A stunning and vital piece of work.” —Irvine Welsh, author of Trainspotting and FilthIn a brilliantly stylish breakthrough thriller for fans of Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho and Will Christopher Baer’s Kiss Me, Judas, here is the compelling tale of a man who has lost it all—and is now navigating a crooked, harrowing path to redemption.   Once a suburban husband and father, now the man has lost all sense of time. He retains only a few keepsakes of his former life: a handmade dining room table, an armoire and dresser from the bedroom, and a tape of the last message his wife ever left on their answering machine. These are memories of a man who no longer exists. Booze and an affair with a beautiful woman provide little relief, with the only meaning left in his life coming from his assignments. An envelope slipped under the door of his apartment with the name and address of an unpunished evildoer. The unspoken directive to kill. And every time he does, he marks the occasion with a memento: a tattoo. He has a lot of tattoos.   But into this unchanging existence seep unsettling questions. How much of what he feels and sees can he trust? How much is a lie designed to control him? He will risk his own life—and the lives of everyone around him—to find out. EARLY PRAISE FOR DISINTEGRATION:“Sweet hot hell, Richard Thomas writes like a man possessed, a man on fire, a guy with a gun to his head. And you’ll read Disintegration like there’s a gun to yours, too. A twisted masterpiece.”—Chuck Wendig, author of Blackbirds and Double Dead“This novel is so hard-hitting it should come with its own ice-pack. Richard Thomas is the wild child of Raymond Chandler and Chuck Palahniuk, a neo-noirist who brings to life a gritty, shadow-soaked, bullet-pocked Chicago as the stage for this compulsively readable crime drama.” —Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands and Red Moon“Thomas builds his universe and its population with terse prose and dynamic, often horrifyingly visceral imagery that unspools with grand weirdness and intensity. Then he rips that universe apart, brick by bloody brick. Disintegration is provocative. It’s also damned fine noir.”—Laird Barron, author of The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and The Croning “A sodden, stumbling anti-hero in a noir so dark it makes much of the rest of the genre seem like Disney movies by comparison. Gritty, obsessive, and compulsively readable.”—Brian Evenson, author of Immobility and Windeye“Disintegration is gritty neo-noir; a psycho-sexual descent into an unhinged psyche and an underworld Chicago that could very well stand in for one of the rings of Dante's Hell. Richard Thomas' depraved-doomed-philosopher hitman is your guide. I suggest you do as he says and follow him, if you know what's good for you.”—Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Little Sleep“In sharp, icy prose that cuts like a glacial wind, Richard Thomas’ dark Chicago tale keeps us absolutely riveted to the very end.” —Donald Ray Pollock, author of The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff

    When first hardship and then nuclear war devastate a suburban neighborhood one woman is the key for survival of the community.

    Ranging from urgently contemporary London and Dublin to New York's Lower East Side in the nineteenth century, from dark comedy to poignancy, from the wryly provocative to the quietly beautiful, these stories offer a gathering of dreamers and lost souls who contend with the confusions of living. Here are men without women, children parenting parents, residents of the Broke-bank Mountain that is Ireland after the Celtic Tiger, emigrants, travellers, cheats and lovers, families, friends and foes. The focus is on those moments of the everyday when possibility seems to appear. A football match becomes an occasion of hard-won acceptances. An old acquaintance re-encountered plays mind-games in a bar. A fling between people who have almost nothing in common alters their lives forever. In Dublin, a desperately ill woman meets a tour guide in a hotel. A civil servant drives his father into Wicklow to say a final goodbye. A boy comes of age in a seaside town where everything is about to change. Where Have You Been? is a powerfully moving, entertaining and life-affirming read, from the internationally acclaimed author of Star of the Sea, Redemption Falls and Ghost Light.

    Their friends say he's obsessed with her. Maybe he is. He wants to give her the world. Counting on a lucrative promotion, he bought a multi-million dollar home in Silicon Valley for her. It's all good because Jenna adores him. He's a lucky guy.Jenna loves Devon, loves her job, and loves nice things.Now, the economy's gone south, the promotion is delayed, and Devon and Jenna are desperate to hide their sky-rocketing debt.When a childhood friend confronts them about the money they owe, jealousy and secrets erupt in violence.Buried By Debt - A Suburban Noir love story.

