Tough 2: Crime Stories

Literature & Fiction

Pluck, Thomas

Bracken, Michael

KOLAKOWSKI, NICK

SOLDAN, WILLIAM R.

Welsh-Huggins, Andrew

Rowland, C.A.

Mattilla, Matt

Smith, Rob McClure

Short Stories & Anthologies

Redneck Press

A centuries-old battle between ninja and samurai over a stolen sword... enter 'Rage Cage' Reeves! Taught to fight by his war hero grandfather, Reeves comes home to find Grandpa Butch embroiled in a centuries-old battle over a treasured Japanese sword. Together they team up with Tara the hot-rodding ambulance driver and a secretive member of a samurai warrior brotherhood to take on a powerful clan of ninja and yakuza bent on sparking a third world war. From the heroics of the Devil's Brigade in World War II and the brutal underground fight scene of Tokyo to the American heartland, BLADE OF DISHONOR pits battle-hardened cage fighters against cunning shadow warriors in a thrilling adventure story that's part Kurosawa and part Tarantino ... with a ton of Pluck!

Blade of Dishonor

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

Goombah Gumbo Press

"Good stories for a good cause. You can't go wrong." Bill Crider, Mystery Scene Magazine 41 writers. One cause. We've rallied a platoon of crime, western, thriller, fantasy, noir, horror and transgressive authors to support PROTECT's important work: lobbying for legislation that protects children from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. Powerful stories from George Pelecanos, Andrew Vachss, Joe R. Lansdale, Charles de Lint, Ken Bruen, Chet Williamson, James Reasoner, Charlie Stella, Michael A. Black, Wayne Dundee, Roxane Gay, Ray Banks, Tony Black, Les Edgerton and 16 more, with 100% of proceeds going to PROTECT. PROTECTORS includes a foreword by rock critic Dave Marsh, and fiction by Patti Abbott, Ian Ayris, Ray Banks, Nigel Bird, Michael A. Black, Tony Black, R. Thomas Brown, Ken Bruen, Bill Cameron, Jen Conley, Charles de Lint, Wayne D. Dundee, Chad Eagleton, Les Edgerton, Andrew Fader, Matthew C. Funk, Roxane Gay, Edward A. Grainger, Glenn G. Gray, Jane Hammons, Amber Keller, Joe R. Lansdale, Frank Larnerd, Gary Lovisi, Mike Miner, Zak Mucha, Dan O'Shea, George Pelecanos, Thomas Pluck, Richard Prosch, Keith Rawson, James Reasoner, Todd Robinson, Johnny Shaw, Gerald So, Josh Stallings, Charlie Stella, Andrew Vachss, Steve Weddle, Dave White, and Chet Williamson. Among PROTECT's victories are the Protect Our Children Act of 2008, which mandated that the Justice Department change course and design a new national nerve center for law enforcement to wage a war on child exploitation, the Hero to Hero program, which employs disabled veterans in the battle against child abuse, and Alicia's Law. Join the fight, with 41 stories by top writers. Be a Protector!

Protectors: Stories to Benefit Protect

Williamson, Chet

Dundee, Wayne D.

Black, Michael A.

PELECANOS, GEORGE.P

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Pile your hair high, shine your leather jacket, pop the switchblade, and turn on the devil's music! Get ready to roar down the desolate American highway with eight tales of hoods, hot rods, and hellcats!"The 1950s are recreated one more time, but here it's with a savage, razor-honed edge you'll never find in Grease, Happy Days, or American Graffiti," from the introduction by the legendary Mick Farren.Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats features brand new fiction from Eric Beetner, Chad Eagleton, Christopher Grant, Matthew Funk, David James Keaton, Nik Korpon, Heath Lowrance, and Thomas Pluck.

