Nick S Trip

In this superbly crafted DC noir, hard-drinking Nick Stefanos is hired to find a friend's missing wife -- if he doesn't hit rock bottom first. Nick Stefanos has given up his job in sales to tend bar at the Spot, where drinks and women are both a bit too easily available, and the routine is starting to feel as dead-end as his last gig. But things are about to change. First, his high-school friend Billy Goodrich asks him to find his wife April, who he says left him for small-time crime boss Joey DiGeordano. In fact, April has taken off with hog farmer/bondage freak Tommy Crane and, it turns out, with $200,000 of DiGeordano family money. There are powerful enemies on her trail -- and now on Nick's trail, too. Discover the early work of the Emmy-nominated writer from The Wire and The Deuce, whose authentic sense of place, sharp musical references, and hardboiled style make him one of the most acclaimed in the mystery genre.

June 1934: the depths of the Great Depression. Reckless with anger and spoiling for a fight, seventeen-year-old Samuel Hewitt and his Shuswap friend Charleyboy conspire to steal a prize stallion and disappear into the blistered, unforgiving terrain of British Columbia’s Thompson River Valley. The boys are looking for a fresh start—and for somewhere to belong. But what they find is a hardscrabble existence enlivened by ruthless criminals and boxcar bums ... until they come upon the denizens of a once-majestic travelling circus struggling to survive in an era in which even marvels have lost their capacity to charm. In this surreal, ramshackle environment, Samuel develops an unexpected kinship with the failing ringmaster and his enigmatic daughter. But violence and treachery are prevalent in the shadows of the Big Top, and Samuel may well find himself on the run once more. In The Ballad of Samuel Hewitt, Nick Tooke presents an uncommon coming-of-age story as well as a thoughtful examination of the meaning of home and family.

Over the summer of 1911 in the vast outer reaches of the Ukraine, a place where few people live, a wild eighteen-year-old Gypsy girl named Natasha is allowed to run free. She meets Nick Rostov, a Russian boy, and falls in love with him in the simmering summer heat. He is two years her senior, but still just a boy. Running wild together, they become intimate during their summer of love. It isn't long before Natasha becomes pregnant and marries Nick. Natasha is forced to leave Russia and her own family behind when Nick's family decides to immigrate to America for a better life. They walk to France and cross the Channel to England, arriving to the news of the Titanic sinking. Natasha is by now heavy with child and very frightened. She wants to go back home to her mother, but is convinced that it is better for all the Rostovs to stick together and continue on to America. Natasha's baby is born at sea, two days out of New York. She arrives in New York and is terrified of the big city. When Nick runs into trouble holding down a job, and is eventually murdered, Natasha finds herself running from her husband's killers.This young mother tries to flee from all her troubles, but discovers that eventually you have to face your fears and fight back. Strip the Willow is epic storytelling at its best.

As the advertising director of Nutty Nathan's, Nick Stefanos knows all the tricks of the electronics business. Blow-out sales and shady deals were his life. When one of the stockboys disappears, it's not news: just another metalhead who went off chasing some dream of big money and easy living. But the kid reminded Nick of himself twelve years ago: an angry punk hooked on speed metal and the fast life. So when the boy's grandfather begs Nick to find the kid, Nick says he'll try. A Firing Offense, Nick Stefanos' debut, shows why, as Barry Gifford puts it, "To miss out on Pelecanos would be criminal."

A genre-defying page turner that fuses thriller and speculative fiction with dark fantasy in a hidden world in the heart of Cold War Europe. THE TRUE COLD WAR IS FOUGHT ON THE BORDERS OF THIS WORLD, AT THE EDGES OF THE LIGHT. It's 1965 and Christopher Winter is trying to carve a new life, a new identity, beyond his days in British Intelligence. Recruited by London's gangland he now finds himself on the wrong side of the law - and about to discover that the secret service has a way of claiming back its own. Who is the fatally alluring succubus working honeytraps for foreign paymasters? What is the true secret of the Shadowless, a fabled criminal cabal deadlier than the Mafia? And why do both parties covet long- buried caskets said to hold the hearts of kings? Winter must confront the buried knowledge of his own past to survive - but is he ready to embrace the magic that created the darkness waiting there?

In 1995, Puerto Rico was seized with mass hysteria over a new menace lurking in the rainforests, gruesomely killing livestock, leaving strange holes in their necks, and draining their bodies of blood. Described by eyewitnesses as a devilish creature three feet tall with spikes along its back and a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs, the strange animal was given the name Chupacabra—Spanish for “goat-sucker.” Join noted monster hunter Nick Redfern and his spirited crew as they traverse the rugged backcountry of Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Texas investigating the continuing legacy of this fearsome beast. Whether he’s interviewing locals, analyzing physical evidence, or sorting out the facts from the legends, Nick’s journey into the realm of the Chupacabra will make you wonder just what’s out there lurking in the night. Praise: “Gonzo-style investigator and author Nick Redfern again plunges into the mysterious thickets that shroud the world’s unknown animals, this time surfacing with an eye-opening look at the much-feared, bloodsucking thing known as the Chupacabra. It’s a breathless road trip . . . no adventurous spirit will want to miss.”—Linda Godfrey, author of American Monsters and Real Wolfmen