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By Neil Plakcy

Guns + Tacos Books

Showing 24 of 24 books in this series
Cover for Tacos de Cazuela con Smith & Wesson

Why does an ER doctor used to dealing with the physical and psychological trauma of gunshot wounds obtain a handgun? What exactly has brought her to this breaking point, and what will be the consequences when she puts her plan into play on the infamous South Side of Chicago?

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Cover for A Taco, A T-Bird, A Beretta and One Furious Night

Assassination is Maureen Eckles’ business. Vengeance is her quest. When Maureen learns that Leo “Riddles” Ridley is back in Chicago, the screaming harridan of violence and vengeance is unmuzzled in Maureen’s troubled head. The harridan only quiets when fed steady doses of death, which Maureen is only too happy to provide, especially if Riddles is the on the menu. She’ll make him suffer for his betrayal, for abandoning her to the fate of prison for her work as a member of Riddles’ outfit. But first she has to find him. Maureen’s furious night of violence and vengeance begins at a mysterious, gun-selling taco truck in a dark vacant lot and ends in the broken quiet of a dark alley. In between, she hunts down past associates who could help her find Riddles: the lawyer who wronged her, the failed comic with the analytical mind, the racketeer who runs a shadowy poker game, the woman who shares Riddles’ bed. But Riddles is slippery, always just ahead of Maureen’s Beretta. With each close call of finding Riddles, the harridan in Maureen’s head screams louder, the demand for death more insistent. As Maureen guns her T-Bird through Chicago’s crime haunted shadows, her hunt for Riddles grows desperate, her need for vengeance claws deeper. Her wild quest ends in a climax of exploding emotions, memories, heartbreak and violence. Vengeance has its price. Praise for A TACO, A T-BIRD, A BERETTA AND ONE FURIOUS NIGHT: “Ann Aptaker’s latest noir masterpiece grabs you by the throat on the first page and doesn’t let go. Stylish and unputdownable, written with an edge sharp enough to make Dashiell Hammett wince.” —John Altman, bestselling author of False Flag “Ann Aptaker’s A Taco, A T-Bird, A Beretta and One Furious Night is a fun, welcome dose of classic noir with plenty of bite. I enjoyed the hell out of this one.” —Alex Segura, author of Blackout and Miami Midnight

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Cover for Three Brisket Tacos and a Sig Sauer

Joseph “Joey D” Garrett owes everything to his Aunt Sylvia, including a stint in the Stateville Correctional Center. When he’s released, Joey returns to the only life he knows, and he soon becomes an instrumental part of his aunt’s plan to rob four banks in a single day. Before that can happen, though, Joey meets Gloria Sanchez, and she turns his life upside down. Gloria’s everything his aunt isn’t, and their developing relationship makes him think about how life could be if he weren’t so dependent on Sylvia. When he’s forced to choose between the two most important women in his life, Joey finds the answer in a take-out bag from a taco truck.

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Cover for Sopa and a Streetsweeper

Beau is a hero. He’s also the kind of guy who, when he patrons a taco truck, is as interested in their food as he is their black-market firearms. And the special is soup paired with a streetsweeper shotgun. When Beau puts the special to use at a Black Friday sales event, he unintentionally starts a full-blown, storewide shoot-out. But he escapes, and takes with him an abandoned little girl he rescued. Maybe she’d like some soup too. In his apartment, oblivious to the fierce manhunt for the child, Beau discusses just how badly he screwed up the Black Friday shooting with his underhanded neighbors. Then SWAT arrives, but SWAT’s never dealt with someone like Beau. Concerned for the little girl’s safety, Beau has to reach deep down to become the protector she needs. After the fires have been put out, the bodies sorted and the wreckage cleared, Beau’s gonna be hungry. Fortunately, soup is very filling and a lot of taco trucks offer it.

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Cover for A Gyro and a Glock

Tim never wanted to hurt anyone. He certainly didn't want to get hurt. Mostly, he just wanted to hang out with his best friend Ernie and enjoy their high. But an overbearing cop and a series of rough drug dealers conspired to make that impossible. Pressured into becoming an informant, Tim finds himself slipping deeper and deeper into dangerous territory, until there seems to be no way out. Until Ernie tells him about a very special taco truck...