    Stahl, himself a recovering addict with long-term sobriety, has assembled an impressive array of writers to create this 'encyclopedia of bad behavior.' Indeed, these tales of chasing the dragon, with corollaries often violent and savage, will satisfy devotees of noir fiction and outsider art alike."-- Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Editor Stahl (Permanent Midnight) has put forth a gritty, naked collection of short stories on the bleak life of heroin addicts. These tales by such edgy literary writers as Gary Phillips, Lydia Lunch, and Nathan Larson give different voices . . . that keep the stories fresh and above comparison.”-- Library Journal “Like its two predecessors, devoted to cocaine and speed, The Heroin Chronicles confirms how drugs are . . . the basis of some of the most unforgettable fiction you’ll ever read.”-- Bookgasm "For all the bleakness, suffering, and crime seeping from the pores of this anthology, Stahl welds together a creative whole from disparate voices. Because illegal drugs, especially heroin, are so damaging, it is refreshing to read an anthology focusing on drugs that neither moralizes or condescends to the reader. These stories reflect upon the human damage, one individual at a time."-- CCLaP: Chicago Center for Literature and Photography "The Heroin Chronicles conveys the sentiment that a life of heroin addiction is a human comedy, but it will usually end in dark or, even worse, banal tragedy."-- MysteryPeople "The Heroin Chronicles, the third entry in the [Akashic Drug Chronicles] series, is the finest so far -- a collection of short fiction that puts this series on the same must-read category as the Noir Series…The Heroin Chronicles is full of stories about suffering, survival, overdoses, hepatitis C, poverty, self-loathing, humiliation, danger, death, degradation, guns, and self-destruction. They’re all told with unflinching sincerity by authors who have either been there or extremely close to it. If you’re familiar with the Drug Chronicles, you know saying this is the best one yet is saying a lot. If you’re not familiar with the series, this is the definitely the book to start with."-- Verbicide Magazine Inspired by the ongoing international success of the city-based Akashic Noir Series (Brooklyn Noir, Boston Noir, Paris Noir, etc.), last year Akashic created the new Drug Chronicles series. On the heels of The Speed Chronicles (Sherman Alexie, William T. Vollmann, Megan Abbott, James Franco, Beth Lisick, etc.) and The Cocaine Chronicles (Lee Child, Laura Lippman, etc.) comes The Heroin Chronicles, a volume sure to frighten and delight. The literary styles are varied, as are the moral quandaries herein.Heroin has long been understood as the most "literary" of narcotics, and this collection will, for better and worse, have tremendous pop cultural appeal.Featuring brand-new stories by: Eric Bogosian, Lydia Lunch, Jerry Stahl, Nathan Larson, Ava Stander, Antonia Crane, Gary Phillips, Jervey Tervalon, John Albert, Michael Albo, Sophia Langdon, Tony O'Neill, and L.Z. Hansen.Jerry Stahl is the author of six books, including the memoir Permanent Midnight (made into a movie with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson) and the novels I, Fatty and Pain Killers. Formerly the culture columnist for Details, Stahl's fiction and journalism have appeared in Esquire, The New York Times, and The Believer, among other places. He has worked extensively in film and television and, most recently, wrote Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman, for HBO.

    Time was he worked homicide in Houston’s Fifth Ward, but that was years ago. Nowadays he’s living a quieter life, running a little one-man operation in LaBorde, Texas. You might think a sleepy East Texas town wouldn’t rate its own PI, but there’s just about enough to keep Hanson going. Lawyers need things looked into; suspicious wives need their husbands tailed, and vice versa; ordinary folks get interested in things the cops don’t care to pursue. Today, it’s a missing persons case. Mildred “Babe” Craver’s not long for this earth, but she wants Hanson to find her son Tom, or find out what happened to him. He was a good-for-nothing jailbird, but he was her son after all. Problem is, Tom’s been missing for twenty-five years, so it’s a stone cold trail. Whatever Hanson finds out, it’s not likely to make anyone happy. Still, there’s something to be said for knowing.This 2012 novella revisits Marvin Hanson, decades after the events of Act of Love; fans of Lansdale’s Hap and Leonard series have also encountered him as the boys’ sometime-employer. At its core, A Bone Dead Sadness is a good old-fashioned locked room mystery, wrapped up in noir and tied with a Dixie-scented bow. It’s Lansdale.