Hoods, Hot Rods, and Hellcats

Keaton, David James

Beetner, Eric

Korpon, Nik

Grant, Christopher

Lowrance, Heath

Eagleton, Chad

Funk, Matthew

A centuries-old battle between ninja and samurai over a stolen sword… enter ‘Rage Cage’ Reeves!  Taught to fight by his war hero grandfather, Reeves comes home to find Grandpa Butch embroiled in a centuries-old battle over a treasured Japanese sword. Together they team up with Tara the hot-rodding ambulance driver and a secretive member of a samurai warrior brotherhood to take on a powerful clan of ninja and yakuza bent on sparking a third world war.  From the heroics of the Devil’s Brigade in World War II and the brutal underground fight scene of Tokyo to the American heartland, BLADE OF DISHONOR pits battle-hardened cage fighters against cunning shadow warriors in a thrilling adventure story that’s part Kurosawa and part Tarantino … with a ton of Pluck!  “The rush his writing supplies is addictive.” –CRIMINAL ELEMENT  “There’s a reason so many brilliant writers cut their teeth on the pulps, and this book both honors that tradition and expands it. You want interwoven plots running parallel between WWII and Right Now? You want violence mixed with romance? You want sacrifice, courage, and honor? Truth-based fable? Or maybe you just want hardcore-clean writing delivered at warp speed. Look no further—it’s all here.” -Andrew Vachss, author of Urban Renewal, Aftershock, and the Burke series  “There’s a reason so many brilliant writers cut their teeth on the pulps, and this book both honors that tradition and expands it. You want interwoven plots running parallel between WWII and Right Now? You want violence mixed with romance? You want sacrifice, courage, and honor? Truth-based fable? Or maybe you just want hardcore-clean writing delivered at warp speed. Look no further—it’s all here.” –Andrew Vachss, author of Urban Renewal, Aftershock, and the Burke series  "The Raiders of the Lost Ark of pulp paperbacks.” -Scott Montgomery, MysteryPeople

Blade of Dishonor: Omnibus Edition

Action & Adventure

Createspace Independent Pub

It's another issue of the multi award-wining crime fiction mag, THUGLIT! Filled with EIGHT brand new stories of crime and criminals that will bring you straight to the edge. Dig the nasty, kittens. It ain't gonna be pretty. IT'S GONNA BE THUGLIT!!! In This Issue of Thuglit: ANIMAL CONTROL by Don LaPlant THE LAST TIME WE SAW BEARS IN LAKE CASTOR by Eryk Pruitt THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT by J. David Jaggers MOMMA'S BOY by Mike Miner THE LAST DETAIL by Thomas Pluck OUR MAN JULIAN by Nikki Dolson BRUIN by Brandon Patterson CLEAN-UP ON AISLE 3 by Adam Howe

THUGLIT Issue Nineteen

Dolson, Nikki

Pruitt, Eryk

Howe, Adam

Miner, Mike

Patterson, Brandon

Dave Jaggers

LaPlant, Don

Mystery

Jay Desmarteaux raised a whole lot of hell in New Jersey after he was released from prison after 25 years for the murder of a rapist bully at his school. Now he’s on the run in his home state of Louisiana, where he traces his roots to an evil family tree that’s grown large and lush, watered with the blood of the innocent. Jay’s hunt for his parents will take him to the doors of stately plantation homes built by the enslaved, through the deadly and gorgeous heart of the bayou, to his greatest nightmare—a cell in the infamous state prison, where his only escape is the wildest show in the South—the Angola Prison Rodeo.\nScarred and shell-shocked, Jay Desmarteaux faces his deadliest adversaries yet: the demons within himself and the brutality wrought by his privileged ancestors. The Boy from County Hell is coming home...\nPraise for THE BOY FROM COUNTY HELL:\n“Thomas Pluck’s The Boy From County Hellis raucous and rollicking, just like The Pogues song it adapts its name from. There are echoes of James Lee Burke, Barry Gifford, and Joe R. Lansdale, but Pluck’s book burns hot and bright with its own indomitable punk spirit. Joyous, wild, dark fun.” —William Boyle, author of City of Margins, A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, The Lonely Witness, and Gravesend\n“Blistering, violent, and written with Technicolor flourishes that are Pluck’s unmistakable signature.The Boy from County Hell is a hell of a book.” —Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase\n“Pluck has crafted a hard-charging thriller that stomps the pedal from page one and never lets up. Crackling with exciting characters and language that pops off the page, The Boy From County Hellis a mad tale of rage, retribution, and no small helping of heart and soul. I loved it.” —Bill Loehfelm, author of the Maureen Coughlin series\n“Wow. The Boy from County Hell by Thomas Pluck is as wild as a night in a cage with an amorous monkey. So smart and tense and relentless. Pluck decides on his premise, and stays true to it until the rowdy end, but the real star here is his control of style, both hardboiled and poetic at the same time. Impressed.” —Joe R. Lansdale\n“The Boy from County Hell is a harrowing and at times deeply philosophical journey through the heart of rage. Thomas Pluck is our trustworthy tour guide through that undiscovered country. With deft prose and an eye towards redemption and revelation Pluck accomplishes an amazing feat. We find ourselves feeling sympathy for the boy from county Hell” —SA. Cosby, New York Times bestselling author of Razorblade Tears