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Cover for Dos Tacos Guatemaltecos y Una Pistola Casera

Three shadowy denizens of an online gaming chatroom—an undocumented refugee, a socially isolated teenager, and a sexual predator—make an abandoned Chicago stockyard run red with blood once again. Getting off the bus from El Paso, Balam, the Mayan jaguar, arrives in South Chicago, hungry, broke, and cold, hoping to find MagcPanda, a girl he had befriended online. Balam believes MagcPanda has fallen prey to an online predator and has been trafficked to Chicago. His only link to her is a laptop stolen from a refugee shelter. Wandering the streets of the alien city, he is dismayed to find that Chicago is fraught with more dangers than any he had experienced in Guatemala or on the trek though the mountains and deserts of Mexico. When gangbangers take his laptop, destroying his hopes of rescuing MagicPanda, Balam is ready to admit defeat, only to get help from an unlikely source—the owner of a taco truck whose food is inedible, but whose “special” is sought after. Armed with the “special,” Balam resumes the hunt which terminates in the abandoned killing field.

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Cover for Three Chalupas, Rice, Soda…and a Kimber .45

A promotion that left a bad taste in a cop’s mouth, another predator online trying to steal the body and soul of a young girl, a girlfriend wearing a badge. And all seen through the eyes of an internet exploitation investigator who’s lost in the horror of the past. It all comes together in the darkness of Chicago mere hours after a sergeant visits the taco truck. One of two men, a lieutenant or the sergeant, will come out on top, but neither realizes exactly the cost to be the winner.

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Cover for Two More Tacos, a Beretta .32, and a Pink Butterfly

When a brutal mob hit occurs inside the victim’s bedroom, and the killer isn’t careful enough to look under the bed to make sure there aren’t any witnesses, there are consequences—namely, a naked blonde witness who is able to escape the apartment. This blonde is only seen from behind. Aside from being petite, she has one distinguishing feature: a pink butterfly tattoo on her right ass cheek. Lance, the guy in Chicago you hire when you have this type of problem, is given the near impossible task of tracking down this mysterious blonde with the pink butterfly tattoo, and follows next are a series of double-crosses and betrayals leading to a shocking finale.

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Cover for Some Churros and El Burro

Tomas “Chispa” Busch works for the notorious Sangre Cartel of Sinaloa. But as the cartel’s resident IT nerd and electronics consultant, his real passion is fixing things. After annoying one of the cartel bosses, the bookish Chispa is sent to Chicago to deal with a competitor in the MDMA market. His assignment: eliminate the competition within 24 hours, or join them—in a shallow grave. Tucker Mitchell is a college student with big dreams in the world of big finance. And he’s gaining free-market street cred by selling the hottest brand of ecstasy in Chi-Town. One of the city’s Great and Good, he’s determined to stay on top of his game and maximize returns until graduation. Even if it means doing so with the help of a black-market gun. A cross between Narcos and Revenge of the Nerds , this quirky Chicagoland story of fish-out-of-water explores what happens when people are taken out of their element and put to the test. Because when you don’t stay in your lane on the South Side of Chicago, you’ll need more than good insurance to cover your ass.

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Cover for Two Tamales, One Tokarev, and a Lifetime of Broken Promises

A minister, a taco truck, and a gun, what could possibly go wrong? Vivian, an ex-con turned prison minister, discovers her brother, Tommy, is in debt to the Chicago Outfit. And they’re calling the note—20 grand plus the juice. If Tommy doesn’t come up with the money in 72 hours, he will be a permanent resident of Lake Michigan. As kids, she and her brother grew up on the streets and lived by a set of rules: #1 no drugs, #2 no turning tricks, #3 no tangling with the mob. And they’d have each other’s back—always. Vivian can’t abandon her brother, despite the risk to her church and the new life she’s built for herself. So, she comes up with a plan—a way to turn the tables on the Outfit and save her brother. An Eastside bookie, a taco truck, and a Russian-made pistol are key. But even she knows the plan is a long shot. There was a reason why she made rule #3. When it comes to the mob, someone always pays a price. “Buckle up for a gritty trip through Chicago’s seedy underbelly! Come along as Viv, an ex-con minister, struggles to provide salvation for her brother with the help of the Good Book—and a Tokarev. Stacy Woodson’s snappy voice sparkles in this tense tale of family loyalty. A winner!” —Alan Orloff, ITW Thriller- and Derringer-award winning writer

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Cover for A Beretta, Burritos and Bears

Brian Piccolo led an average, by-the-book life, the proverbial American Dream of a middle-class suburbanite. He obeyed the speed limits, paid his taxes on time, and tried his best to live and let live. Then one day, while delivering office supplies to a sketchy neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, he saw the flashing lights of a police cruiser in the rearview mirror. Framed for a crime he didn’t commit and abandoned by the woman he loved, Brian hit rock bottom. In this tale of lust and love, poverty and greed, betrayal and murder, revenge is a dish best served hot—and with extra sour cream—courtesy of a special order at an unusual taco truck.

