Eerie Quad Cities

Like the mighty Mississippi River that cleaves the Quad Cities, the region's history can trap the unwary in some unexpected eddies. Peer through the fog of the past to catch a glimpse of the Tinsmith Ghost of Rock Island or the river serpent with a price on its head. Get the back story on the Banshee of Brady Street, read the 1869 report on a Bigfoot sighting near East Davenport and run the numbers on local UFO activity. From phantom footsteps in the Renwick Mansion to a mausoleum heist in Chippiannock Cemetery, Michael McCarty and John Brassard Jr. trace a path through the shadowy heritage of the Quad Cities.

Divided by state lines and the Mississippi River, the Quad Cities share a common haunted heritage. If anything, the seam that runs through the region is especially rife with spirits, from the Black Angel of Moline's Riverside Cemetery to the spectral Confederate POWs of Arsenal Island. Of course, the city centers have their own illustrious supernatural residents--the Hanging Ghost occupies Davenport's City Hall, while the Phantom Washwoman wanders Bettendorf's Central Avenue. At Igor's Bistro in Rock Island, every day is Halloween. Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin hunt down the haunted lore of this vibrant midwestern community.

The Quad Cities have a rich history of brewing that started with the influx of German citizens in the 1800s. Breweries were established on both sides of the Mississippi River. Some of these historic breweries managed to reopen after Prohibition, but national competition ultimately closed the last of these stalwarts in 1956. In 1989, Iowa created a special class "A" brewpub permit, and the first of many brewpubs in the area, Front Street Pub & Eatery, opened in 1992. Blue Cat Brew Pub, on the Illinois side of the river, opened shortly after. The brewing renaissance has helped to establish the Quad Cities as a craft beer destination. Join authors Michael McCarty and Kristin DeMarr as they celebrate the heady heritage of the region.

They thrive in the shadows, hungry for blood, hungry for human flesh. BITERS, from 5-time Bram Stoker Finalist Michael McCarty, is a thrilling collection of 4 zombie stories and 4 vampire tales by a veteran author of over fifty books and numerous stories and works of nonfiction since the 1980s. Within these pages you will find excitingly original and macabre tales of biters of all sorts to make you shiver and even question your own sanity, featuring incredible special guest co-authors! Dare, if you will to enter the world of....BITERS!

Haunted Hotels comprises more than two dozen tales of ghosts, unexplained phenomena, and other spooky happenings at hotels, inns, and rooming houses across America and around the world. Tom Ogden, author of four other books in the Haunted series, also provides information for readers who wish to check in and check out the spirits themselves . . . if they dare.

These widely acclaimed essays from the author of Infinite Jest -- on television, tennis, cruise ships, and more -- established David Foster Wallace as one of the preeminent essayists of his generation. In this exuberantly praised book -- a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner -- David Foster Wallace brings to nonfiction the same curiosity, hilarity, and exhilarating verbal facility that has delighted readers of his fiction, including the bestselling Infinite Jest.

The magnetic aura surrounding Sudbury, for both the living as well as the once-alive, is the backdrop for tales of mystery, wonder, and outright horror. "I tried to leave" is a common theme for those from the Sudbury region. People often vow to move away, but something about the Nickel City keeps luring them back. Whether it’s the taste of fresh air – or just the sulphur in the air – it’s hard to move beyond the black rocks, endless lakes, and great openness without longing to come home. Some are so attached to the northern community that they choose to stick around, even when their physical life is over. After all, if the living can’t leave the place behind, why should the dead? Spooky Sudbury explores the magnetic aura surrounding the city, for the living as well as the once-alive, in these tales of the supernatural.

A spine-tingling new collection of stories from the acclaimed author of Thrill Me and The Dark Net Benjamin Percy is a versatile and propulsive storyteller whose genre-busting novels and story collections have ranged from literary to thriller to postapocalyptic. In his essay collection, Thrill Me, he laid bare for readers how and why he channels disparate influences in his work. Now, in his first story collection since the acclaimed Refresh, Refresh, Percy brings his page-turning skills to bear in Suicide Woods, a potent brew of horror, crime, and weird happenings in the woods. A boy in his uncle’s care falls through the ice on a pond and emerges in a frozen, uncanny state. A group of people in therapy for suicidal ideation undergoes a drastic session in the woods with fatal consequences. A body found on a train and a blood-soaked carpet in an empty house are clues to a puzzling crime in a small town. And in a pulse-quickening novella, thrill seekers on a mapping expedition into the “Bermuda Triangle” of remote Alaska are stranded on a sinister island that seems to want them dead. In story after story, which have appeared in magazines ranging from the Virginia Quarterly Review and Orion Magazine to McSweeney’s and Ploughshares, Percy delivers haunting and chilling narratives that will have readers hanging on every word. A master class in suspense and horror, Suicide Woods is a dark, inventive collection packed to the gills with eerie, can’t-miss tales.