Tom Pitts

When two young girls disappear with a trunk-load of pot, unaware that their payload has been packed with an extra five kilos of cocaine, a lovable loser persuades a sociopathic killer to pursue them across Northern California in a violent, twisted goose-chase that ends in a horrific place none of them could have forseen.

Piggyback

Gary Phillips

Joe Clifford

Dana King

Frank Zafiro

John Shepphird

Colin Conway

Holly West

Travis Richardson

Hector Acosta

Carmen Jaramillo

Mark Bergin

Matt Phillips

Paul Garth

James L'Etoile

It's eviction day for The Hope Apartments. The residents have known about it for over a year. It's too bad they ignored all the warning signs. More than a century ago, developer Elijah Hope constructed a state-of-the-art hotel. As the generations passed and tastes changed, The Hope spent two decades as an underutilized office building before conversion into a low-income housing project. Rundown by years of human occupation, The Hope has become a hollow shell of its once great self. It is home to drug addicts, petty criminals, and those hiding from others. The city has long turned a blind eye to The Hope as surrounding neighborhoods gentrified and pushed their disaffected in its direction. But now The Hope is preparing a return to its original glory. The current owners plan to convert it into a boutique hotel. The only thing standing in their way is the eviction of over one hundred units. Each resident knew this fateful day was coming, yet most chose to believe it would never arrive. They ignored the posted signs, the hand-delivered warnings, and even the actual notices. Many stayed until the bitter end. These are their stories. The Eviction of Hope is a collection of fourteen short stories from crime fiction's freshest voices. Get your copy today and experience The 509 in a completely new way.

A 509 Crime Anthology

The Eviction of Hope

Richard Godwin

Alec Cizak

Eryk Pruitt

Daniel Horn

Mav Skye

Emily McNeely

Dan McCarthy

Joseph Pete

Paul Handley

Grigori Black

Issue eight of this critically-acclaimed literary journal focuses on stories about America's third favorite activity--drugs. From the Middle East to Middle America, these ten stories deal with all manner of dope and addiction. Some are dark, some are light, all of them make unique statements about drugs and the people who use and sell them.

Issue Eight

Pulp Modern

Matt Lacey is in a mental health facility recovering from a breakdown. In an attempt to work through a mess of conflicting thoughts and feelings, he writes, unwinding the story of his adolescence with the beautiful, impassive, fierce Christina. As Matt delves into the more agonising moments of his past, he has to learn to look directly at the pain and love that have made him who he is now. Brazenly wearing its heart on its sleeve, Electric and Mad and Brave is a heightened and technicolour story about the soaring joy and numbing nightmare of being young and hopelessly in love. Praise for Electric and Mad and Brave 'A moving and beautifully observed story of the tortures of youth. Quite wonderful.' - Nick Cave An incredible debut, captivating and perfectly paced, Electric and Mad and Brave is everything we all love about Australian fiction. Pitts' writing is delightfully eerie, full of twists and revelations I never saw coming. We are reminded that the past never really leaves us and the most complicated relationship we ever have is the one with ourselves. - Jessie Stephens 'Hauntingly beautiful, confronting to the point of despair and breathtaking in its originality.' - Kerry Armstrong 'A stunningly tender, brave debut from a deeply talented new Australian writer.' - Clare Bowditch

Electric and Mad and Brave

Max Allan Collins

Joe R. Lansdale

Chris Miller

Paul D. Brazill

Andy Rausch

Rob Pierce

Contract killers have long been a point of interest for readers of crime fiction and action film fans. Dead-End Jobs: A Hitman Anthology offers up eighteen works of short fiction from some of the hottest writers in the business. While the stories all depict professional killers, they are wildly different in their tone and the styles in which they are written, as well as the way they are depicted and the point-of-view from which they're told. Some of these killers are seasoned professionals and others are new to the killing game. Some stories find their settings in urban locales such as New York City or Los Angeles and others in backwater rural locations. There are also contract killers of every stripe. Some stories depict the traditional organized crime gunmen while others feature corner boys doing the bidding of neighborhood drug dealers and the like. The stories in this collection are fast-paced and action-packed. Just as there are contract killers of varying pedigrees here, Dead-End Jobs features the writing of veteran wordsmiths such as Joe R. Lansdale, Max Allan Collins, and Stephen Spignesi, as well as new but equally exciting writers. Each author in this collection is as skilled as the hitters depicted in the stories. But their weapons are words instead of rifles and pistols, and every one absolutely kills here. Praise for DEAD-END JOBS: “An incredible collection of powerful and haunting stories that exist in that shadowy realm between tragedy, nihilism and noir.” —S.A. Cosby, author of Blacktop Wasteland