    Now that peace has come, he is being haunted day and night by twelve ghosts: a mother and infant, a schoolboy, a butcher, an RUC constable, and seven other of his innocent victims. In order to appease them, he’s going to have to kill the men who gave him orders. As he’s working his way down the list he encounters a woman who may offer him redemption; she has borne a child to an RUC officer and is an outsider too. Now he has given Fate—and his quarry—a hostage. Is this Fegan’s ultimate mistake?CollusionWhen Detective Inspector Jack Lennon tries to track down his former lover, Marie McKenna, and their daughter, his superiors tell him to back off. But now an assassin stalks Belfast, tying up loose ends for a vengeance-driven old man. As Lennon unravels a conspiracy that links his daughter to a killer named Fegan, the line between friend and enemy blurs.

    But it all comes crashing down one dark night on an empty street, when one bad decision turns his dream life into a nightmare of cover-ups and lies.What begins as a celebration with his old college friend, Peter, ends with a deadly confrontation so heinous the two make a pact to never tell anyone about it—especially the police. The truth has a way of getting out, however, and when the trail of bodies doesn't stop at just one, Evan realizes the truth about Peter may be far more dangerous than he could have ever imagined.Lost Things is a taut, suspenseful tale of secrets, lies, and murder that builds to a shattering, surprising climax.

    An entire community was destroyed. For many people affected by this tragedy, the psychological scars may never heal.Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that affects many people who have endured traumatic events, leaving them unable to move on from life-changing tragedies. In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the focus was rightly placed on providing food, shelter and health care for those left homeless – but it is important that we don’t lose sight of the psychological impact this fire will have had on its survivors.24 Stories is an anthology of short stories, written on themes of community and hope, by a mix of the UK’s best established writers and previously unpublished authors, whose pieces were chosen by Kathy Burke from over 250 entries.Contributors include: Irvine Welsh, A. L. Kennedy, Meera Syal, John Niven, Pauline Melville, Daisy Buchanan, Christopher Brookmyre, Zoe Venditozzi, Nina Stibbe, Mike Gayle, Murray Lachlan Young, Barney Farmer.

    His mother, April, is haunted by her own demons, a secret trauma she has carried for years. Between them is Aiden McCall, loyal to both but unable to hold them together. Connected by bonds of circumstance and duty, friendship and love, these three lives are blown apart when Aiden and Thad witness the accidental death of their drug dealer and a riot of dope and cash drops in their laps. On a meth-fueled journey to nowhere, they will either find the grit to overcome the darkness or be consumed by it.

    Among the 12 stories is the classic tale of a horse and buggy that enter a covered bridge -- and vanish. Introduction by the author; Sam Hawthorne chronology and bibliography by Marvin Lachman.

    Bierce's book The Devil's Dictionary was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration.

    He is privileged, would seem to have the world at his feet, even. Then why does the sight of a few redneck teenagers disconcert him? Why is he reluctant to pick up a disheveled girl hitchhiking along the desert highway? And why is he the first person the police suspect when she is found dead in Arizona a few days later?Dorothy B. Hughes ranks with Raymond Chandler and Patricia Highsmith as a master of mid-century noir. In books like In a Lonely Place and Ride the Pink Horse, she exposed a seething discontent underneath the veneer of twentieth-century prosperity. With The Expendable Man, first published in 1963, Hughes upends the conventions of the wrong-man narrative to deliver a story that engages readers even as it implicates them in the greatest of all American crimes.

    This is the hotly anticipated followup to Hyde's critically acclaimed novel FUNERALS FOR HORSES.

    Celebrated writer ZZ Packer takes the editorial helm of Algonquin's signature series, selecting 20 rock-solid stories that reflect the geography, people, and way of life in the South.