The Boy from County Hell (Jay Desmarteaux Crime Thriller)

Down & Out Books

When Jay Desmarteaux steps out of from prison after serving twenty-five years for murdering a vicious school bully, he tries to follow his convict mentor’s advice: the best revenge is living well. But questions gnaw at his gut: Where have his folks disappeared to? Why do old friends want him gone? And who wants him dead? Teaming with his high school sweetheart turned legal Valkyrie, a hulking body shop bodybuilder, and a razor-wielding gentleman’s club house mother, Jay will unravel a tangle of deception all the way back to the bayous where he was born. With an iron-fisted police chief on his tail and a ruthless mob captain at his throat, he’ll need his wits, his fists, and his father’s trusty Vietnam war hatchet to hack his way through a toxic jungle of New Jersey corruption that makes the gator-filled swamps of home feel like the shallow end of the kiddie pool. Praise for BAD BOY BOOGIE… “Thomas Pluck has launched himself into the rare category of…must read novels…must re-read…must tell all and sundry about. It is that fine, that compelling. Just tremendous.” —Ken Bruen, author of the Shamus and Macavity Award-winning Jack Taylor mysteries. “Thomas Pluck’s Bad Boy Boogie is a vivid dose of New Jersey noir with heart, soul and muscle.” —Wallace Stroby, author of the Crissa Stone series. “My first Thomas Pluck novel won’t be my last. Bad Boy Boogie is a superb, taut, little thriller that hits all the right notes and sustains its central conceits to the very last page.” —Adrian McKinty, author of the Sean Duffy trilogies. “Tough, tight, and taut, Bad Boy Boogie is a standout. Thomas Pluck is a writer who knows his dark territory inside and out. A damn fine read from start to finish.” —Hilary Davidson, bestselling author of The Damage Done, The Next One to Fall and Evil in All Its Disguises. “Beautiful bad-assery. Full of lyrical longing for a youth unfulfilled and the brutal truth of an adulthood gone dangerously wrong. Brilliant. Thomas Pluck may well be the bastard love child of James Lee Burke and Richard Stark.” —Josh Stallings, author of Anthony and Lefty Award-nominated Young Americans, and the Mo McGuire series. “Thomas Pluck is a crime writer to watch. Steeped in the genre’s grand tradition but with heart and bravado all his own, his writing is lean, smart and irresistibly compelling.” —Megan Abbott, author of You Will Know Me and Queenpin. “Thomas Pluck’s writing is high performance. He doesn’t waste a sentence, a word, or an idea propelling his story forward in a way that drives like he’s behind the wheel of a precision car built by Eddie Bunker and tricked out by Andrew Vachss. Pluck juxtaposes Jay Desmarteaux’s past and present in a way that gives this tough guy protagonist the kind of real flesh and bone—and most of all heart and intention—that other writers can only aspire to.” —Bracken MacLeod, author of Stranded and Mountain Home.

Bad Boy Boogie (Jay Desmarteaux Crime Thriller)

We know a healthy appetite for well-written short stories exists and we want to help make things better. Our goal with Down & Out: The Magazine is to be a little different than other magazines by standing on the shoulders of the giants that have come before us, or at least tiptoe along the arrows in the backs of the pioneers of modern magazine publishing. Each issue will feature a story based on a series character like this issue’s brand-new Moe Prager story by Reed Farrel Coleman. If you’re a fan of Moe, who is now retired, you’ll want to read this fantastic story. We also have new tales by established and well-known writers. This debut issue includes series stories by Eric Beetner, Michael A. Black, Jen Conley, Terrence McCauley, Rick Ollerman, and Thomas Pluck. J. Kingston Pierce, fresh off his former beat from Kirkus Reviews, introduces “Placed in Evidence,” his non-fiction column only to be found here. Finally, we’ll take a bit of the long road as we answer the question of what happened to crime fiction after Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler moved on from the pulps in “A Few Cents a Word.” This issue we re-introduce Frederick Nebel with the first of his Donahue series, “Rough Justice.” This is a fun one. For fans of good writing, good literature, and good crime...welcome.

