

Crimespree Magazine Issue 66 features an interview with Lori Rader-Day by Dan and Kate Malmon. We also have Jon Jordan speaking with Haylen Beck (aka Stuart Neville), Michael Barson sits down with Ace Atkins and Michael Brandman and Phillip Kerr speaks with Christina Ward. Les Edgerton is grilled by Anthony Campbell while David James Keaton squares off with Tim Hennesey. M.C. Neuda delivers a short story called “Gamblin’ Man” and Nolan Knight delivers “Mouth Bay.” This issue includes articles by Hector Acosta, David E. Grogan, S.W. Lauden, Eric Beetner, Sam Wiebe, Dana King and Brian Freeman. Additionally, the usual suspects show up: Craig McDonald, Chris Holm, and Kristi Belcamino. Book Reviews are served aplenty. The sixty-sixth issue is fully loaded. Enjoy!

It’s been a tough winter in Penns River and things aren’t getting any better. A major snowstorm looms as a police officer shoots and kills a man after a bar fight. There are four complicating factors: 1. No weapon is found on the dead man. 2. The cop is Black; the victim is white. 3. The victim is not just white; he’s a white supremacist. 4. A national leader of the movement wants to use Penns River to set an example and create a martyr for the cause. Fellow travelers from several neighboring states converge on the town for the funeral as an even bigger snowstorm roars in with them. While the Penns River police try to keep the lid on, the Allegheny Casino holds a poker tournament. One hundred players each put up $10,000 in cash. The winner walks away with all of it. In cash. The situation is fraught enough without the local cops having to answer every call as if it might be the start of a riot. Meanwhile, business as usual goes on. Domestic calls still require attention. Traffic accidents increase in the snow. The police department is in transition as older officers leave, their slots filled by either new officers fresh out of the academy, or those who followed the new chief to Penns River from Boston and have big-city attitudes about small town situations. Detective Ben “Doc” Dougherty is still getting used to his sergeant’s stripes as he’s pulled into the streets for riot duty and must confront the idea some of his peers may be more sympathetic to the incoming agitators than they are to some of those they swore to protect and serve. The weekend will stretch the department to its breaking point as events converge to a violent conclusion. Praise for White Out: “In his latest Penns River crime novel—White Out—talented author Dana King reminds us again that in those small towns and cities, sneeringly called ‘flyover country,’ the problems and challenges of the outside world often come to play a deadly visit. In White Out, a shooting involving a Black officer and a seemingly unarmed white supremacist sets off the proverbial spark that threatens to become an inferno. With protestors and counter-protestors arriving, along with the news media and agitators, the strained police department desperately works to keep the peace as an approaching snowstorm and a casino poker tournament complicates matters even further. A gritty crime novel that deserves wide attention.” —Brendan DuBois, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author “It’s been a long time since I read a book that pulled me along as urgently as Dana King’s latest Penns River novel White Out. King writes about his cops and their town with the kind of real affection that has you not just wanting, but needing, to know what happens to them next—and there’s plenty happening in this fast moving, deftly written thriller. Highly recommended.” —J.D. Rhoades, bestselling author of the Jack Keller series and the Cade and Clayborne historical thrillers “We’ve all heard the stories of White cops shooting and killing unarmed Black men. But what happens when the scenario flips? In White Out, Dana King kills in this gripping behind-the-badge drama. One cop I know wonders how Dana is able to get it so right.” —John DeDakis, Novelist, Writing Coach, and former Senior Copy Editor for CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer”

One of the greatest characters in Western fiction. Two of the wildest tales of frontier vengeance from William Johnstone’s classic bestselling saga. This is how Smoke Jensen became a legend. REVENGE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN They came in the dead of night like a pack of wolves. They invaded Smoke Jensen’s ranch. They destroyed Smoke Jensen’s dream. Then they finished the job by putting three bullets in Smoke Jensen’s wife. By the time Smoke arrived on the scene, it was too late to save her. Now he lives for revenge. Ruthless, righteous, merciless revenge. . . . VENGEANCE OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN With his darkest days behind him, Smoke Jensen hopes to return to a normal life. Unfortunately, he can’t escape his past. A vicious young gunfighter named Sundance holds an all-consuming grudge against the mountain man. He’s got backup from Mexico, bullets to spare, and bloodlust in his eyes. Tonight, the past is coming for Smoke Jensen. With a vengeance. . . . Live Free. Read Hard.

John Gordon Smith wrote one of the most vivid, honest and readable personal accounts of the Battle of Waterloo and the ensuing campaign, where he served as a surgeon in the12th Light Dragoons, but his classic narrative was only published in a limited edition in the 1830s and since then it has been virtually unknown. His warts-and-all depiction of the British army in Belgium and France and the fighting at Waterloo rivals many of the more famous and often reprinted military memoirs of the period. That is why Gareth Glover, one of the foremost experts on the battle and the archive sources relating to it, has sought to republish the narrative now, with a full introduction and explanatory notes. Smith’s account reads like a novel, in a chatty, easy-going style, but it often records deeply shocking scenes and behaviour so scandalous that he had to avoid naming names. As well as recalling, in graphic detail, his experience as a medic during the battle, he records the aftermath, the allied occupation of France. His writing, which describes the truly dreadful consequences of the fighting as only a surgeon would see them, also gives the reader a rare insight into his role and a memorable impression of the life in the army as a whole.