Each story follows the life of a person living on a fictitious council estate in London. The stories illustrate the realities and struggles that ordinary people go through at a time when people are feeling disenfranchised and are frustrated at not having their voices heard. Ranging from a humorous look at the gentrification of London to the realities of living with addiction the stories place the reader in the shoes of each character allowing them to feel their emotions.

    He's known only as The Preacher, an ex-Priest, ex-Special Forces commando, and now a professional gambler who has given up on his own salvation...but is determined to find justice for a murdered Vietnam vet...even if it means taking on the entire, God forsaken town.

    Bailey investigates the woman in an attempt to stop the extortion, and as the story unfolds, there are many twists and turns. Following The Double Take, Huggins turned his attention to creating memorable TV shows such as “Maverick,” “The Fugitive,” “City of Angels,” and “The Rockford Files.” Huggins passed away in 2002 at age 87.

     One death is only the beginning for Tom and his wife Kelly who witness a fast-driving car killing their innocent neighbor in the street. Tom describes the driver to the police, but there is something he didn't anticipate: the driver belongs to a powerful criminal gang in East Texas. The criminals make Ron and his family a target, abducting his wife Kelly and threatening his daughter. Now Tom must look to old war comrades for help in a brutal and unforgiving struggle to rescue his wife and bring justice to the notorious gang.

    

    Everyone thinks he's a laughing stock now, including his ex-wife and even his agent. When it seems things couldn't get any worse, a chance encounter results in Robinson moonlighting as a hitman. But that's when things take a surprising turn, because the more people he kills, the more the art world seems to fall back in love with him. This blackly comic short story was first published in "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine" in August, 2005.

    Renowned for their meanness and always armed with their legendary nickel-plated colts, they patrol the streets of Harlem and attempt to keep some semblance of law and order.

    His prospects at the job are pretty miserable and, what’s more humiliating, his wife’s prospects at her job are pretty good. Richie knows he’s a good salesman, but he just can’t seem to land an account. And he’s starting to drink again. And worry about whether Paula’s seeing that old high school flame, or maybe someone new. It’s a little early, at thirty-four, for a mid-life crisis, but that’s pretty much what it feels like. And there’re those unwelcome memories of the neighborhood bully, Michael Rudnick and what he did to Richie when he was thirteen. Richie Segal’s feeling, well, abused.Just when Richie’s about as low as he can get, he runs into Rudnick on the street and knows exactly what he needs to do. And suddenly things seem to be going much better. That is until they get much, much worse. In the classic tradition of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain, Hard Feelings is novel that lets us into the mind of an ordinary guy capable of things that even he couldn’t have imagined.

    A grieving husband. And their son-a mentally handicapped adult with a history of violent outbursts. A very simple case. Or is it? Leo Hewitt, an Assistant DA once blamed for setting free a notorious child-killer, is eager to redeem himself with this intimate and grisly crime. As he digs below the surface he discovers more than he ever anticipated-including an emotionally disturbed wife, a husband who'd do anything to escape his disastrous marriage, and an accused young man with no apparent means of defense. But with each shocking new revelation, Leo is only led deeper and deeper into the darkness-an inescapable trap of blood bonds and twisted family secrets.

    Belkin must begin each day with the task he calls The Service: visiting Christian chat-rooms to reply to users innocent questions with mocking answers. “Why do they call the taking of the communion ‘Mass?’”? Belkin124 responds: “They call it the Mass because after Jesus was crucified, a mass of people rushed forward to the cross and ate him. Now they eat the wafer to remember it.” At forty-seven, balding, and mildly agoraphobic, Belkin is a man without direction. He rarely leaves his apartment (he refers to the outside world as The Pounding), and when he must leave, he meticulously recounts the day in his Thunder Book; a journal where he lists all that repulsed him that day.But everything changes the day Belkin returns to his apartment to find the building ablaze along with the suspected murder of the apartment building’s maintenance man. As police question him, Belkin meets the mysterious Pernice Balfour, the alluring, religiously obsessed neighbor accused of the crime. Soon, Belkin has no choice but to come out of his shell (and his apartment) to try to clear her name. But the more Belkin investigates, the muddier things become. Wandering through San Francisco’s seedy Tenderloin district, Belkin begins to unravel the truth behind the murder, and encounters a bizarre series of characters and situations: "pansexual" crime-scene photographer, an idiot detective, and an all-knowing government operative.Whispering Bodies is comical offbeat exploration of the wisdom found in madness and the madness found in conventional life, all brought together in a classic tale of who-done-it.

