Meet Kraj—pronounced krai—a low-level errand boy and hitman masquerading as a bouncer for Tricky Ricky Gutierrez, nefarious owner of the Twist, a club in upstate Elmira NY. A place that has both a LGBTQIA night and a cowboy country night, this cockeyed corner bar in northern Appalachia supports Ricky’s illegal schemes, and serves as a rural balm for Croatian-war refugee Kraj. Kraj plies his trade over a short span, moving from petty theft to strong-arming tips from people at the door, breaking up redneck fights, protecting the club’s nubile female staff and collecting gambling debts owed Tricky Ricky. Kraj eventually gets sucked further and further into Ricky’s underworld plans, where he wants to be seen as a man on the come-up, but he has problems moving up in Ricky's organization will never solve. His sister Ana, missing since the Croatian War for Independence, never strays far from his mind. Kraj, together with his sometime girlfriend Cami, newly become manager of a franchisee McDonald’s, and his manager Mikael. negotiates his way through underground fight clubs, prostitution rings, drug deals, petty thievery, and of course, murder. Tricky Ricky gives Kraj a great deal of rope and autonomy to operate. Will he hang himself with it or swing? Praise for KRAJ THE ENFORCER: “Kraj is a human wrecking ball, hiding a tactical mindset, along with his sense of humor. Barnes’ Croat knockaroud guy is masterfully subtle, yet amplified by the colorful characters around him.” —Scotch Rutherford, Switchblade Magazine “Rusty Barnes leads us on a pulpy underworld adventure populated by toughs, scumbags, henchmen, double-crossers, pimps, and con men of the first water with his latest collection The Kraj Stories. Opening the book is stepping into the cage and each turn of the page is a quick jab to the face. You’ll close the book and find yourself with a bloody nose, a crushed larynx, and, if you’re really lucky, that you’ve been set on fire.” —Eryk Pruitt, author of What We Reckon

Kraj the Enforcer: Stories

Literature & Fiction

Barnes, Rusty

Short Stories & Anthologies

Shotgun Honey

Hooligan and low-level criminal enforcer Jason “Candy” Stahl (“Irish” to his sometime girlfriend Rosario) has made a good life collecting money for his boss Otis, breaking the occasional leg or elbow, fucking Rosario, and living the life in Revere, MA. One collection trip, though, at the Diovisalvo Liquor Store, unravels events that turn Candy’s life into a horror-show. In quick succession he moves up a notch in the organization, overseeing a chop shop, while he falls in lust with Otis’s girlfriend Nina, gets beaten for insubordination, and is forced to run when Otis finds out about Candy and Nina’s affair. Events stretch as far as Houston, Texas, where Otis and Candy have a final showdown where everything is at stake. Loser gets nothing. Praise for Knuckledragger