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Cover for Chimichangas and a Couple of Glocks

When Peter tries to slip a roofie into a target’s drink, he triggers events that lead to blackmail and harsh street justice. To defend himself, he sends his unsuspecting fiancée, Lizzie, into the scariest neighborhood in Chicago to buy the protection he needs from, of all places, a taco truck. Ever subservient because she knows a Plain Jane like her doesn’t deserve him, Lizzie fights back her terror and resolves to help Peter however she can, even in ways hidden from him. “David H. Hendrickson is one of my favorite writers.” —Edgar-nominated author Kris Nelscott “One of the most diverse writers I have had the pleasure to meet.” — USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith

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Cover for Burritos & Bullets

“He knows. And he said he’s gonna kill you.” Jealous husbands are like that—likely to kill the other man. He needed to protect himself. She told him so. So he bought a gun. A gun he didn’t want. A gun he didn’t even want to touch. But when it came to it, would he be able to use it to save his own life? He found himself tangled in a web he couldn’t escape and his only hope of freedom is to shoot his way out. The gun weighed heavy in his hand and heavier on his conscience.

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Cover for Refried Beans and a Snub-Nosed .44

Chicago sports columnist Stan Jedd always had latest scoop, the sharpest insight and the must-read analysis. For 35 years, he prowled the sidelines and dugouts of his beloved city for the scrappy Northside Courier, a twice-weekly tabloid that often beat the larger competition. But Jedd’s glory days are long gone. He’s lost his job thanks to Sideline Sal, a sports blogger who specializes in sensational and cruel clickbait that drives profits. Sal’s brand of gutter reportage is what sometimes passes for journalism these days. In this new world, an in-depth piece stops at 280 characters and credibility goes as far as Wikipedia factoids and anonymous sources take you. Readers take a back seat to feeding the bots and trolls. On Jedd's last day, he limped from the newsroom on a bad hip. He held a box that contained dusty award plaques from years ago, a dog-eared dictionary and old notebooks with unreadable scrawls. The newsroom didn’t even spring for a sheet cake. But Stan Jedd isn’t quite finished with the Chicago journalism scene. He’s kept score on the lives Sideline Sal has ruined in exchange for page clicks, and the young blogger is going to apologize for what he’s done—and do it in a very public way. Stan Jedd will make the headlines scream one more time. The problem? Sal is a young gym rat, veins popping from his biceps, his legs lathed by hours on a bike. Jedd is 62 with an enlarged prostate who never did get that hip replacement his doctor recommended. So he’ll need a persuader. He’s plied his old street sources and learned of a taco truck near Wrigleyville that sells more than food. Jedd is Polish-Slav, better suited to stuffed cabbage rolls than burritos. If he can get past the food, it should be an adventure. But as he limps into his last assignment, Jedd re-discovers a lesson he learned long ago. People aren’t always what they seem. You think you find a good guy and he’s dirty. You want to nail a villain and maybe you should stop. Peeling back the layers of an onion on a story can make you cry. Jedd also learns a new lesson, and this one will much more painful: Don’t wave a gun around Chicago unless you intend to use it.

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Cover for Jalapeño Poppers and a Flare Gun

Carl Ember has just been released from prison and is eager to reunite with Kate Vinson, his former lover and the daughter of his former boss. There’s just one thing preventing him—paperwork stolen from Alderman Sonny Vinson’s safe during a burglary Carl instigated. He has to find it and return it so he can prove his love. Kate Vinson, a Chicago Police Department sergeant, is after the same paperwork because she believes it reveals something about her past that might destroy her career. Her once-powerful father, now battling Alzheimer’s, is no help. Taking separate paths through the Chicago underworld, Carl and Kate find themselves reunited at the home of mobster Sammy the Hat in a showdown that leads to a fiery conclusion.