       1931— The body found in the gutter in France led the police inspector to the dead man’s beautiful daughter—and to her hot-tempered American husband.   1941— A hardboiled private eye hired to keep a movie studio’s leading lady happy uncovers the truth behind the brutal slaying of a Hollywood starlet.   1951— A desperate man pursuing his last chance at redemption finds himself with blood on his hands and the police on his trail...   Three complete novels that, taken together, tell a single epic story, about an author whose life is shattered when violence and tragedy consume the people closest to him. It is an ingenious and emotionally powerful debut performance from literary detective and former bookseller Ariel S. Winter, one that establishes this talented newcomer as a storyteller of the highest caliber.

    Each book comprises all new stories, each one set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the respective city.Brand-new stories by: Tom Abrahams, Robert Boswell, Sarah Cortez, Anton DiSclafani, Stephanie Jaye Evans, Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, Adrienne Perry, Pia Pico, Reyes Ramirez, Icess Fernandez Rojas, Sehba Sarwar, Leslie Contreras Schwartz, Larry Watts, and Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton.From the introduction by Gwendolyn Zepeda:In a 2004 essay, Hunter S. Thompson described Houston as a “cruel, crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It’s a shabby, sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West—which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch.” For what it’s worth, that quote is now posted on a banner somewhere downtown and regularly, gleefully repeated by our local feature writers.Houston is a port city on top of a swamp and, yes, it has no zoning laws. And that means it’s culturally diverse, internally incongruous, and ever-changing. At any intersection here, I might look out my car window and see a horse idly munching St. Augustine grass. And, within spitting distance of that horse, I might see a “spa” that’s an obvious brothel, a house turned drug den, or a swiftly rising bayou that might overtake a car if the rain doesn’t let up . . . Overall, this collection represents the very worst our city has to offer, for residents and visitors alike. But it also presents some of our best voices, veteran and emerging, to any reader lucky enough to pick up this book.

    DI Andy Tregunna is faced with the task of leading the investigation, but soon personal matters force him to step back.On compassionate leave and with little else to do than fight his own demons the unsolved case becomes more and more an obsession to him. As he is drawn deeper into a dark world of secrets, lies and revenge, his private investigation collides with his personal life.The truth is even more sinister than can be imagined...

    It’s now 1875, however, and there has been peace in this part of Wyoming for several years, and Ethan has settled down in the small town of Lockwood. No longer working in stealth, he is the town’s lone lawyer. When two young Sioux are lynched by a makeshift posse for a crime they may or may not have committed, Ethan knows he must act quickly to prevent a bloody retaliation from their Sioux tribe. Can he gain the trust of both his former enemy and the townspeople of Lockwood so that there is enough time to unravel the mystery of the crime and ensure justice is fairly served? In Night of the Coyote, the worlds of the old and new collide, and the clock is ticking for Ethan to prevent a further descent into violence.

    The scenes in Pendleton are also based on true experiences he had while incarcerated. Approximately 85% of the novel is taken from real life. Jake and his pal Bud's journey begins six months after he is released on parole and is occasioned when his girlfriend Donna dumps him and aborts their child. After an aborted suicide attempt where the Norelco shaver cord he used to hang himself broke, on an impulse-the source of the title; everything in Jake's life happens "just like that"-he calls up Bud, who lives by the same credo, and the two take off with no particular destination in mind. They're just going "south"--somewhere where it's warm. An hour before they leave, Jake on another impulse, holds up a convenience store to get some traveling money. Ultimately, they end up in New Orleans and then Lake Charles, Louisiana and from there, back to Indiana. Along the way are many "watercooler" moments, such as when an inmate sinks a meat cleaver into another inmate's blue-clad stomach, a physical encounter with two rednecks in Kentucky where Bud shoots one of the men, the bullet bouncing harmlessly off the man's thick skull, Jake's ongoing romance with Donna, the funeral of Jake's father which he attends with a whore, multiple burglaries, armed robberies, a brief affair with a black woman, and an adventure with a drunk Santa Claus. Near the end Jake takes another fall when he is caught burglarizing a bar back in Ft. Wayne, Indiana and gets shot in the leg and is returned to Pendleton where he kills the inmate he'd had a nasty encounter during his first stay in prison. In the process, Jake's philosophy of life undergoes a sea change and he comes up with this: Portions of JUST LIKE THAT have previously appeared as short stories in the literary magazines High Plains Literary Review, Murdaland, and Flatmancrooked. The story that appeared in High Plains was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was selected for inclusion in Houghton-Mifflin's "Best American Mystery Stories, 2001." As a note of possible interest, Cathy Johns, the P.R. Director and Assistant Warden of The Farm (the infamous Louisiana state prison at Angola) read this novel and told Edgerton that he'd captured the true spirit of the criminal mind better than anything she'd ever read.