Knuckledragger

Investigating a deer-poaching incident that lands him in deep trouble—with a broken ankle and multiple bullet wounds—wildlife conservation officer Matt Rider finds himself at odds with members of the renegade Pittman family, including clan leader Soldier Pittman. When a large sum of Pittman’s drug money comes up missing, Soldier Pittman is convinced Rider stole it. Rider’s instincts are to call on his trusted brother Randy and his friend Dean Blackwell to help him out, but none of them imagine the lengths to which Soldier Pittman will go to get his drug money back. Praise for RIDGERUNNER: “Rusty Barnes has done it again. Ridgerunner is a well-oiled, perfectly crafted shotgun of a novel, one that delivers just as much heart as it does gunpowder. No one else working today can showcase so much humanity in such dark places. It’s a genuine thrill to see what Barnes can do with twenty-six letters and a handful of characters.” —Sheldon Lee Compton, author of The Same Terrible Storm and Brown Bottle “With Ridgerunner, Rusty Barnes has earned a place at the table with hardscrabble-noir poets like Woodrell, Wolven, and—yes—Thompson. This short novel packs a wicked punch that will leave you shaken and wanting more. Drop whatever you’re doing and get your hands on it.” —Patrick Shawn Bagley, author of Bitter Water Blues “Rusty Barnes has something special here—the narrative equivalent of a fist to the gut, followed up with a well-placed kick in the teeth. You’re going to want to get yourself a snack to go with Ridgerunner, because once you start reading this book you’ll forget to eat. It’s a non-stop thrill ride from page one as Barnes blends mayhem and heart in equal doses, giving the reader a tour into the souls of men and their vices, exposing the lengths they’ll go to protect what’s theirs.” —CS DeWildt, author of Love You to a Pulp “A guttural and unrelenting survey of a people and place that is not lawless, but, rather, governed solely by its own backcountry creed. Ridgerunner blurs the boundaries between lawmen and outlaws. Barnes has delivered the stuff of fine fiction.” —David Joy, author of Where All Light Tends to Go “Barnes starts his story with a fast boil and wrenches up the gas on every page, never relenting until the lid pops off and scalds the hell out of you. Ridgerunner is brutal, satisfying, and left me looking forward to his next book.” —Samuel W. Gailey, author of Deep Winter “Jim Burke says he works the pages till, when you pick them up, they crackle in your hand. That’s Rusty Barnes’ Ridgerunner. From the first line it crackles: it’s alive, moving about, and won’t be still.” —James Sallis

Ridgerunner (A Killer From The Hills)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Inspired by the outcasts, outlaws, and other outré inhabitants of rock legend Lou Reed’s songbook, Dirty Boulevard traffics in crime fiction that’s sometimes velvety and sometimes vicious, but always, absolutely, rock &amp; roll. Inside, you’ll find stories from the fire escapes to the underground, stories filled with metal machine music, stories for gender-bending, rule-breaking, mind-blasting midnight revelries and drunken, dangerous, dark nights of the heart. Upcoming genre stars like Alison Gaylin team up with crime fiction legends such as Reed Farrel Coleman, along with Cate Holahan, Gabino Iglesias, Tony McMillen, and many of the most exciting new names in crime and horror fiction, who teach us that a perfect day is often anything but, that the power of positive drinking is a destructive force rarely contained, and that knock-down-drag-out drag queens are probably way tougher than you. Dedicated to the memory and works of Jonathan Ashley. Proceeds will benefit National Suicide Prevention Lifeline—1-800-273-8255. Edited by David James Keaton. Contributors: Jonathan Ashley, Rusty Barnes, Reed Farrel Coleman, Alison Gaylin, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Cate Holahan, Gabino Iglesias, David James Keaton, Erin Keaton, Ross E. Lockhart, Tony McMillen, Richard Neer, Chris Orlet, J. David Osborne, Rob Pierce, Eryk Pruitt and Patrick Wensink.

Dirty Boulevard: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Lou Reed

Coleman, Reed Farrel

Goldberg, Lee Matthew

Iglesias, Gabino

Gaylin, Alison

Keaton, David James

Holahan, Cate

Ashley, Jonathan

Lockhart, Ross E.

Keaton, Erin

United States

Down & Out Books

For fans of Larry Brown, Daniel Woodrell, Scott Smith, Donald Ray Pollock and Scott Phillips, this rural noir set in northern Pennsylvania features a world in which the natural gas industry has raped the land and made billionaires out of farmers and small time criminals alike. Investigating a deer-poaching incident that lands him in deep trouble—with a broken ankle and multiple bullet wounds—wildlife conservation officer Matt Rider finds himself at odds with members of the renegade Pittman family, including clan leader Soldier Pittman. When a large sum of Pittman’s drug money comes up missing, Soldier Pittman is convinced Rider stole it. Rider’s instincts are to call on his trusted brother Randy and his friend Dean Blackwell to help him out, but none of them imagine the lengths to which Soldier Pittman will go to get his drug money back.

Ridgerunner (A Killer from the Hills Novel)

280 Steps

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Books by Barnes, Rusty