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Cover for Four Shrimp Tacos and a Walther P38

Sal Anthony has been picked on his entire life. When his nemesis from high school, Moe Wolf, comes back to town, the old wounds boil to the surface. Moe competes with Sal for the affection of a dancer at a church that has been converted to a strip club. The rivalry turns violent and the old pecking order is established once again. But this time, Sal Anthony isn’t having it. He’s just lost his job. His apartment is infested with rodents. The entire world seems thrilled to walk all over him. His patience with the idea that God will exact vengeance on his behalf has run out. On the advice of another patron at the strip club, Sal sets out for Chicago to find a very special taco truck that holds the key to getting the bully Moe Wolf, and the entire, cruel world, for that matter, off his back once and for all.

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Cover for A Smith & Wesson with a Side of Chorizo

Ohio prisons investigator Lt. LaShondra Qualls and State Highway Patrol Det. Karl Heintz are stumped. Why would inmate Daniel O’Connor, with a clean behavior record inside and one week left before release, escape from his work camp detail and go on the lam? What would motivate him to throw everything away and face many more years behind bars? As the two begin piecing together O’Connor’s story and disappearance, O’Connor is on a bus headed to Chicago. With him, not by choice, is Nancy Richter, a woman who befriended him in prison, first as a pen pal, then as a visitor, and then as the supplier of his getaway car and a ticket out of Ohio. O’Connor is on a mission, to settle a score from deep in his past, and Nancy can only complicate matters. Unbeknownst to O’Connor, even as he draws closer to his quarry, a young man named Edgerton is preparing to settle a score of his own. But his stems from rage against society, especially women, and it will involve the death of innocents. As O’Connor and Edgerton’s paths begin to merge, Qualls and Heintz discover the secret driving O’Connor to seek justice and scramble to stop the escaped inmate before it’s too late. Praise for A SMITH & WESSON WITH A SIDE OF CHORIZO: “This taut movable feast of rich characters and compelling action score big. This is a revenge story you can really sink your teeth into, and Welsh-Huggins blows it out of the water adding the gritty streets of Chicago and a psychopathic wing-woman you’ll find hard to shake. Buckle up and enjoy. Believe me, you’ll never look at a taco truck the same way.” —Tracy Clarke, author of Borrowed Time , winner of the 2020 Sue Grafton Memorial Award

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Cover for Two Tofu Tacos, a Taurus TX22, a Taycan, and a Ton of Trouble

Blackmail is such an ugly word. Even uglier when it's happening to you, especially when you don't know who's behind it, and defense lawyer Jefferson Bell doesn't have a clue. Disgruntled client? Current mistress? One of a handful of pissed-off ex-mistresses? An opportunistic co-worker? A team of blackmailers looking for a big payday? If the truth comes out, however, it will destroy his career and cause the end of Bell's marriage. And he can't let that happen, not after all the hard work he'd put in, not after all the sacrifices he'd endured over the years. So following the advice of a friend, Bell visits a multi-purpose taco truck and procures what he needs to bring the extortionist down, and hard. Now he just has to find him. Or her. Or them. With the help of his buddy and former client Rags Richland, Bell follows the trail through Chicago. When the blackmailer sets up an exchange, Bell attempts to seize the opportunity and spring a trap. But things go sideways, and Bell is no closer to learning his tormentor's identity. To complicate matters, Bell's situation has attracted the attention of the managing partner at his law firm, who gives Bell an ultimatum: fix things and make sure there's no blowback on the firm. The ultimatum comes with a veiled part: Or else . The more Bell searches, the more things come unraveled, and the more his desperation grows. And keeps growing, right up to the snapping point. Then blows right past it.

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Cover for Two Black Bean and Shrimp Quesadillas, and a Pink Ruger LCP

Alvin Bleeker has a ratty apartment, a rusted-out car, and a dead-end job, managing a big-box store barely clinging to life. He also has a compulsive gambling habit that’s put him tens of thousands of dollars in the hole to Lamar, the bookie and loan shark rarely seen without his brutal enforcer, Jimmy. Alvin can’t bring himself to worry too much about his debts, though. He’s just marking time, waiting for his rich Aunt Elaine to kick off and leave her only living relative with a fortune that will end all his problems forever. Unfortunately, Aunt Elaine has other plans, leaving Alvin out of her will almost entirely. Even worse, Lamar knows it. He extorts Alvin into Plan B: stealing a priceless Picasso sketch from Aunt Elaine’s North Shore mansion. Naturally, Jimmy will come along for the ride. So will Brittany Orozco, who has the face of a cheerleader, the heart of a killer, and the sharpened icepick of a sociopath. Behind Brittany is Lamar’s boss, the shadowy mob chieftain who doesn’t care how many bodies have to drop if he can add the sketch to his collection. Alvin is in way over his head, but it should be a simple enough job, in and out in ten minutes. He’s just playing it safe when he goes to the taco truck to buy some insurance, in the form of the first gun he’s ever owned—a gun which, to his dismay, turns out to be pink. He’s betting he won’t really need it. It’s one more bet he’s going to lose.