Down & Out: The Magazine Vol 1, Issue 1

Coleman, Reed Farrel

McCauley, Terrence

Ollerman, Rick

Pierce, J. Kingston

Conley, Jen

Nebel, Fredrick

The Go-Go’s made music on their own terms and gave voice to a generation caught between the bra-burning irreverence of the seventies and the me-first decadence of the eighties. Anthems like “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed,” and “Vacation” are an indelible part of our collective soundtrack, but more than that, they speak to the power and possibility of youth. Inspired by punk but not yoked to it, the Go-Go’s broke important musical ground by combining cheeky lyrics, clever hooks, and catchy melodies, perfectly capturing what it feels like to be young and female in the process. But beyond the Go-Go’s effervescent sound and cheerful pop stylings, a darkness underlies many of their lyrics and melodies, hinting at the heartache and frustration inherent in growing up. In other words, plenty to inspire murder and mayhem. Net proceeds from Murder-a-Go-Go’s benefit Planned Parenthood, a crucial provider of women’s affordable reproductive healthcare. With a foreword by Go-Go’s co-founder Jane Wiedlin and original stories by 25 kick-ass authors, editor Holly West has put together an all-star crime fiction anthology inspired by one of the most iconic bands of the eighties and beyond. Praise for MURDER-A-GO-GO’S: “I always suspected that twinkle in the Go-Gos’ eyes was a coded invitation to a darker world. In the hands of these 25 stellar crime fiction writers, ‘We Got the Beat’ and ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ become evil little gems. A totally rad read.” —Alan Hunter, Original MTV VJ, SiriusXM Host “Shock and awe, that sums up my reaction to Murder-A-Go-Go’s. Shock to live in times when ‘The Whole World Lost Its Head’ and awe at the response of these gifted writers. Buckle up for a ride that will leave ‘Skidmarks on Your Heart.’” —Sara Paretsky, bestselling author of the V.I. Warshawski crime series “Who knew those happy songs by one of all-time favorite bands, the Go-Go’s could inspire such dark, noir, spine-tingling stories?!! It’s a collection of tales of distinctly female rage—the murderous kind and otherwise—to keep you up at night!” —Alison Arngrim, TV’s Nellie Oleson and author of Confessions of a Prairie Bitch “This is the music-driven anthology you didn’t know you needed, but after you read it, you’ll realize your bookshelf was lacking without it. This is a killer line-up of writers, and they don’t play a single false note. Murder-A-Go-Go’s has got the beat.” —Rob Hart, author of The Warehouse “Like the songs these writers used for muses, each story contains the energy of a pop group and the rawness of a punk band, with some of the darkness and vulnerability that underscores the Go-Go’s themselves thrown in for good measure.” —Steph Post, author of Miraculum “The Go-Go’s spun some of the brightest, catchiest all-girl pop back in the day. But they always carried more weight than your average pop band: the burden of trailblazing and pioneering; the bad kids in the back of the class breaking all the rules and looking damn cool doing it. This collection commandingly captures that sweet subversion.” —Joe Clifford, author of The One That Got Away “Beneath the pop stylings and sensibilities of the Go-Go’s pulsed the heart of a punk band. In this eye-opening anthology, some of the sharpest voices of contemporary short crime fiction tease out the aches and anxieties echoing through the groundbreaking group’s music: the dark sides of desire, the missed opportunities, the tangled regrets. These stories—they got the beat.” —Art Taylor, award-winning author of On the Road with Del &amp; Louise: A Novel in Stories “Each masterful tale is distinctive, but this collection is so much more than the sum of its parts, infused with all the talent and skill of some of the best short story writers working in crime fiction today.” —Jennifer Hillier, author of Jar of Hearts

Murder-a-Go-Go's: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of The Go-Go's

Davidson, Hilary

Vallere, Diane

Brackmann, Lisa

Calkins, Susanna

Rader-Day, Lori

Nettmann, Nadine

West, Holly

United States

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