A Hitman Anthology

Dead-End Jobs

A Crime Novella. When two young girls disappear with a trunk-load of pot, unaware their payload has been packed with an extra five kilos of cocaine, a lovable loser persuades a sociopathic killer to pursue them across Northern California on a violent, twisted goose-chase that ends in a horrific place none of them could have foreseen. Praise for PIGGYBACK: “Piggyback restores noir to its dark kingdom, a rollicking pumping novel of losers, psychos, stone killers, idiotic amateur rip-off artists, and a road-movie of a story that is as fast as it is beautifully written. Think Don Winslow’s Savages meets Christopher Cook’s Robbers and you have the dark read of the year.” —Ken Bruen, two-time Shamus Award-winner “Piggyback is a wild frenzy of drugs, violence, and crazy plot twists. Somebody needs to make the film version.” Tony DuShane, author of Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk

Hugh Patterson is an old-school cop and die-hard Giants fan rooted in the San Francisco Mission District. When he’s struck down in the line of duty, the whole city is aghast. But Oscar Flores, a 15-year old Latino boy obsessed with baseball, witnesses the gruesome crime and has a plan to assuage the city’s grief and satisfy his own vision of justice. Against the backdrop of a weekend long series with the Dodgers, the gripping crime story plays out against the city s brightest monuments and darkest alleys. Praise for KNUCKLEBALL: “Knuckleball is a bruiser of a story that reads as fast as the title implies, and sits heavy in your mind long after you’ve read the last page. Pitts obviously knows the darkness of his city’s gangland and portrayed here against the light of America’s favorite pastime, while showing both sides their proper respect, is nothing short of remarkable. It’s classic good and evil, hope and despair, but with Pitts, nothing is ever that cut and dry, and rarely does anyone get away clean. Conversational prose, brilliant ensemble casts, ratcheting tension, and the hint of something unexpected right over the next page is the reason to read Tom Pitts in the first place, but with Knuckleball, I’d say he knocked it out of the park. Top notch.” —Brian Panowich, author of Bull Mountain. “In Knuckleball, Tom Pitts finds the beating heart of San Francisco’s Mission District, then reaches into its chest and rips that heart out. An ambitious and tightly-packed slice of modern crime fiction.” —Jordan Harper, author of Love and Other Wounds. “A gut-punch of a story written at a blistering pace by a master of street noir. If you dig tales with wire-tight tension, stuffed with characters that massage the margins of life then pick up Mr. Pitts latest work.” —Mike McCrary, author of Remo Went Rogue and Getting Ugly. “Tom Pitts’ Knuckleball comes at you with all the twists and turns the name implies, a devastating snapshot of brutality and tragedy, rage and fear, and a twisted ray of something that almost passes for hope. Pitts deftly sets up lives you care about, then propels you forward as he knocks them down.” —Jon McGoran, author of Drift and Deadout.

Knuckleball

Joyce Carol Oates

Rob Hart

Hilary Davidson

Alison Gaylin

Ryan Sayles

Kelli Stanley

Reed Farrel Coleman

Grant Jerkins

Patricia Abbott

Thomas Pluck

S.W. Lauden

Angel Luis Colón

J.L. Abramo

Trey R. Barker

Paul J. Garth

Kent Gowran

Jeffery Hess

Tim O’Mara

Keith Rawson

Nominated for the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Anthology/Collection *** Proceeds from the sales of Unloaded will benefit the nonprofit States United To Prevent Gun Violence (CeaseFireUSA.org) *** For the first time, more than two dozen crime and mystery authors have joined together to use the strongest weapon at their disposal—words—in a call for reasonable gun control in the U.S.A. In this collection you get all the thrills and excitement you come to expect from a great crime story, but without any guns. From best sellers and writing legends to the brightest stars of the next generation of crime writers, the twenty-five authors here have taken pen in hand to say enough is enough. Gun violence has got to stop and this is our way of speaking out—by showing that gun violence can be removed from the narrative, and maybe from our lives. It's not anti-gun, it's pro-sanity. And above anything else, these are thrilling crime stories that will surprise and shock, thrill and chill—all without a gun in sight. The writers are from both sides of the political aisle and many of the authors are gun owners themselves. But everyone felt it was time to speak out. Featuring the talents of J.L. Abramo , Patricia Abbott, Trey R. Barker, Eric Beetner, Alec Cizak, Joe Clifford, Reed Farrel Coleman, Angel Luis Colón, Hilary Davidson, Paul J. Garth, Alison Gaylin, Kent Gowran, Rob Hart, Jeffery Hess, Grant Jerkins, Joe R. Lansdale, S.W. Lauden, Tim O’Mara, Joyce Carol Oates, Tom Pitts, Thomas Pluck, Keith Rawson, Kelli Stanley, Ryan Sayles, and Holly West. Praise for UNLOADED… “The 25 short stories in this thought-provoking theme anthology prove that clever crime writers can generate just as much mayhem, weirdness, and chills without the use of firearms.” —Publishers Weekly

Crime Writers Writing Without Guns

Unloaded

Tom Pitts

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