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Cover for A Handful of Chicles and a Custom Nine

Richie Angeles had it all: a cakewalk job wrenching on classic cars for a Chicago loan shark by day, and a side-hustle running high-stakes repo jobs by night. But when a fling with the boss's wife, Gina, goes awry, Richie finds himself the target of every low-life goon and hustler in the city. With his options dwindling and a bounty on his head, Richie and Gina must find allies in the seedy Chicago underworld in order to survive. But good allies are hard to find—and the ones that seem loyal may only be looking for an easy double-cross. With the infamous Mr. Rosko at his heels, and a trail of blood from Chinatown to the Indiana border, Richie must make a choice to keep running or confront the boss himself. Will he be able to run the gauntlet and kill Rosko and his inner circle, or will the many hands of the Chicago criminal world get their hands on Richie first?

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Cover for Two Shrimp Tacos and a .22 Ruger

If someone attacked the love of your life, how far would you go for payback? Private investigator Coleman Perkins is the kind of man who tries to do the right thing. His years of committing petty crimes and being locked up in juvenile prison are over. These days, he does his best to help people like Burt Glaser, the ex-cop who took him under his wing and helped him get on the straight and narrow. All Cole really wants is to do his job, find a good woman and start a family. It’s a life he might’ve had--except for Max Delaney. Years ago, Delaney attacked Cole’s pregnant ex-girlfriend. After that, Cole lost the woman he loved. And he’s been dreaming of revenge ever since. Now Delaney’s out of prison. Burning with rage, Cole makes a late-night visit to a very special taco truck, where he gets a .22 Ruger. That’s not a lot of firepower, but it should be more than enough to do what Cole has in mind--take down Delaney once and for all. First, however, he’s got to find him. When Cole ties the ex-con to a robbery at a high-end department store, he’s got two choices: go back to his law-abiding life and forget about Max Delaney. Or make him pay for what he’s done. Cole won’t walk away. He can’t, not after he starts looking into this new crime and meets the prime witness, a store clerk named Julia. She’s as beautiful as she is vulnerable, and for the first time in years, Cole finds some part of himself coming alive. Maybe it’s just desire. Or maybe it’s hope. As Cole connects with Julia, he quickly finds himself falling for her, and dreaming of the life they could have together. All he has to do is take care of Max Delaney. But as Cole soon discovers, he may not be the only one looking for payback.

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Cover for Nachos, a Stun Gun, and a Wedding Ring

How far would you go to get revenge? Sam Wilkins is an up-and-coming Chicago lawyer. He’s rich, handsome, married. And a cheater. He has a type. Beautiful, dark-haired, blue-eyed women. One of them decides she doesn’t want to share. A bartender tells her about Jesse’s Taco Truck in Melrose Park. How she could get a gun if she asks for the daily special. Everything seems to be falling in place—until the stun gun. She could have changed her mind then. She could have walked away. But when best laid plans go astray, turn to Plan B.

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Cover for No Food, No Drink, Just the Gun

For Cynthia Cruz, life has been a tough ride since her father was murdered in jail. But every day she gets up, thinks about her father, tries to connect with her equally devastated mother, and goes to work at the taco truck. Yet when a man shows up with a picture of her and her father, a picture he got from her father while they jailed together, everything changes. He knows just enough to send Cynthia on a quest to find the man responsible for her father being sent to jail. To her, that man is just a guilty as the random inmate who killed her father in a case of wrong man wrong place wrong time. The man who lied at the request of the cops, who insured her father would be arrested, is the wellspring from which everything bad came. Except, as she learns after trolling through betting joints, tattoo bars, and finally a porn shop, there might well be someone worse than the man who lied about her father. And there might be, for Cynthia Cruz, a gun from the taco truck and a moment that is both revenge and reckoning. Also included at the end of this episode is a bonus story by Trey R. Barker, One Taco Truck…To Go.

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